A Pick-Me-Up

I have decided to start blogging again. Hurrah! :) This summer I am living in Warsaw and working at Applebee's. I enjoy it, mostly because of the people I get to interact with. Everyone is so different!

Tonight was especially great because we were slower, it was late, and a group of older couples came in for our 1/2 off appetizers. I soon learned that they were coming from a conference at Grace, and once they heard that I go there, they started asking me all about my life. It was such a relief that they were currently my only table and I could talk with them without having to rush off. They ended up praying for me and inviting me to one of the free talks at the conference. It might have not been such a big deal to them, but working in a very non-Christian atmosphere leaves a person very dry, especially if there is little other consistent encouragement and sharing.

The summer is winding down, and I am worn out. I am ready to go back to school, and I am definitely ready to be immersed in the warmth and Christ-likeness that my friends radiate. These three couples really blessed me tonight. Thanks, God!

Home Again

I apologize. I've been home for 3 weeks and haven't written anything! Graduation was emotional and full of memories. My trip home was full of delays, cancellations, and expensive airport food. Oh, and the cold! I left the DR's 75 degree weather, and came home to below 30 weather. Lots of snow, ice on the roads, and flip flops are a no-go. Transitioning has been rough, but with God, Skype, Dominican coffee, and good friends both here and scattered around the world. Literally - the world! God taught me so much while I was gone: I need to be who I am in Him, not what others want me to be or who they see me as. I am to write children's devotional books and use the money to send out missionaries; I am called to stay in the States and be an editor as well. My biggest calling is to work with women and children who know little to no English, helping them with homework, trips to the doctor, or finding jobs. I start college at Grace College in Winona Lake, Indiana this January. Orientation is on the 24th! I will be focusing on English (literature, grammar, etc.), with a double minor of Spanish (a potential major) and Behavioral Science. Along with my Spanish concentration, I am required to complete a semester abroad! I plan to fulfill this semester while in Madrid, Spain! Another adventure that is sure to add length to this blog site. :) I want to thank you all once again for your prayers and encouragement!
XOXO

Esperanza = Hope

We are now starting week 2 in the town of Esperanza, the only town we've been in longer than a week during this outreach phase. We are working with a pastor who has 20 pastors under him; we are working with only a few, thank goodness. This has been a different kind of experience, mostly because the pastors are all pentacostal have a little different doctorine than we are used to. Thankfully we can still do what we do without clashing - visiting homes to get to know people, work projects, small groups in homes, presentations in churches and in streets (with skirts), and working on our Spanish skills. :) One of girls that Jose, Stephanie, and I have connected with lives by herself and her 15-month-old son. Her 29-year-old husband has been in Haiti for 4 months, building houses, and won't be back until May. She is 17. She is starving for new conversations and new people, she always asks when we will come back. There are so many stories here of how the church is hurting people: This same girl was turned away by viscious rumors and almost commited suicide, an older lady was advised to stop taking her insulin (and trust that God would miraculously heal her without it), and is so sick she cannot even go to church. There is much damage done by the church; we have felt the need over and over again to spread the word of God's love - the people here mostly hear about obedience and hell. There is only so much that we can do, though. This town needs a lot more 'esperanza' - hope.
Teamwise: God is teaching us patience and how to have joy even in trials. Stephanie's ankle ended up being a bad sprain, not a fracture (it was not healing and we went to a different doctor). They recasted it and it doesn't hurt as much anymore! David and Kelsey both have at least 4 different types of salmonella - apparently this is not uncommon around here. Many of us supposedly have it, we just don't show symptoms. My lower back was in a lot of pain last week, but is feeling better, thanks to the pain medicine and muscle relaxers!
Only 2 more weeks...

San Francisco de Macoris

Hey everyone! We are now on our last stretch of outreach in San Fransisco de Macoris. As our first week comes to a close (hard to believe!), we get a free day, and I get to tell you what we have been up to! This last week we helped to level a foundation for a house (two picks, two wheelbarrows, many shovels, and lots of dirt!), played with kids, did about 3 presentations, and presented in 2 churches. We leave on Monday for a town called Esperanza where we will be for the last two weeks. There, a guy who leads 20 different pastors is organizing presentations for us in all 20 churches-plus some work projects! We will be plenty busy, but having a blast! God has really been working on our hearts, and making sure we realize that this is for HIS glory, not our own. We have been convicted of wrong attitudes, repented of those attitudes coorporatly, and experienced the blessings of clean hearts. Please pray that we continue to seek God in this time, even as the outreach draws to a close. One big prayer concern is that one of our girls fractured her ankle while working at the construction site on Wednesday; she is in a walking cast-boot thing for 15 days, but is experiencing MUCH pain and does not sleep well. Also, my back is out of alignment, which causes pain in any position but lying down. Pray for quick healing and continuing health for the rest of the team. I cannot express how much knowing that people are praying for me helps in the rough times; thank you so much to my faithful prayer partners during this time! Only 3 more weeks left. Let´s finish them strong!!

Haiti Update

I’m sure most, if not all, of you have heard about the Cholera outbreak in Haiti. As you also know, our team was planning on going to Haiti in 2 weeks to finish out our outreach time; however, because of the intensity of the disease (as well as the fact that there are cases right where we were planning to go) we have decided NOT to go. (Grandparents, you can sleep better now. ) Our director is contacting different pastors within the Dominican Republic, away from the Haitian border, that we will potentially work with. We are all disappointed; we were looking forward to Haiti, as well as being together during this last phase of outreach. We have been divided into two groups for the other times and miss each other a lot. We will be together during the conference in Puerto Plata next week, but that will be the last substantial amount of time. We are only base in Jarabacoa for a few days before graduation and flights home. Please pray for peaceful hearts even within our disappointment, as well as peace within the groups as we, once again, have some hard-core bonding time.  Pray also for health as almost everyone has some degree of a cold or sickness this week (we had class this week). As we have discovered, outreach and sickness really do not go together very well. Pray, also, for me as my homesickness is constant lately – not strong but still there. Thank you for the support so far! Only about 5 more weeks!

Outreach #2 - San Pedro de Macoris

Two weeks of outreach have come and gone. It’s hard to believe that in less than a month and ½ I’m headed home! October 17th until the 24th we were in Los Solares, a tiny community in the province of San Pedro de Macoris. We gutted the inside of an old house that was going to become the new church – hauling out wood, pounding out nails, tearing down walls to create one big room, and shoveling dirt that had somehow piled up inside. I saw the biggest cockroach of the trip inside that bathroom; we dubbed him “cuc-arania” which translates loosely to “spider-roach.” Yuck. We held presentations a few times, visited with people and had mini devotion sessions with them.
Our team’s main goal is flexibility; it’s our f-word. We’ve used this technique over and over again over these last two weeks. In Los Solares, the power went out several times right before presentations (when we need power); we walked for ½ an hour to a school to present, only to be told that we were not allowed to anymore; in Batey Esperanza (our second place), the people did not accept our presentations as evangelism – they were merely entertainment. We canceled the rest of our presentations for that week. We had a worship/sharing night for the church one night, a morning VBS for about 100 kids, and a prayer session for Haiti. We held it in the baseball diamond in the middle of the community; it was amazing! There were about 150 Haitians of all ages on their knees crying out to God for repentance and for healing for their home country. The pastor started the praying, we provided the music, and the Holy Spirit did the rest.
These past two weeks were hard, but I learned so much about the faithfulness of God - He knows what is going on, even though we don't always. When we didn't know what else to do, we prayed as a group, and then shared ideas that God had given each of us. It's amazing how 10 people can share the same 3 basic ideas. God is good - all the time. :D

Our Week in Matagorda

Week 2 is complete! We were only aboue 20 mintues away from the base, but felt like we were farther. In outreach, you learn to be ok with being dirty, letting dirty hands touch you, opening your water bottle for dirty mouths to drink from (realizing that you won't get a drink until you clean that bottle). You also learn to not rub your eyes or put your fingers anywhere near your mouth, wear bug spray (I have 95 bites on my legs as payment); if you had a nailbiting problem before, it's now gone. This week, we went into a public school and (literally) took over one of the classes (at the teacher's insistance). We didn't have any instruction, really, just "teach whatever you want!" We did a Bible story and some English. The teacher enjoyed the English lesson more than the kids, I think. :) We were there two differnt mornings, and then a 3rd we did a mini presentation for them. In the afternoons we split into small groups of 2 or 3 and went to visit people in their houses. This was such a crazy experience in different ways. We would ask them about their lives, tell them about ours, and possibly talk about Jesus (if it was a good time). We were mostly there just to love people and experience time with them. There were so many sad stories, so many hurts, so many broken lives. We prayed a lot this week, both with the people and in the house we were staying in. One morning in particular was really cool. We had just finished breakfast and devo time, David (my leader) told us that the plans we had had for the day were not going to work out. We all sat down, prayed for a while, and compared what we had recieved from God. We decided to go clean some houses for people and pick up garbage around the community. Later, some of us washed the hands of some of the kids and clipped their fingernails. They were so excited! They didn't want to touch anything. :) One family in particular was very poor, and we bought the kids sandals. One little boy was so happy that as soon as he put them on his feet, he shot out the door and started running home to show them. :)We did street presentations pretty much every night, just in the main areas people hung out. One night, we went to the Haitian part of the community and were planning to present in front of the "colmado" there (a very small, grocery store-type builing); however, it started to rain. We ended up just all cramming into the colmado, talking and just hanging out. At first, only the people who could communicate fairly well in French/Creole were inside (the rest of us were in an attached garage), but by the end, almost everyone was inside, a mix of French, Spanish, and English. Some of the guys learned a little bit of Creole, and I ended up with a sleeping 4-year-old on my lap. The night ended with the rain stopping and all of us outside, singing our national anthems (Haiti, DR, and the US) in our own languages. It was a beautiful night. We were all friends, no prejudice, no barriers. There was that connection for the rest of the week (and is hopefully still there). God had sent the rain to accomplish more than a presentation ever could.