So I will make this as brief as possible, because I've learned that if I try to do a "series" of posts...it never gets finished. :-P
I spent 10 days in Santo Domingo, D.R. at the end of July this year. Most of the people on my team, including my team leader, were from our newest adoption into Sovereign Grace: Riverside Christian Fellowship, in Fort Lauderdale. The rest of us were reppin' Titusville, Niceville, Daytona, and Orlando. =)
The first few days were spent getting to know the Iglesia Cristiana Oasis people, attending their church service, and meeting/getting to know our host families. I roomed with a girl named Ruthie (from Niceville) and we stayed with Yuris and Gabriel, who have 2 daughters: Cynthia and Elizabeth. They are SUCH a nice family, who just opened their home to us and served us heroically through out the 7 days we stayed with them.
This picture is of Alyssa (from Fort L) and me
when we were both starting to get sick. :-( We were in the vans getting ready to head out to Memizo (I think). Alyssa got severely sick and
had unconfirmed Dengue. I woke up with a fever on Thursday, but since Yuris is a doctor, she took me to a clinic to have a blood test taken...which showed that I tested positive for Dengue Fever. Blehhh. It was no fun, but I was SO grateful that the fever itself didn't last more than a day for me, as some of the others who caught this lovely fever were 'down for the count'...for half, if not most of, the trip. Satan was definitely trying to distract us from our purpose there, and break up the unity that the Holy Spirit was building between all of us. But God was kind to make us all spiritually strong, and I didn't hear complaints from any of the team on this trip, and our team was unified in a way that could only have been done by the Holy Spirit. What a blessing to look back and see that, despite the Enemy's efforts to ruin our trip, we were STILL able to go to the villages we had planned, Adam gave more messages than planned, and
our team was knitted together with the hearts of those in the Santo Domingo church. We shared the Gospel, going door-to-door in poor villages, where people ONLY spoke either Creole or Spanish...I speak neither. And yet, through translation, and even hearing the Word of God spoken in a different language, my heart was filled with joy at this amazing opportunity!
This is a picture of some adorable girls that attend one of the schools we visited. We performed a puppet show...in spanish, sang songs...in spanish, played with chalk and painted nails...in sp...j/k. The kids were SO patient and SO much fun to interact with! The time flew by SO fast here. During this time, all the girls on the team kept all the girls in the school to paint their fingernails and toenails and take pictures with them, while the guys on our team took the boys in the school to play basketball, and they later came back to play with chalk. It was a BLAST!
That's all the pictures I'm going to post because it's too difficult to format the pictures on this blog...=P But if you want to see more, check out the 2 albums of pics on my Facebook page!
Overall, our team was blessed beyond expectation. I personally was stretched beyond what I had planned *smile*, and God moved in ways none of us could have imagined! I'm SO glad I was able to go on this trip, and that I was able to make new friends in the D.R. AND in the states! =)
