Full Catch-up!!!

02/03/2023

Hey everyone, so this has been the end to my first full work week in the Dominican Republic. I pray that everything back home has been so special for those that are keeping up with my story. I know it’s only been a week but I can see and feel God moving. When I think about this week I see so much love and peace that it is so hard to explain. I feel like God has knit my team so specifically together because we all help each other and we have an awesome chance to point each other to the fact that we are CHILDREN of the true TRIUNE GOD.

Let me tell y’all about what we have been doing this week. First off the food that I have had the chance to try has been unimaginably good. We had anything from Curry Chicken to Hamburgers to Beef stew. I’m definitely not trying to make you hungry but it was so good! I’m not here for the food but it’s like a “while in Rome” situation you know!

The work we are doing now is insane as well! We have had the chance to do a lot of work for the base that we are staying at here. We started out by using machetes to clear land for the ministry to be able to easily maintain the land. It has been brutal and a little taxing, but definitely worth the results. The last two days we have had the opportunity to paint buildings to help remodel the current facilities. It has been awesome seeing a building go from throw up green to a nice baby blue!

02/07/2023

So today we had the chance to work and spend time with kids that are from Haiti! It’s pretty sad when you think about it because majority of these kids don’t have a nationality legally. Their parents most likely fled Haiti due to the ongoing political problems that are happening. We were able to have so much fun with these precious little kids because they literally just wanted us to give them attention and love. It made me see the love that Christ had for little children. They are so attentive and want the basic things. It kind of turns me around to what we need as adults. We just need the basics of things. I think that can be applied to the Bible in some ways, like we really don’t have to complicate the simple teachings that Jesus is teaching us through how He lived His life. I think that’s an awesome perspective. We can be like children and be simply attracted by the little things.

We also had the opportunity to go into a house with a lady and her son to share the Gospel with her. I think that the biggest affect for the people that we had the opportunity to talk to was just showing them the love of Christ. That was the turning point of just being able to show them what Christ was like through our own actions. I will be completely honest I have so much to grow in when it comes to this. I definitely haven’t even come close to what Jesus was like but I already know that God is leading me to it everyday.

02/17/23

This week we were able to work with a group of kids from a Haitian school. The cool thing is that we were able to share stories from the Bible with them. That is one thing that the school wanted us to do. We acted out Jonah and the big fish and the Crucifixion of Jesus so far. The awesome parts are that we get to play and have fun with the kids before and after our lessons. I get to throw kids in the air and just be able to show them a little more love like Christ did. We get this opportunity to teach them a little Spanish as well, because their main language is Haitian Creole. It’s probably a bigger lesson for me though than it is for the kids. I love seeing the kids smile everyday! After school we would have lunch and then go house visiting we would go house visiting and create relationships with some of the local Haitian people that are living in Santiago. Sometimes it is pretty tough seeing the conditions that majority of people here live in but the biggest thing that you see is that these people are for the most part happy that they are here to live another day. We had the chance to really get to spend some time with a lady that was a relative to the pastors wife and she gave us so many encouraging words. She told us that she is so surprised to see that we left our family and friends to do something like this. That it was a big sacrifice to help those that we had no clue about before we even came here.

We did this for Monday and Tuesday then we went to Mission of Hopes apartment in Santiago to help them move the remainder of their stuff back to their new base here in Jarabacoa! Then in Santiago on Thursday we had the chance to go to a different school with a different pastor named Pastor Job. Let me tell you something about Pastor Job, this man has the biggest heart for his people. When we get the chance to work with us he walks up to us and gives us a hug then says God Bless You. That is about all of the English we here from him but it is still just the energy that he gives off that you know the Holy Spirit dwells within him. He is a man of many talents too! We got the chance to go to his church and worship with him. We also met two other Haitian guys that are our translators, Roody (Pronounced Woody) and Christian. These two guys have quickly become two of my favorite people and really good friends in the Dominican Republic. Woody is 24 and Christian is 26, they both are from Haiti trying to spread the Word of God. They both help teach at the school with us and help translate during conversations when we go to different houses to talk about Jesus. We are so happy to have friends like this in the DR because they have taught us a lot about the culture of the Haitian people that had to flee Haiti. This is because of the ongoing problems that the country is experiencing politically. In the prayers that I would ask for with the upcoming weeks is to just have protection as we go to each house and that the LORD will move in mighty ways. I am so thankful for the prayers that are already being poured over us.

02/24/23

Hey everyone! This week me and my team (Team Tutti) were placed at our base in Jarabacoa. We were there to help with different things to get the base ready for a massive group of people coming for a mission trip. A total of about 97 people not including those of us that will be here on base as well. I started out Monday and Tuesday working on hedge trimming and mowing. It went really well both first days other than it being pretty hot. I was making sure that I was hydrated and had sunscreen on. Then Wednesday we started to rake the parts where we had to machete cut thick parts of the campus. The sun was brutal and I was drinking a lot of water then I ran out of water and continued to work for the next hour to two hours. I took my break for lunch and was going to start pressure washing. Little did I know that I would soon become light headed and nauseous. One of the guys that used to be a paramedic (Paul) told me that I was most likely heat exhausted so he retired me for the day to replenish my fluids and rest in a cool area. That was pretty crazy cause it has never happened to me. Luckily I felt better by dinner and got a good nights rest. Thursday morning came and I started out with the weed eater again. Got to work and made some progress up the mountain of our base. You want to talk about some glute and hamstring workouts haha. I push mowed up the mountain for a little too and I will honestly say I had the best time doing it because I was able to spend time with the LORD.

03/03/2024
This week was so special we started out the week by helping out around our base here in the Dominican Republic. I have loved every single second of ministry here in Jarabacoa. The people are loving and always wanting to talk with us. We went to the school that we help with on Tuesday and got to spend time with the kids that were from Haiti that could not go to a traditional Dominican Republic school. The kids just love spending time with us and really just want to be loved. It is something that has become easily one of my favorite things to do on SMT week. We then went into the community on Wednesday and we had one person ask the LORD into their life and another gentleman recommit his life to Christ. It was so surreal because we had the chance to really just dive into the Gospel with one of these two men. On Thursday we got the chance to sing and celebrate with a lady that had already accepted Christ into her life. We then got to lead a mom and her daughter to Christ! There is so many things that God has been putting into place that can only be explained by His works and timing with putting us in the right places. I can not wait to see what he has in store for us in the next two weeks while we are here with Mission of Hope in Jarabacoa!