A Full Day in the Field

It's almost 10pm and a few of us have gathered in the local ice cream shop to enjoy the air conditioning, eat some helado (ice cream) and connect our only laptop to free Wi-Fi. Today our group broke up to serve in four different sites; construction, bible school for children, purity seminar, and medical/dental. God is clearly at work through us and in us everywhere we go.

For all of us, the relationships we've begun to build with the Dominicans have been the highlight so far. God is teaching us so much about ourselves and those we've come to serve.

We're looking forward to seeing how God will continue to work through us and in us in the following days.

To recap our work load, two students have put into words what they experienced today...

"Before we started the VBS, we grabbed chairs, and it started pouring rain. Even through the rain, our team danced and performed our skit. The kids were really into it and were clapping their hands and cheering. After the message we played with the kids. We gave them piggy-back rides and it was cool to see that even though there was a language barrier, we were still able to connect with the kids. We played and laughed with them and it was almost as if we had known them for a long time."

"Today was our first day of construction and we hit the ground running. Applying sunscreen and bug spray to getting muddy and bruised, we really made and impact. Our team fought through scrapes, bruises, mud, and the heat. We all sang songs and encouraged each other to keep going. As we neared the end we counted down which showed teamwork, and no matter our differences we all were a team and helped this amazing community."

"When we arrived at the local school to begin our sexual purity seminar, almost no one was there. We soon learned that it's part of the culture to show up late. About 30 minutes later, about 40 kids showed up, most of them under the age of 11. We asked them to play outside so we could talk to the older kids. In the Dominican, kids deal with issues concerning their sexuality at such a younger age than we are used to at home. We ran through our skits talking about the dangers of STD's and teenage pregnancy. To end the seminar we danced to "Happy" in Spanish with the kids. We had some time left, so we arm wrestled with the boys and the girls did a lot of hand clapping games. We played Red Rover-- the kids really put their hearts into it and fortunately, no one from our mission team got hurt by those ferocious 11 year olds. Eventually we got back on the bus and drove away as the kids waved us good-bye. We get to see them again tomorrow, and we are looking forward to it."