It's Independance Day in Republica Dominicana! I've been here for 8 days now! After I spent two days with Julia in Santiago, I met up with the rest of my group and we headed to Jarabacoa. There are three girl interns this year plus one Dominican girl our age named Michel. We joke because she's like our friend/companion/helper/babysitter! Us three girl interns couldn't be more different! Laura is from Oklahoma and Karina is from California! We're spread out across the country and our personalities are so different. I hope you will pray for great friendships between us and that The Lord really unites us to work our best for Him!!
Once we got to camp, we spent two days settling in. We went on a scavenger hunt to get to know the town so we know where to buy groceries, meds, etc. We got a cell phone to call our dominican friends and we learned how to call our taxi driver, Carlos. We learned what our projects would be this spring from our boss Jose Ignasio and we learned some of the tools in the Woodshed from Berto. We have 4 main projects this spring: we are finishing a fence for the driveway on the side of a mountain, starting and finishing a kitchen expansion, buliding a woodshed so Berto can work even when campers are here, and cutting down problem trees and pulling their stumps out (we are also pulling trees out that block camp views)! We will trade off each week working on these projects with a group of Americans here for a week-long mission trip.
After only two days at camp, we loaded up once again for Santo Domingo for a homestay with Area Director Fernando and his wife Ester. They were wonderful, gracious host. We had so much great time for contact work with the leaders in the area and Dominican kids in the neighborhood where Fernando and Ester live. We experience real Dominican life! We got used to cold showers and blackouts in the middle of the day, loss of water, and roosters crowing at all hours of the night. It was wonderful. I love living like Dominicans do. It will be hard to come back home, I feel so grateful for everything I get here: warm water, clean drinking water, etc. it humbles me that these are luxuries here. In Santo Domingo, we helped fundraise in the streets ( we raised 1500pecos/37US dollars in an hour... And they were all so excited!!) , we painted a basketball court in Fernando and Ester's neighborhood, got to see a Dominican Young Life Club, and had lots of time for relational ministry! It is so wonderful to feel like this is my home! I do not feel like a foreigner on vacation, I love being inside the houses and lives of Dominicans!
I got really close really quickly to a 13 year old girl in Santo Domingo named Hilary. She spoke some English, so we spoke broken Spanglish to each other!! She loved that I would come talk to her even when a big group was around! She just kept telling me to talk, that she love having conversation with me. Her mom doesn't let her go to Young Life club and is very strict. She talked to me a lot about how hard that was! We're now friends on Facebook :) and I hope to be able to continue a relationship with her. I hope I'll be able to visit Santo Doningo again soon!
We returned to Jarabacoa yesterday! We really missed Pico Escondido!! Our first work group gets here Saturday, and I think I'll be really thankful that I've had time to rest once they get here! Please pray for all the great relationships that I've been able to make, and for rest before the real work begins! Praise to The Lord for an incredible first week!
Love, ali
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