Well, hello everyone! How are you? I'm good. I'm back from my missions trip. I had an AMAZING time! I didn't want to come home, but that is nothing new for me.
Okay lets start with the 40 hours. Yes! I went 40 straight hours with no sleep. It was weird I wasn't tired at all, I guess when you need to keep going, you just push yourself. But we left late on a Friday night and I didn't finally fall asleep until late the following night. I don't know how I did it.
We flew over some islands on the way to the Dominican Republic. Look what I saw out my plane window:
I don't know what islands these were, but they were beautiful!
We left bright and early the next day to head out to the community of Puello. It's about a five hour drive from Santo Domingo. On our way there, our van was acting funny. We stopped at a mechanic in Bani, he took our money, said he fixed it, even took it for a test drive with our driver, but about 30 miles down the road, the van was barely chugging along. We had a huge truck following us (with all our supplies). This wasn't a normal truck, but it wasn't a semi-truck either. The Food for the Hungry people were gonna flag down a bus to take us the rest of the way. We all decided, nah. We wanted to ride in the back of the truck with the open breeze. So, that is what we did, hopped in the truck and rode an hour into the next town. It was amazing. You really got to see the country that way. I loved it!
Right when we got to the community, we went to work unloading everything. We stayed in a church. Puello was on a long bumpy dirt road, about 20 miles away from the Haiti border. Everything in the community was so green, and the community is surrounded by beautiful mountains and rolling hills.
Yep folks, God's Great Creation right there. It doesn't get any better than that. We were welcomed by the people of Puello (about 200 people total) at the Community Center. The kids said hello to us and sung us a song. They were cute, and I fell in love with them immediately.
The next day was filled with me and two of my other team mates teaching. I had to teach on how children learn and how to prepare a lesson plan. Each lesson received positive feedback. During the day, the men were building latrines (outhouses) at various homes in the community.
I specially brought my Spanish/ English Bible to give to someone. I knew someone needed it more than me. The moment I met Dilio, I knew he was the one I was gonna give it to. Every day, we sat outside and ate lunch, one day the bees were out of hand. I'm severely allergic to bees, for those of you who didn't know. So, I decided to go inside and eat my lunch alone. Dilio came in and sat with me, and began to tell me his story. He has a powerful testimony and it was amazing to see him break down in front of me and cry as he was talking about how awesome God is. He just learned English about a year ago, and speaks it very well, he mentioned how he is beginning to thirst for the word in Spanish as well as English. So, I gave it to him. He told me that Bible I gave him was worth a million dollars. 
This is him. Everyone said he looks like Alex Rodriguez from the NY Yankees. I guess. Jason, what do you think?
I had to do my lesson on purity for the teenagers two different times. Those two times were the most difficult for me to do. I was talking about keeping your bodies pure for marriage and abstain from sex because God made that for marriage. Those lessons forced me to talk about stuff I don't normally let people in on. Some of my team members said I had the most powerful message. Really? Gosh, okay if you say so.
In between all of that, we were loving on the kids. They are easy to love. Look at these kids:
The second picture is Manuelito. I wanted to take him home. He's a keeper!
We also had the privileged to do 16 home visits. This is where we take the families a bag full of everyday things you use around the house: toiletries, band-aids, antibiotic ointment, washclothes, etc. While we were there we would talk to them about our testimony and tell them about Jesus. Of the 16, we had three people accept Christ. The first one that accepted Christ was very emotional. Vicky (one of my teammates) busted out an old Gospel song, I think it was called "Victory is Mine". We were all singing and clapping, it was amazing. The lady who accepted Christ, her mother was a Christian and had been trying for a long time. As we were leaving, her mother just hugged me, and began thanking me and my team, she was praying for me in Spanish and bawling. Yep....shed some tears at that house. God is so awesome. This is also one of the people who accepted Christ:
He cried when we told him about Jesus. He had heard of him, but said no one had ever really talked to him about Jesus. Again, I had an AMAZING time! I want to go back, I didn't want to get on that plane to come home.
In my title it also talks about healing and another big decision. I can't discuss what the healing was. I don't know if I'll ever discuss it on here. Let's just say I got my head clear. And yes, when I make decisions, they are never small. I can't talk about the decision right now. I need to tell some people personally before I post for all to see. Sorry I am being so sketchy!
Last thing...sickness. Friday morning in the Dominican Republic, I ate something that didn't quite settle with me. I was sick all day Friday and Saturday. Unfortunately, I as of right now (Tuesday), I am still not feeling up to par. I got a call earlier from one of my team mates telling me that her and her husband were sick. Her husband was so sick they actually admitted him to the hospital. The doctors think they have Dengue Fever. Another teammate is sick as well. Please keep them in your prayers. I don't have the symptoms of Dengue Fever, but I have some sort of stomach bug!
Anyways, sorry this is long. But seriously, do I ever post short posts? Here are some more pics!
This is what everyone's house looks like.
I came out one day...this is what I saw in the back of the church.
See, that stuff on the roof? That is meat drying in the sun, by the way.
We played Baseball with some of the kids. They can certainly play and they kicked out butts. It's all good though.
This is Ronnie. We dubbed him "Foto Ronnie" as every time we went to take a picture, he would pose.
No comments:
Post a Comment