Far Side of the World

Hello everybody.

Im sorry for not keeping this nearly as up dated as I should be. But you know sometimes if you leave something alone for a long time it just adds up till you feel that you don’t possibly have the time to catch up again. That’s kinda where I am at with this blog. So a lot has happened since my last entry and I cant possibly write here all the stories that ive had or have the space. So I guess when I get home you guys will just have to ask me in person. ;)

Well we are on out reach now and have been for over a month. I guess a month and a half now. Gosh, that means that we’re half way done. Wow, that’s insane. So for our first two weeks as you know we were staying at the YWAM Portugal base and working with the church there and the missionaries. A lot of that was hanging out with kids in the community and teaching them a bit about this God that we love so much.

Then we flew out to London where we stayed with Bexi’s (one of our leaders) parents for 4 days. It was neat to be in an English speaking country again…although many times it was very difficult to understand what they were saying. Actually some times it was harder to understand, plus you don’t wanna look like an idiot for not knowing your own language. Haha but I think its just because we aren’t used to this. It was neat though because we also got to visit the Oval at Harpendon which is the YWAM England base and we got to see a bunch of people that taught on the boat. Also we had an engagement party for Bexi and Jarod (they became engaged right before out reach started).

After London we flew to Newark where we spend the night sleeping on the air port floor with all our luggage, that was a night that I wont soon forget. Then we were on our home stretch to the Dominican Republic.

We arrived at the DR and were greeted by Josies (who had to take a different flight due to via troubles) and Raul, our host. We had a long three hour drive ahead of us in the van with all of our stuff. And we were quickly introduced to Dominican driving. We arrived here safe and sound and very happy to have a place to sleep. I slept for 14 hours. The house here is as small (or big) as my house in Duncan except there are 16 people that are living here and there are always more people in the day times. Its very packed. There isn’t power here all the time and so we run off a generater half the day. Although some times we use too much power on the generator and then it dies. There is also no running water here. …well that’s not true. We have running water here about once every week or so for couple hours. When we do have running water there is always a huge line for the showers. We do have showers though, we are aloud one a day. There is a garbage can (akk rubbish bin) in the bath room and we take a bucket of water from there and bump it on our heads… that’s our shower. It is so hot here too. Hot and muggy. We are staying in a place called Azua which is known as the dessert of the DR. partly because of how poor it is here (poorest in the whole of the DR) and partly because… well it’s a dessert.

We’ve done so much around here in the past three weeks, I don’t know where to begin to tell you about what’s been going on. I think that we’ve put on enough church/street/corner services in the first week here to have made up for all of the lecture phase of DTS when we were sailing all the time and didn’t go to church. So ya, its been crazy. Its hard to do some of the stuff that we are told to do here because often they just sound crazy because I’m not used to the way things work here. Like culturally. But we have been learning a LOT about just accepting things as far as cultural different go. And I have loads of stories to tell you about them.

Resently a lot has been going on. There is a lot of work here that Raul and his wife, Zanza have been getting us to do. We have built a roof in the back half of the church (made from crude timber that the guys planed themselves and tin) and floor (concrete that had to be hand mixed, very hard work), we’ve also cleared a property of thorn trees with machetes (huge thorns that are at least two-three inches long, they also have a numbing property about them which makes them a hastle to work with, yet my matche skills have really improved), and this week we have been putting on a kids afternoon bible camp. That last one may not seem anything compared to what else we have been doing… but we have had an attendance of around 550 kids!!! Its insane in the church! We fit most of them in, but there were even kids standing out side. The thing about this school is that we feed them a sandwich. Now, that doesn’t sound like a biggy, but it really is. See, these kids, a lot of them don’t eat. They are very poor and for many this is the only food that they get for the day. They are so loud, but when we gave them a sandwich, they become dead silent. And I’ve seen some kids save their sandwich the whole afternoon to bring home to their family. The sandwiches are also the saddest sandwiches that I’ve ever seen. But they mean so much to these kids.

This school has really been a miracle and has strengthened my faith. When we started Raul and Zanza didn’t know how they were going to pay for everything. The church had absolutely no money (they barely have money to run the service from week too week, which costs only a few pesos) for the camp. They were planning to go to the store and ask to put everything on credit. And then, God totally provided the money!!! Exactly as much as was needed to buy stuff for the bible camp and the food for that day. And the next day, another person donated money. I told Raul and he was so exited because they were in the same place, not knowing what to do. Since then even more money has been donated and I told Zanza and Raul last night, he was really excited because its way more then enough for the bible camp and it looks like he can start working on the Preschool at the church that he runs. He is wanting to build some chalk boards for the school and also paint the Preschool building with murals and pictures. He’s asked me to do that with one of the guys from the church! Such an answer to prayer for these people! Thank you so much for all your support. Both financially and prayerfully. Even though you may be at home and I may be here for only a little while, we it doesn’t mean that we are helpless. By giving the kids a descent school and supplies to learn the future of Azua actually changes. I wish I could show you all the kids here, their smiles, their hugs, their laughs, their struggles.

I’ve been learning a big lesson in the past few weeks. That although I am the youngest person on my team, although I am a student that still lives at home, although I live in Canada that is no reason to think that I cant do anything. This is a thought that I have come up against time and time again. That im simply too young, better for someone better to do something than I. but that is such a lie. I believe that we are all capable of bringing change, of touching peoples’ lives and being used by God. All we have to do is listen and be available to God. K… so maybe that is easy to say and hard to do. but I’ve found that when I follow though, I am blessed by really seeing God move.

I wish you all the best. I’m so glad that I am here, but am struggling with homesickness a little. Its hard being away from everything familiar, and I cant wait to see you all!!! God bless you.