08.06.08
Journal Entry
decided to post some of my journal entries from while I was in the DR.
July 22nd. DR – bedtime
Well, I have officially crashed. lol I could not keep my eyes open for anything during the service (they have service on Tuesday, Thursday(?) and Sunday). It was also all in Spanish so I couldn’t understand what they were saying. I wish I could’ve though! Our flights were great. We stopped in Charlotte, North Carolina for our layover. 1 and a half hours the first flight and 2 and a half the second. (: We landed safely and got all of our luggage (yay! no missing baggage!). Then we had to drive about 5 minutes to the church site. that was so much fun! One little car and a normal sized truck to carry 22 people, plus bags. *shock* (: hehe. They had to take us in two trips, but it was sweet because we got to sit in the back of the truck, piled on top of half of our luggage. :D great fun!
so there was a HUGE spider in our room! and a huge cockroach! they were both ginormous, like make a circle with your fingers from both hands and thats how big the spider was, no exaggeration. *shock* (add – in the course of the week we found..umm.. 3 or 4 more of those same spiders. *shivers*) then when I was telling one of the guys that we had this huge spider in our room, he convinces me that he’s going to get a “camel spider” and invite me over to his house. Are there seriously spiders that are as big as your arms spread out?? :? he said there were, his sister told me he was joking… I don’t even want to google it because there will probably be pictures if its real. anyway, time for bed. goodnight!
July 23rd. DR
ah, Dominican heat. its crazy hot, but at least at night it cools down so its not unbearable. Today we sanded walls with “aluminum rock” :? my arms are so sore! The dominican men here who are working on the parsonage built scaffolding for us to get up high. (here’s the picture) it held up though and hasn’t broken yet. :) we were standing on it, sanding walls when one of the workers taps me on the shoulder and motions to do the ceiling too. hehe. I just barely could reach it but he asked, so I did. (: a bit later another guy was looking at our work, gives us a thumbs up, then grabs a big cement block and puts it on the scaffolding and motions me on top of it. :oops: lol :) he must have seen me struggling on my tip toes. (: 2 rooms down only 7ish more. not everyone was doing that though. some were cleaning up garbage, shoveling rocks, moving boards, smashing rocks, things like that. :D
now we’re having a siesta after a yummy lunch. Rice, beans, chicken, salad. yum. :D found another big spider in our room. the boys tried to kill it but only managed to make it run away :shock: so now its somewhere in our room. *sigh*
… Even after showering I still feel dusty. All of the girls sanding were covered in dust. I couldn’t even brush my hair. It feels like we’ve been here a couple days already, and I miss not being constantly sweaty and dusty. lol
July 25th.
Our motto for the week has been “whatever” Colossians 3:17. It was in our devo’s the first day (whatever, whoever, whenever, wherever) It was a wonderful devo to start the week off! about “whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.” one of the questions to think about was something like “have you ever done something that you thought was pointless and what was your attitude about it?” it was so perfect. when we were on top of scary scaffolding 3 stories up, or in a stuffy room on scaffolding covered in dust, or moving piles of brush for the second time, or piling rocks that we had just spread out, we could be heard saying “whatever. whatever. whatever.” reminding ourselves to have a good attitude about doing it. :)
July 26th.
..amazing story, my favourite part of the trip. :D After work today a couple of the kids decided to just wander around the area. we walked down the street one way, turned around and walked the other way, past the church. well, when we we had just gotten past the church we were swarmed by little kids! they just ran up to us and grabbed our hands and started to pull us down the road. Each of us had maybe 3-6 kids and there were probably 25-30 kids. We let them lead us down the road to a baseball diamond, and when we got there they let go of us and just took off running all the way to the other end of the field while we just stood there staring, wondering what to do. lol When they got back to us they then took to staring at us while we stuttered and tried to figure out something to do with them. Ended up doing a little gymnastics tricks for them after I saw a couple little kids trying to do a cartwheel. while I did that a couple kids ran back to the church to get a ball and frisbee. A bunch of people from camp came back with them with camera’s. The kids loved the cameras! they all wanted their picture taken and then wanted to see it and then wanted it taken again. :) lol it fascinated them so much! That was probably the most fun, random, thing I’ve done all week.
Even more amazing was our devo for the day was “wherever” and how God can use us wherever we are and not to be upset when our plans are rearranged. Such a perfect devo for the day. the verse was from Acts where Paul and Silas were going to the house of prayer and stopped to help the “fortune teller” girl, which changed their whole day. They didn’t plan on being beaten, thrown in jail, signing songs to cause an earthquake, or leading the jailer and his family to become believers.
