quick note...

I will blog from Atlanta about yesterdays events, but I wanted to let you all know that group one has left the Dominican Republic and is headed to JFK.  I leave shortly and the remaining missionaries are off to the resort.

Pray for our safe travel...we are praying for you and looking forward to seeing you soon!

- Heather

Wednesday...last full day of work....

HI!!! 

It’s Rebekah, or Vaca as the kids are calling me, which means cow, they all get a big kick out of it. When I introduced myself I said Bekah -- V and B sound similar in spanish. Now i can tell when they are talking about me because they all start to mooooooo. 

The kids all have so much energy its inspiring. Its as if they don’t know how to frown. I love them all so much, and i know they really have left such a deep hand print on my heart. Today was much like the other days though the sun was hiding in the morning while we finished the ditch. My hands and arms are sore from holding the jack-hammer and digging rocks out. My work gloves might be my favorite thing i brought (thanks mom, now i see why they are your favorite). After working for a few hours in the morning out on the playground with our rock moving team my hands were shaking. heather told everyone on the bus she was worried i wouldn’t be able to get the food in my mouth during lunch. I made it as well as usual - lots of rice on the table. 

In the afternoon i got to paint a little which i love, and am so glad I got my moms neat painting skills. i miss home a lot of course but i’m so glad to have this experience. getting to know everyone on the trip as been a true blessing. 

I haven’t stopped talking about the beach. I can’t wait!! i can NOT wait!! its really going to be too much fun. 

My camera is broken, it broke the first day, (surprise, surprise family i know!) But i promise it wasn’t my fault, i PROMISE! haha. its been great though and heather let me take pictures. with hers though and i think i got a few good ones. 

... not much left to say, i wish you all could be here with me enjoying this culture that is so rich and alive you can feel it in your blood. seeping like oil based paint - you wont ever get it out, trust us, we know! its so loud! and everyone seems to come out as we are getting ready for bed. 

i feel like i’m on a reality TV show... (i’m so scatter brained, its been a long day and its still so hot i’m in short and a tank top at 9:30 pm) Its too beautiful and amazing to be real. but, i am getting so tired from all the crazy work we did today. i miss you all so much, i really wish you could share this with me. I hope you see the change i feel. I love you all and pray for you every night. 

i’m sending you internet hugs and kisses!! and will think of you (elspeth) while i’m on the beach tomorrow.

love. you. 

-Bekah 

Check out our photos...

 

http://picasaweb.google.com/heatherlpayton/MissionTripToTheDR2009?feat=directlink

Comments & Photos...

Tonight I'll be uploading photos from our trip, but many of us are missing many of you and would love it if you would post some comments or questions.

-Heather

Hot Rocks....

Piedras, piedras y mas piedras!  (Rocks, rocks and more rocks!) This is Peter again.  Yesterday we cleared the playground of perhaps 4 tons of small rocks (Don Burt’s estimate).  Today we used Don’s engineering design skills  to design a drainage system for the playground, which has a decent slope to it.  We constructed a “French drain” according to Don, using all indigenous materials.  We dug a ditch about a food wide and 18 inches deep using pickaxes and shovels, in rocky soil - tough work in tropical heat!  I was wishing that my 18-year-old son, Zach, and some of his strong friends would have been here with us.  But we had a good crew - Courtney and Elin and Don from St. Aidan’s, and Hannah, Kelly, Ben, Clara, Kris and myself from St. Ambrose.  And we were joined by quite a few of the Dominican children again, mostly ages 8 to around 18.  Although one of my highlights of the afternoon was when a 2-year-old boy, Henry, joined us.  The shovel was taller than he was, but he was helping me shovel small rocks into the wheelbarrow, when we started to fill the ditch with various sizes of rocks to line it.  Henry really liked it when I gave him rides in the wheelbarrow, after we filled it with rocks.

Our group is really working hard, and we are getting a lot done.  We have “the three P” teams - plumbing, painting and playground.  The plumbing team, the smallest, has been repairing toilets and sinks.  The painting team has painted the school library and its contents (bookcases), and also and outside iron fence in lots of bright colors.  The playground team also removed a metal seesaw today that was sunk into two big chunks of concrete.  The church women are preparing wonderful meals for us at lunch, where we are probably getting our best sampling of Dominican foods - lots of dishes with plantain prepared in different ways.

We also had a nice visit after getting back from work today from two American missionaries who have been in the D.R. for 13 years.  Bob and Ellen are from Nebraska.  Bob has been a deacon for almost 24 years and is the Canon to the Ordinary here.  Ellen is the one who organizes all the mission groups who come to the D.R. (like ours).  They clearly had a strong calling to do this work and really enjoy it (their children are grown and in the U.S.).  They shared some beautiful stories about how the church here is growing (from 23 to 65 churches since they’ve come, and from 7 schools to 24).

For those of you who are parents, your children are doing really well - working hard and having a good time.  My daughter, Hannah, just went to bed at 8:30, so we are wearing them out!  

I always go on too long.  Time for someone else - we love you all so much and miss you, but this is a great thing for our two churches.  Hi Julia and Zach, and hi to all of you at St. Ambrose. We’re going to have great stories to share with all of you.

Grace and Peace, Peter

Work today was grueling!  The heat was amazing.  It had been sort of overcast the last couple days but today the sun was out in full force.  We all had a bit of a rough time working out the cramps and tight muscles from yesterday’s work.  When we had shown up in the morning there was a giant pile of dirt waiting for us to be moved to the playground...then 20 min later another load came and added to it.  But our lunch was great as always and the Dominicans always keep us smiling and laughing.  We got back to our rooms, quickly showered and met Bob and Ellen Snow.  They are two amazing missionaries who have amazing stories.  They are two of the most faithful people I have ever met.  We had evening prayer afterward and they stayed to worship with us.  I am very proud to say I was in charge of the music portion of evening prayer as well and I brought Taize to the Dominican!  Taize is a style of worship, mostly through song, that is practiced by monks in France.  Many of us at St Aidans enjoy this style of worship and I taught our group a couple Taize songs!  

We are taking so many pictures (along with the kids who love to take our cameras and go on picture taking escapades)!  I hope Heather can upload some so we can show you what we’ve been doing.  Somehow I don’t think the amount of rock translates as well in words.  We also love eating the mangos here!  They are really delicious and every night we have Jugo de Chinola (Passion fruit juice).   We are crazy about that Chinola!  And I have never tasted such good ice cream as we had tonight.  Granted it was Baskin Robbins but I think it was amazing because it is so hot here.  We all have been having a great time but it seems as the sun begins to go down we get more and more tired each night.

Right now Peter, Elizabeth, Heather, Kris and I are sitting in the rocking chairs on the patio and chatting.  After all the experiences during the day we always return to talking about the people we love once we get so tired and almost ready for bed.  A dog is barking in the distance, beneath us we can hear Dominican music blasting from a stereo and the cars passing by make a great soundtrack for this conversation.  I am exhausted and should go to bed soon, but it seems like we are trying to cherish all the time we have together here, even if it means being quite tired in the morning.  Dominican coffee is not only tasty but essential to mission work.  I look forward to tomorrow but for now sitting with my friends gossiping is a great time.  I wish you all a peaceful and restful night.  Please pray for us, you are in our hearts.

Your sister in Christ, Courtney

Day one...what mission is all about

We woke up early, scarfed down breakfast and headed for the church this morning early.  When we got to the church we gathered in the chapel, prayed and introduced ourselves to our Dominican work partners.  I shoveled, raked, and hauled coarse gravel for half a day.  It was the definition of back-breaking work.  It was glorious!  The Dominican sun, humidity, and the smiles and laughs of the kids all day really made me feel blessed.  The idea of a “work day” is very different in the Dominican than in the States.  We took turns with the four shovels that the church had to clear all the gravel out of the playground next to the chapel.  When I wasn’t helping with the work the Dominican kids would play pranks and tell jokes to all of us.  I became the official translator of our small group and translated everything from “What is your name?” to some admirations from the young boys.  Lunch was amazing authentic Dominican food and while the adults sat and digested the rest of us went and played baseball and basketball with the kids.  By the time we had to leave for the day we had almost completely cleared the playground!  I would have never thought we could finish it today.  

Today I realized what mission really is all about.  It’s not just to do the work (which is very important) but to also connect with the people.  I thank God that there were only 4 shovels, not only because I could rest some of the time but because it made the rest of us look up from our work and interact with the kids at the church.  Sometimes in the US we go to work, work hard constantly for 8 hours and then go home.  Many of us don’t know much about our co-workers and we don’t really enjoy the freedom of enjoying our hard labor.  In the Dominican work is only a part of life, not life itself.  The lunches are 2 hours long and creating community is far more important than making sure a job is done vigorously and perfectly.  I never thought hard labor in heat and humidity could be a breath of fresh air.

I am very grateful to God that he has given us the insight to find where our help was needed and the strength to go through it despite our fear and angst.  There were many times before we left that I questioned whether this was the right path for me but now I know it was.  Already this has been one of the most profound and enlightening experiences of my life.  I can’t wait to come home and share my experience in more depth with you all, but for now I’m so blessed to stay and continue to help these people doing God’s work and connecting with them.  Please pray for us, you are in our hearts.

Your sister in Christ,  Courtney

Mangos, Rocks, and new friends...

Today there were many adventures to be had, and I’ll let the team responsible for blogging share that with you, but I want to tell you some lesser great moments... Today I learned that I am funny if I only tell one word jokes.  While scraping paint off of the ceiling in a very small room, Dustin & I were about to get our picture taken with masks on, so I encouraged him to smile, in spite of the mask.  Later on in the cigar shop, we were getting our photo taken and the kind man I met in September was there again and he offered to take our picture.  The first time he said, “say American Cheese” so the second time I said, “queso” which made us all laugh.  So we are either more easily entertained here without television or I have gotten funnier.  The are a few of us who share similar loves: jugo de chinola and mangos.  Jugo de chinola is passion fruit juice, and it is amazing. Tonight my dinner partners and I took multiple shots of the chinola for later facebook profile photos.  The other love of our lives is the mango.  Earlier this evening a lady was selling mangos across the street - I bought four which quickly appeared on our faces.  I then bet Ben that he couldn’t get mangos cheeper...Ben won the bet, but only because he charmed the lady selling them!  Needless to say, we are on an adventure and learning to love life in the Dominican Republic...there are those threatening to stay for the mangos....

Sending our love through mango-covered faces....

Heather

My team gets to help with redoing the plumbing in the church and school buildings.  The school has 800 students, preschool through senior high.  Our first foray rebuilt a bunch of toilets in the mens room, but tomorrow I think we get promoted to sinks!   It was all worth it though, because they fed us mangos.

Don  

Ten of us worked with painting today.  I started with the ceiling and got more paint on me than on the ceiling.  Both our Dominican coworkers, Alesandro  and Tofi (?), wanted their pictures taken with me.   Alesandro did most of the ceiling.  We did the walls until we ran out of paint.  More paint came at the end of the day so we will have more to do tomorrow.  There was a spirited basketball game at coffee break with some of the school kids.  The playground team moved a couple of tons of gravel from the playground (and you think I’m kidding!).  There were many kids to play with us!

Kris