Day 7
Hello Westlake! Today is Thursday, Day 7, April 21st. Today was our free day to spend a whole day at Catalina Island and have a bunch of fun! Some of us started the morning at 7:30 with breakfast while others decided to sleep as long as possible. We piled into the bus to head out at 8:30 in the morning. During the hour ride some of us slept for even longer and others did a sing along together. We made it to the docks and had to climb down a really steep, winding set of stairs to get to the boats. While we were on the half hour boat ride to Catalina Island we all noticed a certain person who had a wig with brightly colored bows, leopard print leggings, a red skirt, and polka dot crop top on to get the tourists attention with us on the boat.
The first thing we could do when we made it to Catalina Island was to snorkel off the back of the boat. About half of us went snorkeling and some got to feed fish while swimming; they completely swarmed us when we fed them. After 40 minutes we all piled back onto the boat and made our way to the other side of the island where the beach was. Before lunch we had the opportunity to swim and snorkel. Abby caught a small fish that was nibbling on Katie’s hair and named him Freddy. He was 4 inches long, silver and had a line of yellow running through his top fin. He looked so cool! After letting everyone see him she let him go and others tried to gently catch him by cupping their hands under him. Our lunch was a buffet style with a bunch of great food!! Many of us went snorkeling and got great footage of bright blue, yellow and silver fish. Mr. Stoner caught a crab and saw an octopus, Kayla, Mady and Micah saw an eel while snorkeling off the coral, Abby touched a sponge that felt sticky to her fingers and all of us saw many sea urchins ranging from the size of a quarter to the size of a basketball. On the way back from cliff jumping Rose and Ian found a small starfish in a tide pool about the size of a person’s palm.
Over half of us trekked over to the cliffs to go cliff jumping into ocean. The first cliff we jumped off of was about 10 to 15 feet and it had a ladder going back up the cliff. The second cliff was 20 feet tall and once you jumped you had to swim back to shore rom there. Jumping was a rush but for many people it was a lot of fun! Many of us got sunburned while we were there. The people that got burned the most were Ian, Jake and August.
We got back to SCORE at 5:00, had dinner at 6:00 and devotions at 6:30. A handful of us went to the gas station to get snacks and drinks later on in the evening.
Day 6
Buen día. Hello Westlakers and all y’all back home. Today is Wednesday, Day 6 in the DR, April 20th. Today the breakfast goers ate breakfast at 6:50, and we set out for Freedom at 7:20. Today was the day Ian dreaded because of his previously discovered child phobia.
When we arrived at Freedom, school was already in session. The principle, Tony, met us in the “hallway” and explained what we would be doing. We were going to be teachers with English expertise. Yaya!!! Our jobs included speaking English to the one or two kids assigned to us and coercing them into speaking back. Spanish was strictly prohibited. Sounds easy, right? I am pretty experienced speaking English, and I don’t know Spanish anyway. WRONG! Some people had little angels… cough… cough… Michelle. Others had crazy teeny psychopaths that they could not even communicate with. Ian’s nightmare had come true. He had to take care of his own out-of-control child as well as helping Micah with his two little ones. Seriously though, it was not all that bad. Most of us had a great time hanging out with the kids, and some got to practice future teaching skills. During snack time, a couple seniors played with the older kids. We were climbed on, treated as horses, and chased around. It was, in all honesty, a blast!!!
Around 12 o’ clock, lunch was served at SCORE, and after a short break the team caught a bus, with our bus driver Nino and our personal missionary for the week Hector, to the straw market. For some, this experience was very stressful. Others had the time of their lives. I was somewhere in the middle. We were instructed to walk into a ginormous building. Once we did, we were swarmed. Vendors circled from every direction attempting to entice the ignorant tourists into their shops where they preceded to stalk their victims throughout their little section of the building. Bargaining was also an experience. Mady and Rebecca’s best deals were for one dollar less. Kayla’s was a necklace, earrings, and two bottle openers for two dollars less than the original price of the necklace. Hannah likewise bargained a $40 mug down to $9. Katie could not say no, and bought something in practically every store she entered. Jessy and Itzel impressed the vendors with their mad Spanish skills and were offered deals for “not” being one of those ignorant tourists. As you can see, our team had a variety of different experiences today. All definitely experienced new things and had a blast though.
Finally, after a trying day, we got back around 5:00 and ate dinner. Following, was dinner, devos with Kflem, and ping pong games. Devos addressed Jonah’s choices and God’s unrelenting love for us. We all pursue what we love. God pursues us just as he pursued Jonah. The whale was for Jonah not the Ninevites. This is Abby signing off on Day 6 of our DR experience.
Day 5
¡Hola mi familia y amigos! It’s August and I’m here to tell you how our day (Tuesday) was! It’s been a long week thus far with not much sleep, so another early morning was difficult. In fact, all four of us guys decided to completely forgo breakfast altogether. This meant that we could sleep in until around 8:20, and we left the SCORE complex on our faithful bus at around 8:30. Most of us slept on the bus, and after a roughly half hour drive, we arrived at a Batey. (Sugarcane village)
We had been to a Batey the day before, so we sort of knew what to expect. But there was something special about this village. It was called Honduras! So in the end, we actually did get to go to Honduras after all. Anyways, shortly after we arrived, some of the girls went to the main village to gather a crowd as the rest of us set up games at a local baseball field. After a while, there were probably around 20-30 young kids and about 15-20 teenagers who were interested enough to join us. We played games such as soccer, kickball, baseball, jump-rope, and monkey in the middle. The young girls loved to play with some of our girls’ hair (especially Kayla, Mady, Rose, and Hannah!) and it looked great. The young boys loved to ride on our shoulders, and I have quite a sore back from carrying an innumerable amount of children on my back.
After we played games for around an hour or so, we gathered all of the kids and teenagers together in the street and we began to share the Gospel with them. We started off with our game, which helped to gather attention, but also had a moral. This game, in which a person has to walk through cones with a blindfold, shows how we are lost without guidance from God. We did our skit after, which demonstrated how God transformed Saul’s heart so that he could be used by God to bring others to Him. Monica followed up with an explanation, showing how God can change us for good and use us in beneficial ways no matter who we are or what we’ve done as long as we accept Christ. After this, Itzel and I shared our testimonies in Spanish to a welcoming applause. As a thank you to the villagers for attending, we handed out baseballs, baseball cards, and lollipops. I think the kids and teens enjoyed the day greatly, and with hope and prayer we have planted seeds in their hearts that will grow through Christ.
Thereafter, we left the Batey and traveled, dusty and sweaty, back to SCORE. After we arrived, we ate lunch, which was burritos! This was a nice change and they were very tasty. We didn’t have to leave until 2:30, so some of us took naps while others swam in the pool. At 2:30, we walked to Lily House. Lily House is a SCORE-run shelter for women rescued from trafficking. They take in a few women each month, and provide housing, food, job training, and most importantly the Word of God to these women. When we arrived, we were split into two groups. The majority of the girls went to spend time with the women. There they shared their testimonies, listened to the testimonies of the women, sang songs, and talked about life.
The rest of us went across the street to visit the women’s children. They were in the middle of napping, but quickly awoke when we arrived. We preceded to push them on the swings, draw, sing songs, and make paper airplanes. One of the most fun parts was playing duck-duck-goose (pato-pato-ganso) with a group of particularly hyper children, who also enjoyed laughing at Mr. Flemming’s hair (or lack thereof). Lily House truly was an awesome experience, and it was easy to see God working through this ministry by saving numerous women from horrible abuse and bringing them into God’s love.
When we returned, we had dinner waiting for us, which was rice (as always), lasagna, and vegetables. After dinner, we had SCORE devotions. All three groups that were staying at SCORE came together to worship and hear a message from one of the missionaries named Felix. He emphasized the Gospel and the importance of sharing it and being proud of our name: Christians. The rest of the night was spent swimming, hanging out, eating late night snacks, and playing pass the pigs. We discovered soon that, somehow, Micah is impossibly good at a game that depends solely on chance. He won by 80 points!! We just managed to get back to our rooms before lights out, and we slept soundly after a hard day full of work. We’ve had an awesome time so far, and we are all very eager and excited to see what the next few days hold!
Day 4
This is Kayla and Michelle coming at ya, here to tell you all about day 4 (Monday). The day started off with us piling into the bus and traveling to a sugar cane village. As we looked out the windows on our way there, we saw stray animals and fences made of branches. When we arrived, it seemed like no one was going to come out as we didn’t see anyone around. But slowly kids came running up with open arms to attack us with hugs and teenagers came as they saw a group of us playing basketball. Before we knew it at least 30 kids and teenagers from a range of age 2 to age 19 were there. A large group of teenage boys played basketball and it was so cool to see because Mr. Flemming had told us about how in the past, the teenagers wouldn’t interact and would stay off to the side. We think they definitely enjoyed the competition that some of our classmates gave them, and it was also a cool way to grow a connection with them before sharing the gospel with them.
As some played basketball, the rest of us got to play with the kids. A group played a game a kickball in which the 7 year olds could kick further than us. We also played with the parachute, which was mas chaos, but the kids loved it and it was so thrilling to see their joy and excitement. A lot of the young kids wanted piggy back rides. To communicate this, they would point at us and say, “caballo,” (“horse”) or they would just jump on us, unexpected. We also got out a box of chalk, I (Kayla) taught them how to draw flowers and hearts.
At one point of the day, I (Michelle), Monica, Hannah, and Abby were teaching the little girls how to tie shoes. Then, one of the teenage guys came over to me and told the little girl that he’s got it. He bent over and tied my shoe for me. I think it was his way of showing off. After several hours of playing with the kids and teens, we put on a program for them that consisted of performing a skit about Saul’s conversion to Paul, explaining the story about how no matter what your past is God can still transform you, and Abby and Jake did a wonderful job of sharing their testimonies. I (Kayla) can’t explain how encouraging it was to see how engaged the teenagers were in every part of it.
After a morning in the village, we went back to score. At 2, we went to a small day-care. The kids there were very young, ranging from ages 1-8. Usually the kids take naps on the dirt floors, but some of them slept the whole time on some of the girls. I (Michelle), Hannah, Katie, and Alannah (an intern at score) all sat in the shade with sleeping children on us. The rest of the group played with the energetic kids as they screamed and laughed. I (Kayla), got out some face paint to paint the kids’ faces and before I knew it, 8 or more kids were coming at my face with paintbrushes. My face, neck, arms, and legs all got painted. As I told them, “no en mis ojos!” (“not in my eyes!”), they saw it as a game to try to get the paint in my eyes! At this point, I begged my other classmates to get another game going to distract them.
We spent the afternoon there, and after several hours had to say our goodbyes, and go back to score. When we came back it was raining and we had homemade pizzas, and we hung out outside under the cavanas. August, I (Kayla), and Katie told Michelle to try to walk on water, so Michelle went straight into the pool fully dressed in her clothes. The whole team had a good laugh as Michelle kept swimming in her clothes because it felt nice.
Well friends, that about wraps up day 4. Thanks for reading this wholeeeee long blog. We hope you’re having an excellent week. Please continue to pray for good health and that the Lord would continue to work through us. Love you mom and dad!
Hasta la vista baby, Kayla and Michelle.
Day 3
Hello one, hello all. It’s me, Jake. So Sunday was our second day in the Dominican Republic. It was definitely a more relaxed and lackadaisical day; especially when compared to the busy day of construction yesterday. Sunday started off just as Saturday had. I took a warm and refreshing shower, then basted my pasty white skin in gallons of oily 100 SPF sunscreen. My sunscreen bath left a slippery puddle on the stairs of our room which August proceeded to slip on and fall in. (He’s fine)
Anyhow, the morning people ate breakfast and waited for the non-morning people (me) to load onto the bus. Once we were all on the bus we headed down to a church about a half-an-hour away to attend and participate in a service. The drive there consisted of us singing our favorite songs and watching the locals hoot, holler, and blow kisses at some of us, rather awkwardly I might add. The service began with both the children and the adults reciting their memorized scripture to each other. Afterwards there was a short break outside where adults conversed with one another and the children played basketball or talked with us. For most of us it was the first time we got to flex our Spanish-speaking muscles with native speakers. The service resumed shortly after.
It lasted around an hour and a half. We sang hymns and Jessica was able to share her testimony with the church and translate for Mr. Flemming as he introduced us to the churchgoers. Unfortunately the pastor of the church, Miguel, was feeling sick and asked for prayer as he is currently pastoring 3 churches. His sort of protégé/disciple/understudy guy, Daniel, gave the sermon. He did an exceptional job. I was very impressed and would never had known that he was not the primary pastor had I not been told. The message was compelling, scripturally supported, and translated to English thankfully. After the service we got to continue conversing with Daniel, Miguel, and others. We worked on setting up a return trip to the church as well.
We headed back to the SCORE complex, changed, and walked to the beach. On the beach and on the way to the beach there were a TON of people selling sunglasses to tourists. They basically offered you whatever price they thought they could get out of you. Hannah did the worst bargaining out of all of us with a single pair of sunglasses for $10. I’m fairly certain I could have gotten the same ones for $2 but what do I know.
The beach was not too crowded and we found a place to hang out relatively easily. The water was a superb temperature and aside from the occasional small fish, piece of driftwood, or prankster, the water was enjoyable. Micah, Monica, and Hannah (with her $10 sunglasses) went for a walk along the beach. Micah brought back a sea urchin, Monica brought back a story about an escaped crab, and Hannah brought back her precious $10 sunglasses. We all lied out in the sun for a bit, buried Micah in the sand, and headed back to SCORE. Sunday was a much needed day to tend to our sore bodies and get back to 100% for tomorrow.
Day 2
Jessy and Mady here reporting on Day 2 (Saturday), our construction day! Started the day early, waking up at 6:30AM to eat a delicious pancake breakfast and get ready for a long day of hard work. We drove over to Freedom School which took a bit longer because of some directional mishaps. Once we made it we were greeted by Jason who started the mission of opening and running a school for poor children coming from the surrounding sugarcane villages. We started right away on building a retaining wall for the missionaries’ apartment parking lot. We had people mixing concrete, moving cinder blocks, and Micah took charge of cutting the blocks with the chop saw. Thankfully for us we had a great construction leader named Gabe to help us along. He won the Indiana best block layer contest so we knew we could count on him. The day was hot and sunny but thankfully our class was well prepared and everyone had enough sunscreen and water. We also kept each other cheered up by singing and talking.
Eventually Jason called over for a small group of people to help dig out a “little” wire from the ground. Hannah, Rose, August, and Jessy went over to start working on that and realized it was more than just a “little” wire. They ended up digging out a metal pipe with wire tangled around it, thirty minutes into this hard process involving pick- axes and shovels Jason asked the group to dig up a water hose nearby. The group worked long and hard, recruiting Jake, Itzel, and Katie to help. Jake led the group in singing camp songs and they all made sure to take plenty of water breaks, finishing the project in a little over two hours.
Our lunch break was well appreciated and we enjoyed sandwiches and chips and drank bags of water. Jason gave us a complete tour of the school so far as well as sharing some amazing stories of God’s work through him and the process of building a school in the Dominican Republic. We were all encouraged by his faith and desire to share God’s love to the Dominicans around him. They have 150 students right now, Pre-K through 2nd grades, and are shooting for 1,800 ten years from now. We will definitely be praying for Jason and his team as they trust in God to complete their mission and continue to disciple these students.
After lunch it was back to work. The group working at the wall was busy getting covered with concrete and slurry as they continued building and making sure the wall was stable and level. I (Mady) accidentally dumped a wheelbarrow of wet concrete on myself and had to be sprayed off, and soon everyone was covered in dirt and concrete. Our bus driver did not want to accept our high fives or let us in the bus by the end of the day. We said goodbye to Jason and the rest of the team around 5PM. It was an amazing feeling to finish the wall and be a part of a great mission.
This week is focused on serving and we discussed in devotions later that night how important it is to humble yourself and serve others. We looked at the life of David Livingstone and how great people, recognized by many, are known for their hearts and service towards others. Jesus calls us all to a life a service and it is amazing to put that into action this week but we also hope that it can be our mission for the rest of our lives, no matter where we go. Continue to pray for us as we live out our calling this week- we love it here and don’t ever want to leave! J
~ Shoutout to our fams though, we actually do miss you and love you a lot. Also don’t worry- we’ve been wearing that good 50spf sunscreen. We’ve found many boyfriend candidates but are being wise in all our choices;) haha…..
Love, Mady and Jessy
Day 1
Hello everyone! It’s Monica and Hannah coming to you from the beautiful Dominican Republic on our first day. This place is full of so many sweet, helpful people, we felt nothing but welcome to be here. A very big theme for this say was “first times”. Today Jake had his first plane ride, Rose and Jake left the country for the first time, and this is the first time our whole class has been on a mission’s trip together.
Although this trip has been full of excitement and new experiences already, our class has faced some bumps in the road too. But one thing that has encouraged me (Monica) greatly is how much a family we are. When we were in JFK getting ready to board to fly the final leg, Hannah was on the floor because she wasn’t feeling very well. So we gathered around her, holding hands, and we prayed. Hannah felt better soon after and it was very encouraging to know that my class came together and did that.
Another small bump on the road happened at O’Hare even before we left. We were all checking into the flight, but for some reason, Itzel couldn’t get her ticket. We soon found out that her plane ticket had the wrong last name on it, so she and Mr. Flemming tried to fix the problem. At first, she was going to have to pay an additional fifty dollars to get another ticket or fix hers, but after the worker finished talking on the phone, 15 minutes later she said, “You’re in luck you don’t have to pay”. Soon after that she printed a new ticket with Itzel’s right name and she ended up going in the front of the long security line, before the whole group.
Something extremely encouraging happened to Rose while she was waiting in line for her food in JFK. She heard someone behind her say they loved that scripture. When she turned around a man behind her directly said again he loved the scripture on her shirt. He then pointed out the verse on her back to his companion and started translating it for her. It amazed us how something so little like just wearing aT-shirt could give the man the opportunity to spread God’s Word to his coworker.
Everything that happened today was in God’s control and we are very thankful to have arrived in the Dominican safely. Please continue to pray for us as we will have many opportunities this week to spread God’s Word with the people here.
