Sueños DO Come True!

¡Buenos Días! I write this early on Sunday morning from a lovely air conditioned bus, which we are quite enjoying at the moment. This weekend all of the summer interns traveled from our respective ministry sites to Jarabacoa to spend a weekend together and to visit the capital city for a day. It was strange to be in the company of so many English speakers once again, but it was fun to share stories and experiences from the past month. Us three from Caraballo ended up spending two nights in Jarabacoa and we just boarded our bus back. We have a good few hours of traveling ahead of us, but it will be good to get back. Caraballo is beginning to feel a lot like home to us.  Friday we enjoyed some down time with the Jarabacoa interns while waiting for other sites to arrive. We cooked a big spaghetti dinner and enjoyed some fellowship time as well. I had a good conversation with Mallory, a missionary who has committed to two years serving down here. It was really encouraging to hear her story about how God led her to serve in this way and the lessons He taught her along the way.  One major thing that I prayed for about this trip would be receiving God's guidance about my future. Well, the LORD is always faithful to answer prayer but often it is not in the way I had originally thought. I was thinking specifically about being able to serve here or live here long term, and while I definitely have taken some steps forward there, God has overwhelmingly used this trip to confirm and even deepen my passion for educating kids. The last time I was here was three years ago, as a high school junior who wanted to attend an academically prestigious Christian college and study to become a pediatric neurologist. Yeah, some of you are laughing to yourselves right now. Well, God has taken me on quite a journey these past three years. I now attend an academically rigorous but not Christian college, and I am studying Religious Studies and Early Childhood Education. Yup, God's plans were better than my own, and definitely different. Anyways, the whole major thing is so crucial to when God decided to send me back to the Dominican Republic. The first day of training that we had, our ministry director shared about the plight of education in the Dominican Republic. I had been to the country twice before on a missions trip, and yet I never knew that the DR has the most undeveloped and in need educational system in all of Latin America! Talk about God using my passions and gifts for His glory. That knowledge has profoundly shaped my experiences on this trip, and the moment that I realized that even if I do not speak the language fluently I still absolutely LOVE being in the classroom, I felt God confirm and deepen the passion I have for kids and their education.  I don't have any solid answers about the future. I don't even know what will happen tomorrow! God's word is clear about that fact as well: we are but grass that will fade away in this short life. And yet through all of this, I sense God telling me to wait on Him. Oh, I feel so impatient. But perhaps more than ever, I need to hear that. Wait on the LORD. He will tell me what to do and where to go when it is time. I have always been that person who wished God would fax me a memo with His plans for my life all neatly written and articulated. Go to this school. Study this subject. Move here, find a job there, and marry this person (and NOT that one!)  At the same time, I know how stubborn I can be. And God's waiting and operating on His timeline is and always has been and always will be for my good. It keeps me tuned into what He is doing, it causes me to trust Him more.  Anyways, that conversation on Friday really caused me to reflect on those things. That evening, I learned that dreams REALLY DO come true. I experienced two of my favorite things colliding in a glorious opportunity to fulfill one of my (wilder) dreams. I had the chance of a lifetime, people, to be involved in a CALL ME MAYBE FLASH MOB...and it gets better. We did the flash mob at a talent night, called 'Gran Circulo' at a children's home called El Arca in the Dominican Republic. That's right. My dreams totally came true. The video should be making its way to Facebook soon, but I will keep you posted.  Saturday morning we woke up bright and early to travel the two hours to the capital of the DR, Santo Domingo. I have flown into and stayed in Santo Domingo on both of my previous trips here, so I was excited to return. Besides, I had plans to meet up with a friend from my former mission trip, Anabel! Anabel was a senior in the class of the Christian school that my mission team partnered with when we traveled here. She and I became friends over the two weeks I spent here and we have stayed in touch via Internet these past three and a half years. She met us at the Cathedral in the historic colonial zone of the capital and we hung out for four hours! It was such a neat connection and it was great to catch up and talk about where God has taken each of us in the past three years. We toured a fort and also a house with authentic furniture that Diego Columbus, son of explorer Christopher Columbus used. Then we had the opportunity to shop a bit before heading back. On our way back, the whole group of us got to drive the Constanza interns back and see their living space and ministry site. It is great to be able to see what Kids Alive ministries does on this island, and it has been a neat perspective on our own ministry in Caraballo. We were treated to stunning mountain and sunset scenery as our tiny guagua wove its way up a winding mountain road. It was so beautiful, and for the first time in the past month, I was cold. It is so hot in Caraballo all hours of the day that I usually don't even cover up at night. But last night we enjoyed the bliss of the mountain chill.  Now we find ourselves here, on the bus for the next three hours. We have eight days of summer program left: eight days of sweet hugs from the kids, eight days of conversation with our national co-workers, and yes, also eight days of rice and beans. I am already sad to leave, but God has been impressing upon me the might of His sovereignty. Almost more than any other trip I have been on, I have had a sense of God's peace about returning, which has always been the most difficult part for me. He has numbered and ordained my days, and as hard and sad as it is to leave, I am resting in the fact that He has given me exactly the number of days He desired for me here, and I am getting ready to step into the plans He has for me at home. He is sovereign and I continue to trust Him as I take life a moment at a time...at the moment, a Dominican moment at a time.  A few prayer requests that I would be honored if you would lift up before the LORD in intercession for: - Pray for the emotional and spiritual transitions for me, Cara, and Landon (fellow Caraballo interns) during these last two weeks - Pray for my three of my co-workers (all 3 are siblings) and their family: their grandfather passed away last week. Please pray for Francis, Sandy, and Francina and their mother as they mourn this loss.  - Pray for the kids of Caraballo and Villa Ascensión that we serve every day. Pray for their hearts to be fertile soil for the Word of God. Pray that they would know the LORD and the future and hope and plans He has made for them.  - Pray for the family of our DR Field Director. The Trautweins have had an unexpected bump in the road this week and have some difficult travel and lodging decisions to make. Please pray for good goodbyes as they leave for an unknown amount of time.  - Pray for God's light and love to be evidenced through us and the teachers and faculty of the Park Care Center at Caraballo. - Pray for good conversations and relationships with our national co-workers. Praise God for them: they are SUCH a blessing and encouragement to us!  - Pray that God would pour His blessings on Bekah, the North American missonary who has helped us out so much during our time here. She returns to U.S. indefinitely in two weeks after 8 months here. Pray for her transition and goodbyes.