Hello to all the people back at home. On Sunday Rachel weening was able to bring her experience with these trips to use and took us on public transportation to get to church which was a new experience for all of us. We went to the International Baptist church. It was this big ‘North American’ style church like the churches in Canada. This church offered headphones and a translator, which was really nice since we could then actually understand the sermon, which ended up being pretty good. It was something about God's faithfulness to us. The music was also good and more like a performance. We then got picked up by Franklin (he’s such a beauty) and went to the mall to pick up lunch, which we got the pleasure of ordering ourselves. I found out if you point at the item, it works out quite nicely. When we got back to the compound, we were able to connect to family and friends and you got to hear about all the juicy details that happened this week. The kids around brought us a kitten, so we got a new addition to the group, his name is Stumpy. He’s very cute, Jake loves him.
On Monday we had Rachel plan what we did that day. We ended up painting parts of the ministry center. We went in small groups of three to get materials to paint such as paint brushes, rollers, and some snacks. We got divided into two groups, one group painted the eating room and the other painted the upstairs living quarters. We had a blast of dancing and singing to the music, it seems that more paint ended up on ourselves than on the actual walls. We were able to have free reign in our groups and were able to work together and figure out problems that came up throughout the day such as how to paint the top of the wall that not even “Junior Ken” (Andrew) was able to reach. After painting we were able to talk to Rachel more and get her insight on the community in Dominican and have her share some of her many stories. From her we now know not to eat too many bananas and don’t pick up random cardigans from the dump. Some of us went on a walk and came back super happy since they finally had the opportunity to buy empanadas.
On Tuesday we had the unfortunate event of Rachel leaving in the morning. We were able to have breakfast with her and have a nice prayer with her before she left. We really enjoyed her being here with us as she brought so much more energy to the group. I’d describe her as a cup of water being thrown in your face (in a good way don’t worry). We went to Pena de Horeb Christian School to finish up some of the jobs that we had started. We helped put up a fence, level some ground and shovel lots of gravel. We ended up not having much to do like we thought so we finished up at around 2 o’clock. Before leaving the school Franklin took us on a tour around the neighbor hood and gave us some insight on peoples living situations and history on how the town formed. I liked walking through because it really showed that when we are thinking about the poor, we think too materially. I’m not saying that everyone living in that neighborhood was super happy but just because their overall goal is to go to Canada doesn’t mean that they hate their lives here. They have a sense of community that we just don’t see in Canada. We did see some issues such as a big water issue since the river was too polluted to produce water anymore. When we got back to the base, we had free time where Aeryn got the opportunity to get her hair cut by Evelyn and Raina. During the free time we had check-ins with Mr. Lammers to see where both of us were at in our experience here.
Adios, Ava Janse
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