If the Dominican sunrise could be described as a color, it would be silver. I sit and watch as charcoal and burnt orange clouds that resemble fire simmer into bright grey, tinting everything below in a crisp silvery light. Somewhere behind me a rooster crows to signal the sun’s appearance, as if I didn’t know.
We pulled into the Mission of Hope base on Wednesday, or rather Thursday, at 3am. Travel day had lasted almost 50 hours, beginning with 27 negative Covid tests, a 4 hour train ride to Bucharest, a 3 hour plane to Paris, 7 hours to JFK, 4 more plane hours to Santo Domingo, 3 hours on a bus to Mission of Hope, and a partridge in a pear tree. Mission of Hope is an organization whose goal is to spread the gospel by empowering local churches. Although it is run mostly by Americans, their vision is to eventually be replaced by indigenous staff who love the Lord and want to advance their community.
As I sit watching the sunrise from my self-proclaimed Bible study spot, I get to praise God for His goodness. “We shouldn’t even be here,” I thought. It’s true. The Dominican Republic has changed their travel rules recently, so that people without citizenship or a return ticket aren’t allowed to cross the boarder. They should have stopped us in Bucharest, where we initially flew out of, or Paris, our layover site where they reprinted all of our tickets. But the airports were packed, making it a nightmare to get through customs and security. Twice we had to sprint to our gates so that we wouldn’t miss our flights. If they had stopped us in either of those cities, we wouldn’t have made it to JFK, where the attendant was adamant that a group of 27 unemployed teenagers should not board a plane without a return ticket.
Eventually Marrissa, our Squad Leader, called Mission of Hope so that they could write a letter telling the airport exactly why we wanted to spend 2 months in the DR, and the harassed attendant let us through. All 27 of us sleepwalked onto the cramped vessel which would catapult us into a completely new climate from cold, grey Romania. I didn’t realize it at the time, but there I was experiencing the Lord’s sovereign hand in logistics and plane tickets.
So here I am in the Dominican Republic, the definition of paradise. Here’s a quick update and some prayer requests!!
UPDATE: I don’t have much access to WiFi. I’m so excited for this opportunity to focus on my relationship with the Lord and my squad without the distractions of my phone. I won’t be able to contact you much, and if I do it is because I went to a coffee shop or bought a days’ worth of WiFi. This also means that blogging just got way more difficult than in Romania. I will still try to get out 2 bogs a week, but if you have been finding out about them through Instagram, I recommend subscribing so you’ll get the update emails! ALSO: sharing blogs with your family and friends is one of the best ways you can support my blogging ministry, Adventures in Missions, and our mission partners!
PRAYER REQUESTS:
– Pray for our team as we transition to a new country and culture; that we would seek unity and peace, that we would not be overcome by complacency or complaining, but rather that the joy of the Lord would be our strength.
– The ministry we left behind in Romania, for Hope Church and that the seeds we planted would be faithfully watered.
– The ministry we are bringing with Mission of Hope! Check out their website, https://missionofhope.com/ or social media platforms to get more specific prayer requests!
– We all are testing for Covid on Wednesday! Pray that all tests would come back negative so that we can hop into ministry ASAP!
– Pray for me, as I continue blogging and team leading. Pray for humility and wisdom!
