Saturday, Day 3, 7/23/2011

Banana trees in our backyard!  Very convenient!

We started today at 6:30 am.  Kristen brought breakfast, oatmeal, so I ate crackers!  :-)  We had stopped yesterday at the Supermercado and gotten cereal for Cam, so thats what he ate.  Miguel came and got us around 8:30.  We had a devotional time before he got here.  We loaded into 2 vans and Miguel's truck.  I and Keri were the only adults in the bed of the truck with 8 kids!  FUN!  The view was gorgeous!  Very breathtaking!  It took about 15 minutes to get out there.  We parked in a field by their playa.  A few people came out to greet us.  Miguel had never been to this area before.  It was really run down.  Their houses were just shacks with tin roofs.  They sit outside all the time, because it is just too hot inside.  They have a lot of animals, chicken, goats, cows, dogs and cats.  A lot of them have some sort of field, like rice, corn or beans. 

The people were all super receptive, just like the rest of the Dominican.  We started with a prayer walk.  We split into groups of 3 and went out walking the "neighborhood".  We prayed out loud as we walked by people's establishments saying HOLA!  At one house there was a mother, and a grandfather and 3 children.  One was a baby boy about 4 months old.  The grandpa asked if I wanted to hold him.....so I did...he was SOOO sweet!  We headed back to the Playa.  Then we prayed and broke up into the groups again.  This time we were telling people about our Bible School at 3 in the afternoon.  We went to a house with a thatched roof.  They asked us to sit.  There was a couple of older women.  One had no kids and one had 13 kids!  They lived there with her neices and nephews...and there were a bunch of them!  I asked what she did during the day.  She said she cooked, cleaned, worked the fields and trees.  She said "very busy".  I asked her if she knew Jesus.  She said Yes.  I asked her if she knew what Heaven was.  But I used the word Cielo....she said, "no".  I said do you want to know about Cielo?  She said "no".  That took me by surprise.  I was stuck then.  So we told them about bible school at 3 and went to the next house.  It wasn't until later that I asked Miguel about it and apparently, my word Cielo, which I was taught to be Heaven....is understood as "the sky" in the DR.  Oops.  She probably thought I was a crazy lady asking her if she wanted to know about the sky!  :-)  Anyway....at the next house there was a grandma, a daughter and 2 kids.  Chiquira is about 8 and has mental disabilities.  She acts more like a 3 or 4 year old.  There was also the cutest baby boy.  I don't remember names well, so I don't know his, but he was about 3-4 months old and naked as most of the kids under 5 are.  This really bothered Cam...but he got used to it.  Anyway, I was asked if I wanted to hold him....so I did....when suddenly I felt a warm fluid on me...he peed on me!  But then he didn't want me to leave, he put out his arms and cried everytime I walked away.  He must have "marked" me or something!  :-) 

We made it back to the truck.  I piled in the back with 10 other people.  I had to sit on the side this time.  Brooke wasn't feeling well.  Poor thing, we had to pull over at one point so she could throw up.  We made it home and I laid down to take a nap.  When I woke up it was lunch time.  We had the same things for lunch that we've had at every lunch...rice, beans and really bony chicken.  Cam loves the rice!  A man named Francisco brings it by motorcycle.  After lunch it started raining hard.  The decision was made that we couldn't go back.  We were told that rain will even cancel schools here and so the people would expect it to be cancelled.  We decided to evangelize in this uppper scale neighborhood. A  team also went to plant banana trees on Miguels prepoerty where he hopes to build a house some day.  One team went to talk to adults, and one team (mine and Cam's) went around looking for kids to do a little kids play time at our house.  We found a lot of kids, about 10 came over.  We played games, sang songs, colored and blew bubbles.  One little boy was Antoni.  He was about 18 months old.  He mom was 18 and lived down the street.  Kristin told me she had a Haitian accent.  The Dominicans HATE the Haitians.  We asked her and her mom was Dominican and her dad was Haitian.  Apparently Kristen could tell because there was Creole in her accent.  I was none the wiser!  I told her I was going to take him home in my luggage and she said "Esta Bien" (that's fine).  A lot of mom's try to push their babies off on Americans so they can have a better life. After lunch and dinner Cam and I took the leftover food to the neighbor.  She lives with her mom and her 4 children.  2 are twin girls with a bit of a mental disability.  They are sweet though, they crawled all over me.  They loved my watch and my earrings.  We stayed until they cleaned the tupperware then they pull up a chair also.  My Spanish is limited unfortunately ( I only had 8 years of it...you'd think I would be better...but they talk so different in the DR.  They don't always pronouce their "S"'s and they usually drop the tail end of the word off...which makes it difficult...so it makes for some awkward pauses. 

This is one of the twin girls....

Miguel eating lunch with us...also picture, Heather and Jen.

 Miguels daughter Nicole...also known as Buga!!

 Playing Hackeysack in the rain...in the street....

After dinner Miguel came back to share his story.  He has a fabulous story.  His heart has beein in the DR since he was 17 years old.  He left home and moved to Mexico for training at 18 and never went back to the states, except to visit.  He's been inthe DR for 5 years now.  I pray that someday I will have an AHA, or God moment like he did.  I pray that Jeff will too.  He needs it bad.  Speaking of Jeff, I hope everything is okay back home.  We've been so busy I haven't got to think about it too much, but when I'm around the Dominican kids, I miss my other three babies.  We had some time last night to talk within our family units.  Cam and I came upstairs.  He said he's having a great time, but he hasn't felt God teach him anything yet.  I'm a little worried about it.  I'm having fun too, but I've also had my eyes openend to a lot of things and realizations too.  He says he hasn't.  Jen told me not to worry about it, he would.  I hope so.