Welcome to Jarabacoa – Dominican Republic: Week 1

We made it! After a long Monday full of flights and bus rides, T-squad finally made it to our new home in Jarabacoa. During our time here, we will be partnering with Mission of Hope (MOH) to renovate their new property and partner with local churches to be the “behind scenes” provider of public needs. I was struck by how pure and healthy this model of humanitarian aid seemed. MOH aims to not be the face of provision, but instead works alongside local pastors to see the needs of a community and empower the church to provide for its medical, nutritional, educational, and spiritual needs. I am so thankful to have been given the opportunity to serve alongside this mission and soak up all the knowledge they have to share.

Week one ministry has been focused on bringing the new MOH campus to life in order to better host future teams and community events. Thus far, we have taken on painting and clearing grass fields. It’s slightly disheartening to type only two activities due to how full and tiring this week has felt, but I’m incredibly thankful to be part of this work regardless.

Painting has proven to be more of a character developer than I anticipated. There is a soothing atmosphere to it, but a laboring one as well. You find yourself cramping from the finer touch ups but mediating through the slow movements and satisfying applications of paint to unfinished walls. And once that wall is complete, a total feeling of accomplishment overwhelms you…just enough to propel you into the next wall at hand. It’s a turmoil of emotions, states of mind, and processes that work together to produce a coherent final product. Something worth getting through the minor annoyances that surface throughout the painting experience.

Dominican grass grows incredibly fast. By the time MOH acquired this new campus, the grass had overgrown the area to heights I can’t even reach. To be stewards of their money, MOH calculated the most cost effective approach to returning this campus to a well maintained and welcoming environment. The solution, to first cut the grass then burn the fields so they can be maintained by mowing from here on out. What better way to prepare for the burn than to send out young adults to the fields with machetes. After a quick tutorial, we continued to chop our way into the tall grass through scratches, blisters, and wasp nest after wasp nest. It was another task full of satisfaction and accomplishment, just a bit more risky with a little fear factor included as well. That night we quickly realized that there is nothing quite like laying your head down after a long day of hard work in the hot sun.

This next week will consist of more painting and machetes but will also include the introduction into ministry work with our local pastors that we are all truly looking forward to. Prayer requests going into this week include health over our team, stamina for the long days, awareness to God’s promptings, and courage to initiate interactions despite language barriers.

Thanks for all your love and support!