Hola mis amigos!!

Today was another hot one in the DR. According to what I was told, it was 91 degrees in the shade but it felt like 98 degrees.

The team did various things. It was the last day of vacation Bible school in Montana. Since the roof of the church is under construction, VBS was held in a field. All the kids seemed to have a great time and were very sad to see the “americanos” leave. As members of the team took out their cameras for pictures, we discovered that Dominican children love to have their picture taken. Each child wanted an individual picture so they could strike their best pose. I took on the task of teaching some kids how to play Cat’s Cradle with string. Try to imagine explaining how to do it with only gestures and very broken Spanish and you can guess how well it went. It is so exciting to me, that even though we couldn’t communicate well with the children using words, they still felt our love. Making connections with the Dominicans has been my favorite part so far.

The rest of the team worked on the construction project at Nueva Vida. I only visited the job site briefly, but from what I understand they did a lot of cement work. What that fully entails I’m unsure. The Sunday school gazebo seems to be coming along nicely.

In the afternoon, Ashley and I had a unique opportunity to go to a Dominican woman’s wake (not exactly but similar). We traveled there in a 8 passenger car…with 8 adults and 3 children. It was interesting to me that it’s perfectly acceptable to carry your child in your lap while riding in a car. At the “wake”, we were told that when a person dies they bury them the same day, and then have 9 days of mourning. On the 9^th day (today), they hold the wake, where they have a shrine to the deceased and family and friends gather to give condolences.

It was a beautiful day today and as a treat we are about to go out for ice cream! Tomorrow is beach day and the whole team is very excited! Many of our Dominican friends/translators will be joining us, so it should be a good time.  (Because of the beach day, there will not be a blog on Friday.)

Please pray for continued health and safety for the entire team. Also, please pray that Maggie Schmidt will feel better, as she stayed at camp today feeling ill.

Adios!