week.[TRES].

Week 3 is gone now too.

As much as I miss you all, I’m beginning to get kind of alarmed by how fast my time here is slipping through my fingers. It’s officially December 23^rd I woke up this morning because I was chilly. Didn’t know that was possible here, but it happened!

This letter may seem a little premature, but I actually posted my entry late. Kristin and I ran out of Internet service last Wednesday and didn’t get to the service store in San Pedro until Monday of this week. That was an experience in itself…the store is located inside a mall and I experienced major culture shock within its walls. For the first time in nearly a month, I was suddenly aware that I wasn’t wearing pants, earrings, mascara, or toe nail polish. I think I felt like the Amish people must feel when they go to Wal-Mart back at home. I both envied and pitied the people I saw there that day. I much prefer it where I live in Hato Mayor. I didn’t like how I felt that day. But we now officially have Internet until January 20^th so it was a successful and needed trip!

Last week’s update left you with my return to the church in Joolonga…we did indeed go back to their church/lawn last Thursday night with most of Carlos’ church’s congregation, and brought with us a generator, lighting, and a sound system. Do you know what happened? The prayers of the people got longer and louder. There wasn’t as much singing and dancing. Everyone tried to crowd under the light. Some speakers got very fond of hearing their own voices, and they spoke much longer than they needed to. I felt like the entire service I felt God saying to me, “Do you see that these nice things are taking these people away from me? The wealthy church (Carlos’ church here) thinks they’re helping, but the Joolonga people are becoming distracted by lights and a microphone. The worship was more genuine when they sang and danced in the dark.” I’m still processing those thoughts, but I am starting to think I have no idea what the “poor church” really needs—or at least that it takes a lot more forethought to anticipate & assess their needs than throwing light bulbs and a microphone at them. (Hey! I see my macro social work background crashing head on with missions)

For some added perspective, I am also learning during my time here that loud, bombastic worship and scream-praying can be as strictly “religious” as the Rosary and our impassionate prayers back at home. I am honestly starting to believe that the Dominicans believe that God is hard of hearing.  Sometimes it reminds me of the Old Testament story when Daniel goes up against the Baal prophets and those prophets all began jumping and screaming and cutting themselves to draw some response from their god, Baal. I catch myself praying under my breath, “Lord, thank you for hearing me even when I whisper.” I only stay this because when we come as a short-term mission group, we often leave after experiencing 1 night of worship thinking that the Dominican church is so much more passionate and on fire than we are. Though that is true about some people, many others I believe were simply raised in a culture where you scream when you pray and dance when you sing. So before you beat yourself up too much for quietly standing in place during worship at home, remember that God sees the heart and that jumping and clapping doesn’t necessarily mean you love God more.

<<There’s a lot going on in my head about what could be done here in the Dominican. Sometimes, it all feels a little too heavy for me and I need something to lighten the mood. I’ll be honest, less than 6 months ago I had 2 life goals: to pay off my school loans and to never, ever get super fat. So, you could say that my world is getting a little deeper>>

Last Sunday, instead of going along with everyone else to the church service, I got dropped off at the small church in Guayabal with nothing but my Bible and guitar, to preach and sing at Pastor Cruz’s church. I’ll admit I was kind of ticked when Pastor Carlos told me I would be preaching on Sunday, only to find out he meant for me to go completely alone without a translator. It seems I avoid being uncomfortable, when left to my own devices and this seemed like it was going to be very uncomfortable. I did it though! And it went really well—though it was short because I had to stick with a relatively small vocabulary since I was speaking. I spoke about Matthew 5:13 “You are the salt of the world.” I brought a visual aid from Teresa’s kitchen and everything J I spoke about how salt is used to 1) bring flavor and 2) to preserve things and how we as Christians are to be the delicious flavor of this world and to preserve people eternally. Afterwards I got a ride on Pastor Cruz’s motorcycle back to the main church, and we had a fun conversation on the way back. It’s becoming a real treat to me to see the faces of people as they realize (after 3 weeks of being here) that I actually can speak Spanish. SURPRISE! Maybe if they’d even tried talking to me before…

In some exciting news, Kristin has a couple from the US coming this afternoon for a week long “vision trip” to support Kristin and the ministry she is doing here. It should be fun to have some more English speakers around! Kristin and I spent all of yesterday morning getting ready for their arrival, walking around to find an internet café with a printer in Hato Mayor, changing over some more cash into pesos, and then grocery shopping at Iberia. I know the women on my team in particular wanted to hear about it, so here is a little visualization activity. Imagine the amount of shoppers at Wal-Mart any given Sunday afternoon…now, shrink the store to 1/7^th that size but keep all the people inside…and then add the clutter of a “bargain basement.” THAT’s Iberia! The only place in the world you can buy 8 apples for $.25 cents (total) and a box of Corn Flakes for $5!

Now, because Kristin has other people to be responsible for now, I am finally beginning to stretch my wings. I decided to go to the annual Cristiano Shalom camp Dec 26-31^st alone without her! The camp is really a time of worship, recreation, and socialization for the church as a body. Lots of youth and 20-somethings go. Kristin has spent the past 4 months here getting to know people, but (sadly) most people here still just see me as “Kristin’s friend.” As great as it is to have a friend here, it has put me in a bubble socially. It’s like people think I have a friend quota of 1 or something! So I know at times the camp is going to be really awkward, but I really want to get to know these people. If I’m seriously going to live here, I need to jump in. I also budgeted the money I have and found I have enough to provide a “scholarship” for a young adult who couldn’t afford to go to the camp on his/her own. It’s going to be a surprise and I’m letting Carlos decide who to give it to!

This was a pretty uneventful week. I did get exciting news from Carlos on Tuesday—Kristin and I are going to be the overseers of a group of 10-17 Dominican translators working with a short-term-mission organization called SCORE in the DR for about 9 days in January. We get paid a whole $10/day and will have room and board at their facility in a town called Juan Dolio. My ears always perk up when an opportunity comes my way that I didn’t look for myself (thanks GodJ). Other than that upcoming opportunity, I really feel like God is breaking me down to build me back up again in the future. He’s teaching me what matters, what I am not above doing, how it feels to be overlooked, but also what it means to be loved beyond all comprehension all at the same time. I’ve never felt like more of a “nobody” yet more of a “somebody” in my whole life. Right now I am no one here, but I am everything to God.

You’d think I’d have learned enough in the past 3 months about waiting to know better than to complain that He isn’t giving me my vision yet. Scratch that prayer request last week. Instead, my prayer (and prayer request is): “Lord, I have no idea what you’re doing, but please let my heart be willing for you to prepare it for whatever is next!” God knows my direction and He has the BEST COMMUNICATION SKILLS! It apparently isn’t in my best interest to know right now. God prepares us for change through HEART PREPARATION, not INFORMATION. Amen!

Guess what? It’s LAUNDRY DAY again! Love to you all.

week.{DOS}

Week 2 is done and gone! Say it isn't so!

                                                       

I’m going to apologize in advance for the layout of this update; I myself hate reading a play-by-play chronological update of anything. Yet, as much as I would like to make this letter a lot more interesting and artsy, I’m afraid that if I don’t tell you about my week in a day-to-day sequence, then I will forget something J And selfishly, I’m writing these updates as much for myself as for you all—so that I can keep a mock-journal that I would never take the time to write otherwise.

Last week’s update left you with my return from La Vega. It was a great trip despite the tragic number of mosquito bites I received. We also ate at Pica Pollo twice in two days. Blech.  It’s like the McDonald’s of the Dominican Republic, and it is a favorite of Carlos! But I digress…

Most of Friday, Kristina and I helped Chappy and Pastor Carlos set up for a pastor’s conference that they held in the church below Carlos’ house. Chappy is launching his program in a new prison in the DR (El Seybo), and he is rallying up pastors to support and carry out the work that needs to be done. This was the inhumane prison Carlos told us about that keeps 1400 men in a very small square of land! By the end of the conference the people had volunteered to do 2 prayer walks before ministry will start in January. On the 8^th and 15^th of January a large group of people have committed to traveling to El Seybo and doing a prayer walk 7x around the prison ground. It’s just like Joshua in Jericho! They will pray like that for the 2 weeks leading up to their first day of work inside the prison grounds. I am already wishing that I could be around in January to see the beginning of the physical ministry in this prison. Please be praying for the hearts of the men that God wants to touch in El Seybo.

Friday night and Saturday were a lot of fun since there was a triple wedding slated for the 11^th at Carlos’ church and my friend Kristin got to participate! Kristin was a bridesmaid—and since it was a triple wedding, there were about 8 couples of bridesmaids and groomsmen. They had to do 6 “practices,” which Kristin and I calculated to be 20+ hours practicing for a 35 minute ceremony. Spanish is my 2^nd language and I think I probably could have run a more efficient rehearsal, but it was fun to watch and get to know people. It seems to me that organizing young adults in the Dominican Republic would be very similar to herding cats. The day of the wedding (Saturday) was a beautiful day, the church wasn’t decorated in time so at 4:00 pm that day they decided to push the wedding back a few hours (haha, can you imagine doing that in the US?), and the ceremony was beautiful. Kristin got to go to a salon and get her hair done—it was so pretty and curled, but they used so much hairspray that her hair became a hard, immobile, plastic helmet that they had fastened to her scalp…much like a Mrs. Potato-Head. A really PRETTY Mrs. Potato-Head. We also got to go shoe (and Oreo) shopping with Wascar before the wedding…need I say more on that? Wascar (the big, manly truck driver) helped her pick out the prettiest gold sandals and everything—too funny....

Sundays are always eaten up by the church and the getting to- and from-. This Sunday in particular there was a funeral for one of the members of the congregation. He was the man in the wheelchair who always sat in the front at the services, and he died Saturday night. What was so neat was to see Carlos transport the entire Sunday morning congregation to the funeral and to hear them praising because now this man is WALKING on streets of gold with our Savior. He is in a wheelchair no longer! AMEN. Also, at Sunday night’s service, Kristin and I got to play guitar and sing for everyone and we chose Consuming Fire. It’s so fun to sing with a friend! And since I don’t know any of the songs here (and I’m not a big fan of Dominican shout-singing) I was beginning to forget how much I love music, and that I’m a singer. I think I’m going to start playing guitar instead of piano before prayer services Thursday nights.

Monday was a long-awaited lazy day. Believe it or not, we don’t really have a ton of free-time here, even though it feels as if I only have a set plan for 10% of each day (which usually means a run and a showerJ). That day Kristin got a username and password for a friend’s Netflix account so we got to watch a movie together: Alice in Wonderland (the new one)! As we curled up in her bottom bunk around her laptop screen, I found myself forgetting that I was in a foreign, 3^rd world country. Can freezing cold showers and movies like that exist in the same world? I also spent a lot of time Monday working on the Restoration videos that Kristin brought with her from the States. I think I mentioned them last week, but it is a series of videos/workbook all about restoring God’s people from their pasts so that they have a firm foundation for their identity and can heal past hurts that are hindering them in their Christian walks. It’s far too powerful for me to explain in this email, but I can say that God is truly healing my heart from some heavy scars of my past. And I have a notebook FILLED with Scripture written as tiny as my hands can legibly write. I am learning so much and I am thirsty for God’s word. Sometimes I laugh, and think, “Did God really have to take me to the DR to work though my hurts with some DVD’s from some guy in Oregon? To teach me to read the Bible?” But even if that’s the only reason I’m here (which I don’t think is the case), it’s worth it.

Tuesday Kristin and I traveled to Boca Chica to sit in on another meeting Chappy had at the prison in La Victoria. It was our first real “big girl” day, because we got to the station, Boca Chica, and back home again (which, I might add, meant getting dropped off by a bus in the middle of Hato Mayor with no idea where we were!) but we walked our way back to Carlos’ house. The Lord truly showed us the way. Chappy also had some prophetic words for me from Scripture as we said goodbye to him, but I will share that later in this email.

Yesterday was a good day—I called it my “Wife Practice Day.” I decided that I was going to do all of my and Kristin’s laundry from the past week. I’d like to walk you through the practice of laundry here in the DR, because I will never look at my mother’s front-load, high-efficiency, custom-set, laundry machine with disdain EVER again. First I sorted our clothes out into whites, towels, colored clothes and dressy colored clothes. Then I filled the washer with water from a hose, added laundry soap and put in my first load that was basically sloshed around for 15 minutes by a little agitator. Next, I took every article from the washer, wrung it out, rinsed it in the sink, wrung it out, dunked it in fabric softener, wrung it out, and put it in the dryer, which is a glorified centrifuge. After the laundry comes out of the centrifuge, I then took it outside where it needed to be hung on the line to dry. Yep, I did four loads of that. It took me 3 hours and I NEVER STOPPED MOVING. I also think I’m going to have the forearms of a body builder if I have to do this on a regular basis. My little hands are so weak that my fingers cramp from having to wring out so many clothes. I might add the fact that those clothes are STILL out on the line this morning…winter has truly arrived in the Dominican and so many days are cloudy and rainy. 

Finally, last night Pastor Carlos took us to a “church” in Jolonga. They had no electricity, no lights, no sound equipment, and we held the service outside under a tarp in lawn chairs. The moon was beautiful. We had nothing but our voices, a drum, that cheese-grater instrument, and a tambourine. These people danced for the Lord and it was such a treat for me! Carlos’ church doesn’t necessarily condone dancing, so I went and hid in the shadows and danced my little heart out to their drum beats. It was like a campout. It was one of the simplest and beautiful church services I have ever been to and we’re going back tonight!

All in all, guys, I am really asking for prayer. Kristin has been here for over 4 months now, and is starting to work on her Mission Statement for when she goes back home to raise more support for fulltime ministry. It’s hard for me to not start feeling panicked because I’m not sure what my purpose for being here is yet. As she is beginning to see her vision I am learning lessons in humility, love, and against jealousy and pride. I am so happy for her! And yet I want God to begin opening my eyes. I trust His timing and know He is perfect, but will you all please pray that my heart would be ready to accept the vision God has for me? I was explaining this situation to Chappy on Tuesday, when he told me to open the book of Luke 24 (specifically verse32). It speaks of the disciples walking on the road to Emmaus after Jesus’ crucifixion and how they didn’t recognize the resurrected Jesus for who He was until they invited Him in for supper that night. Then they said, “Were not our hearts burning within us as he talked with us on the road and explained the Scriptures to us?” That’s how I feel—my heart is burning within me all the time here, but God’s purpose for me has not yet been revealed. In the meantime I am learning the simple things. I am still waiting for the day when I wake up, put on a skirt, and don’t feel like I’m wearing a costume.

Love to you all! “May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.” 2 Cor 12:14

week.[UNO]

I can’t believe it has only been a week, in all honesty. This place is rocking my world. At its worst, I am tired of cold showers and the word “Americana” (or worse…”la otra”…the OTHER ONE! Gah) and the stares that come with it.

After I left the team at the airport, I hopped back on the bus and Pastor Carlos started laughing to my friend Kristin. He said, “Now is the part where Kayla says—oh my gosh what am I doing here?” I was in for quite the ride. I got to meet Kristin’s friends Chappy and Sandy right away. Chappy used to teach at Bethel Seminary and now does Christ-centered rehabilitation inside the DR’s biggest and baddest prisons. I learned about their mission and how they’ve planted 12 churches (inside the prison! It’s like a city of it’s own), began teaching inductive Bible study & hold classes with exams, begin to teach the men a trade, and eventually put them out on a “parole ranch” where they are given agricultural and character work to do in exchange for more freedom and a savings account that they can access when they are released. It is so cool! Plus they are from San Diego so they speak perfect English and look like me ;) It’s kind of a breath of fresh air.

I’ve also gotten to attend lots more church services and am getting better at understanding Spanish through that muffled microphone and the horrible echo. On Thursday, Carlos sent me to the church early with Wascar on his motorcycle so I could play the piano while people came into the church. A little out of my comfort zone (piano and “el motor”), but Carlos told me I would never be “ready” when I tried to convince him that I definitely wasn’t! It was good for me. He hasn’t asked me to do it again though so I’m not sure if he was trying to intimidate me that first week or if I was just really bad. I’m trying not to overthink it.

I have been meeting a ton of the youth and young adults at the church and it has made this experience so much fun! They are intelligent, kind, and so welcoming to me. One of the girls, Mairobi, took us on a tour of her high school and then Kristin and I went to her team’s volleyball practice. The schools are so noisy! It’s like a zoo. But Mairobi told us that she learns so much there…I can’t even imagine. They all wear uniforms, but that’s about as professional as it got. At the volleyball practice they all were wearing jean shorts and street shoes, and they play on cement with garbage everywhere. I biffed it tripping over a girl, and so I still have some gravel in my palm, knee, and elbow. All in all it was a good day. And you want to know one of the best things about my new friends? They all live with their parents too! Also, I’m pretty sure that if one of the guys here could get a hold of my dad’s email address, there is a guy here who would be asking his permission to propose to me…it’s actually really unsettling and I’m trying to transcend language barriers as I tell him I have absolutely no interest. Boys.

On Sunday, as some of you have already seen (and probably heard) the Lord healed me of my food allergies! A special thanks to whoever left that walnut/almond/blueberry trail mix. It was delicious. So are the chocolates, caramels, other trail mix, and Cliff Bars. Thanks to you all and the Lord! Carlos told me to be careful though, or he would have to bounce me like a basketball back to the United States I will be so round.

On Tuesday I had the opportunity to travel to Boca Chica (on the local bus—el guagua) at 7:00am to meet Chappy and head to La Victoria, the biggest and “baddest” prison in the Dominican Republic. When we got there I was a little scared at first as we were let in to the prison. I looked straight down at my feet, walked as fast as I could behind Chappy and our guide, and ignored the whistles and “Americana” comments. We made our way into the middle of the prison where there is a church, and I watched as 30+ imprisoned men sat like little boys and waited to see the grades they had received for their first Bible exam. Some got A’s and Bibles, others B’s, C’s, and a few didn’t pass. Chappy last-minute asked me to talk to the men. The Lord gave me Romans 4:1-8. I spoke the whole thing in Spanish…so I can officially say I preached to and praised God with men in a 3^rd world prison. To see them praise and cry out to God—I can’t imagine anyone more at the end of themselves. In prison here, you don’t get food and if your family doesn’t bring you any then you don’t eat. Some people even pay rent to stay in nicer cells; they make their own “laws.” There is truly a city inside the walls. We are going back next Tuesday and I am already looking forward to it. You can pray for the ministry there and for the safety of the workers, but truly if God is for us than what can mere man do to us?

Today I am coming home from a 4 hour trip to La Vega to visit and encourage a woman named Selenia, her family, and her church. She and her husband and children were called to start a church in La Vega so they left their community to follow Him. La Vega is a mostly Catholic and Haitian community, and so they are facing a lot of difficulties trying to convey relationship in an atmosphere of religion. They are also having trouble finding work here and were down to eating just plantains for awhile and only have basic running water and occasional electricity. I watched last night as the Lord arranged for them a new, nicer and more secure home closer to their church! God is so good. Also, Carlos gave Selenia and her family some of the blankets from our 2010 mission group, pillows, deodorant and soap, and a big can of bugspray (for some perspective, last night Kristin and I got close to 20 mosquito bites each at their house. They said that is very normal). So God is already spreading the generosity of our group!

Continue to pray for our time here, Kristin and I are getting along so well and I can’ t believe I only met this woman 2 weeks ago. We are staying up in a room in Carlos’ house, and I have the top bunk! We’re also going through Restoration series together—very similar to Celebrate Recovery—and I am learning a lot. Oh—another praise, when the team left I took the money God provided me to stay here and found that I had more than I thought I needed for my stay here…only to find out a few days ago that Pastor Carlos needs $14/day! I am positive that I will have just enough money for my stay here. Only God would have known I would need that.

On a personal note, I am most assuredly ruined for a “normal life” in the United States. Sometimes I have to ask God to settle my heart when I begin to panic over how I’m going to get back here after January 20^th. I’m still not sure about my ministry here but God is speaking all the time and I still have a lot of time left here. Please be praying that God will reveal His plan to me and that I would trust His ability to provide a way for me to make this my life!

I hope this wasn’t too long J I wanted to make sure you guys could all smell what I’m steppin’ in, in this land of 'faith and flies.'

"God physically healed me."

I write this post with a bit of caution...not because I don't want to share what God has done for me, but more because I want to write this in a way that gives all of the glory to my LORD. It's true, He healed me; but His purpose in doing so is not to make me happy [though it does!] but to glorify Himself.


For the past 3 months I have felt the Holy Spirit prompting me to push the envelope with my view of God and what He can do. I began growing tired of reading the stories in Scripture about God parting the seas and coming down in fire---and, at best, only experiencing little Holy Spirit "shivers" myself. In the last two months I have been setting aside time to fast and pray for a number of things. In the middle of my fast I felt led to pray for God to heal my food allergies and my mom suggested the same to me during the same time. Now, this was 2 months ago. [For those of you who don't know, I once came down with mononucleosis in high school and have had strong food allergies ever since to:  wheat, gluten, milk, eggs, rice, citrus fruits, most nuts, and soy to name a few. So, it's been a major thorn in my side for awhile]. Most days I would pray and ask God to heal me, thinking that He COULD but probably wouldn't. I didn't feel Him answering my prayers. I asked Him, "When will I know you've healed me, LORD?" I never truly heard an answer, but in conversation a few believers told me that in their experiences, God's healing generally came with a sensation of heat. Well, let's say I never got hot.


Then, this Sunday [Dec. 5th...a day I will now never forget] I woke up and participated in a congregational fast. The entire church joined together that morning and, unbeknownst to me [the sermons are all in Spanish...and I'm still getting the hang of things], early in the service began to pray for health and healing of the congregation as a whole. I began praying for a few individuals mentioned specifically, when I quickly began to feel intense heat in my stomach. The heat grew to dull warmth and spread through my arms and legs, but it stayed warmest around my middle. I couldn't believe what I was feeling! In my heart I was crying out, "This is it, isn't it God! You are healing me today?!" All I had was a picture in my mind of me going back to Carlos' house, taking a cookie out of the cupboard, proclaiming the work the LORD had done in me that morning, and to eat the cookie in front of the whole family! I gladly ate my first cookie in about 3 years when I got home.


I feel through this that God is also trying to teach me that there is nothing I can do to earn this gift, or have it taken away. I do, however, feel that it is much like the disciple who walked out on the water to follow Jesus, who began to sink in the water when he took his eyes off his Savior. Because of this, I know that for the rest of my life when I sit down to eat not only will I thank God and remember His miracle, but I must also eat in faith and not doubt this healing. And WOE IS ME if I fail to tell others around me about what He has done! So far I have enjoyed: peanuts, almonds, chocolate, cookies, rice, a hot dog bun, cheese, and eggs. I don't know if macaroni and cheese has ever been eaten for the glory of God, but it was yesterday!


God is good all the time. I am healed.

"I need to recap."

If you have stumbled across this post, I both apologize and thank you for not losing complete faith in my blogging ability. Sometimes life gets ahead of me and though beautiful things are happening in my life, I have [as of late] been too busy experiencing them to write them down. Truthfully I am kicking myself for not sharing things while they were unfolding because as I tell the story now all at once it will undoubtably lose some of its prophetic effect. I, however, maintain full confidence that the LORD will be glorified through sharing my story...however belated.

At the beginning of November I fully resigned from my job pursuit. After the 17th rejection [lastly from the grocery store] I decided to take God at what I felt like was His Word to me. I felt back in September that He was telling me to wait until my trip to the Dominican Republic [Nov23-Dec1] and that my life was going to be relatively uneventful until then. Still, I took "relatively uneventful" to include a job of sorts so I spent a lot of hte last 3 months in a futile job hung and hosted daily pity parties as they all rejected me. As the days leading up to my team's departure dwindled, I found myself in womewhat of a panic thinking, "What if I told all those people that God wanted me to wait for this trip...and then I go and nothing happens?" I tried my best to hide my unbelief and left the Sioux Falls airport in eager expectation.

When I arrived in the Dominican our team was greeted by Pastor Carlos and a woman from MN named Kristin Wolford who has been living in the DR since August. She and I became fast friends and after a few days I found myself wondering if I could stay behind with her until mid-January. With no agenda in mind [but plenty of fear and doubt] I began to walk through that door of opportunity, fully trusting that God would shut it if this were not His will for me. As I began asking permission from the leaders and figuring out logistics, I found myself at a crossroads. I felt no black and white answer from the LORD like I wanted. There wasn't an obvious "right" choice to stay or go. I had an equally strong argument for either decision. I got angry with God for not meeting me in the middle--frustrated that I had spent the past months surrendering my ambitions for a "maybe." Avery wise teammate of mine, my mother, spoke to me in my frustration and explained that though God hadn't given me "maybe's" in the past, perhaps He was doing so now.

Finally, on our 2nd to last night in the DR [after a few pep talks from Kristin and my mom] I stepped out in faith. My largest worries were financial, but I thought I had JUST enough money to get me through January 20th. God acted rapidly on my behalf--confirming my decision and showing me His lavish abundance. Within an hour of announcing my decision to stay behind, God had provided the money to pay for my plane ticket, my housing in Hato Mayor, and my first two months of school loans along with all the clothing and toiletries I would need for 2 months. Though the finances physically came out of the hands of my teammates, it was the LORD who provided for my every need.

And so it has been 3 glorious days since my team went home without me! I [for the first time in a while] am praising for my lack of work or obligations because that made it possible for me to stay! He did indeed have a plan...and He will continue to work it through to completion. I have notebook pages full of what God has already been speaking to me. This is truly the greatest adventure I have ever undertaken and my faith is growing in leaps and bounds. What a Mighty God we serve! I promise to report what I see Him doing here in the Dominican Republic...on a regular basis ;) Dios les bendiga a todos!