(Originally posted on December 23, 2019)
1,440,000 minutes.
24,000 hours.
1000 days.
I remember my first minutes, hours, and days alone here in the country. My pastor came with me the first week of my long-term move to the Dominican Republic - and it was a whirlwind of a week; looking for a place to live, buying appliances, and getting everything more or less set up for me to live. Then came the moment for him to board the plane...and it hit me.
I wasn't going with him this time. I wasn't going home.
I cried (ok...I wept...) ALL the way to my house. Then for several hours afterwards. I remember it clearly as if it were yesterday. I went into my house, and when I locked the door behind me, I was overcome with anxiety and the suffocating feeling of being in a country full of people that didn't speak my language and didn't know who I was. Mississippi might as well have been on the other side of the world, I felt so far away. I closed myself up in my bedroom and didn't leave for several hours, crying and begging God to let me sleep. He finally did, and I survived day one.
Now here I am;
- I lived in Sabaneta for 10 months, and have been living in Maizal ever since.
- I am completing almost 3 years of living in the country and serving God by loving the Dominican people and by being His hands and feet.
- I spent two school semesters working in a children's ministry outreach daily in the classrooms.
- I helped form a worship team in an area church in Santiago Rodriguez.
- I teach/preach regularly in churches across the country.
- I am also invited to churches to sing and lead worship.
- I have written a Spanish children's ministry resource that is being used in schools/churches.
- I am part of the finance committee in the church in Maizal, to help organize the financial system.
- I drive people to and from emergency rooms, doctor's appointments, and have helped church members through surgeries in a number of clinics in Santiago, Mao, Esperanza, and Laguna Salada.
- I have been invited to sing by the head bishop of the Free Methodist Church of the DR in front of more than 1,000 people in April 2020! (and it will be aired internationally!)
- I have had the joy (and sometimes challenge, ha!) of translating for many mission teams - music teams, medical teams, dental teams, evangelistic outreach teams, etc.
- I have had the honor of being an active part in the construction of the church (the building and the spiritual growth) in Maizal for almost 2 years.
- God has given me a Dominican family that I wouldn't trade for the world.
For the sake of not putting you guys to sleep with a novel - I'll wrap it up here. All of this to say - God has brought me a long way since day one. There are so many ways that I have seen His glory, witnessed miracles, and felt His grace and mercy holding me up each day as I learn how to be a missionary in the foreign mission field. As I think of how good He has been and how closely He has walked with me through each season - celebrating with me, sitting with me, walking with me, speaking to me, teaching me, laughing with me, wiping my tears and calming my anxious thoughts and fears...I am overcome with thankfulness and awe.
God is my constant companion and He is my refuge. He is my purpose and my joy. And His joy is my strength.
And I'm thankful for each one of you that have stuck with me through the last 1000 days (plus the year of language school in Costa Rica!!) I couldn't do it without you. I have the most amazing support base a missionary could ask for. Your financial support helps the ministry to move forward and your prayer support keeps me on my feet and keeps me pressing on even in the hardest days. My prayer is that God multiply back to each one of you every moment and every dollar that you invest in what He is doing here in the Dominican Republic.
