Dominican Republic Missions Trip Blog - 2011

Merging

It was a day of merging. From the Dominican way of driving to the Spanglish (Spanish/English) we’re speaking as we try to communicate, to the members of Clayton Valley Church finally meeting our brothers and sisters in Christ at Vida Nueva, today was all about bringing two things into one.

To begin, Dominican driving is much different than the US. It’s sometimes hard to tell how many lanes there are and whether or not we’re in a lane or on “our side” of the road. There are motorcycles, cars, pedestrians and it seems to us as though “no harm, no foul” is the only rule of the road! Horns are a well-used communication device to say “coming through” or “hey watch out,” or “hey hurry up” but as far as we’ve seen, road rage doesn’t exist and merging is a constant.

Many of the people we’ve met know some English. And most of our team knows “some” Spanish. So communication has a fun process of combining what you know with what they know (hence the term “Spanglish”) and calling over a translator when you hit a wall! We’ve been so grateful for how warm, loving, and gracious everyone we’ve met has been!

And finally the Church. It is amazing to me that two people who have never met, who share “Jesus as Lord,” are instantly of one and same family, the family of God. I have seen nothing else like it, and all glory be to God for He is the One who has rescued us from the kingdom of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son He loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sin! It was such a joy to all of us to finally meet and worship with the body of Christ at New Life. They are such a warm, vibrant community of believers, and they love Jesus their Lord and they like their music loud! We had such a great time of worshipping with them. A smaller group came back to the church later this evening for a time of sharing, prayer, fellowship and games. I think we all were mutually encouraged! Praise be to God for more answered prayers.

Tomorrow, Pastor Chris and Sophia will be arriving! Pray for them as they travel. The team here will be serving at an orphanage and spending the evening with the Webbs finalizing the details for the Family Retreat. Please continue praying for us as well as praising God with us for the ways He has answered prayers! And we pray all of the merging the week has will go as well as it did today!

 

service-time-mountains-pano-sepia-2nd-edit

Join us Sunday at 

10:30am