You wake up on March 7th, 2016 and instead of snow, you hear birds singing and feel the warmth of the sunshine coming through the window. Then you hear motorcycles and loud music and you know you aren’t in Minnesota anymore. You get up and dress to the smell of breakfast cooking because it wasn’t your turn today and find one of your team members has made a scrumptious scrambled eggs and salsa dish. You eat breakfast and your host/interpreter/driver taking you to the Kid’s Alive campus, picks you up at the door and drives you and your team to the area. There you see hundreds of smiling faces that are excited to see you and you know you made the right decision.
The equipment gets pulled out that you will be working with that day and you spend your day sweating, and getting grimy or maybe covered in paint and laughing and sharing time with your team and knowing that you are making a difference. You stop at lunch and go to the cafeteria where the kids are eating and you sit and have lunch with them, knowing it may be the only hot meal they are getting that day. They are still happy and smiling and laughing like most children their age, even though they are living in a third world country and have very little. You see their smiling faces and know you made the right decision.
After working at the campus all day, the host/interpreter takes the team back to the team house where the shower feels good and a local woman has come to fix dinner for the team. The smells coming out of the kitchen are wonderful and you realize you have worked up quite an appetite. You eat supper with the team and after a devotion time, you spend the evening doing any number of activities from playing games with other team members, to catching up on your journal, to doing dishes if it’s your turn, to sitting outside on the balcony and watching the people of the D.R. walk by. You go to bed early because you know you will be getting up to do it all again tomorrow and you know you made the right decision.
Currently, we have 13 people that have expressed an interest in going on the Dominican Republic mission trip. There is still room for more and if you can see yourself in this story, you should think about going too. They have jobs for everyone. If you don’t think you can do construction, they will have you organizing in the storage area. If you don’t feel comfortable on ladders, they will find a job on the ground for you. For those of you who want to spend time with the kids, there will be that experience too. We will be starting our preparation meetings in mid-October and Brian and I are excited about leading another trip to Constanza, D.R. We want you to join us. If you have any questions or want more information, we would be happy to talk to you so we can help you make the right decision.