Summer Service 2017 - Dominican Republic

For the past few days while in the Dominican Republic our team has been working with Mark Hare and Jenny Bent, two PCUSA mission coworkers living in Barahona. They do lot of different things, but we were able to work with them and learn from them in the area of Community Health Evangelism. Picture of a mapped out community made/constructed by members of the community.

As an avid swimmer in Lake Michigan I have definitely dealt with the undertow and waves quite a bit. Water is amazing and powerful, but definitely not safe. We need water to live and the Earth and our bodies are over 75% water. But that doesn't mean that water is not able to surprise us at times. And that time for me was yesterday. After cleaning up garbage in a neighborhood with the local members of CHE (community health evangelism) and Jenny and Mark, our team headed to the beach. We were accompanied by seven of the Dominican members of CHE who we worked alongside earlier in the day. This beach was phenomenal. We drove up a mountain and then down to the water. There were no tourists there, so it was clearly a spot for locals. The beauty on the ocean and the waves did have one downside - rocks. There was not a sandy beach, but instead a rocky beach and rocks in the water. The rocks, the waves, and the undertow made swimming difficult, but not impossible. We all got in the wate

Day 4 in Barahona was mostly time spent in the Dominicans of Haitian descent community. In the morning we went to Batey 7 to learn about the community and its history as well as sit in during a health info session with a bunch of mothers. We were taught that Bateys were originally the living areas for Dominicans who worked in the huge amounts of sugar cane fields in the surrounding areas. It was a much different community than the rest of the Dominican we've seen so far. It was my more run down and had very different infrastructure. None of the streets were paved but a majority of the city had very, very nice sidewalks and curbs lining the streets, which stood out among the rest of the buildings and the street. The largest neighborhood was named la gran manzana, or "The Big Apple", and they also had a Martin Luther King street. It was really interesting to see the difference in life style between the city and the Batays. Hearing Creole spoken by Marc Hare (one of two PC

Today was a tough day. But not in the normal sense. During the day we worked with a local church and Mark Hare and Jenny Bent (the two PCUSA mission coworkers) doing health checks for the children. They have a program already in. Place where they teach about healthy living and healthy eating. They also check the children's height, weight, and hemoglobin levels twice a year. We worked through about 75 children today. It went well (not smoothly, but well!) It was after that when we had a rough experience....we found our way to the basketball courts in Barahona. We found our first real challenge. Our first game was a breeze, but then the real players walked on the court. I am not exaggerating when I say one guy was 6'8", one was 6'5", and another was 6'6", 250 pounds with shoulders that could be confused with basketballs due to the similarity in size. They whooped us. Three times in a row. They made us keep playing and we were exhausted. But it was a lot

Today for breakfast we served up a nice display of food we've learned along our travels. Stu is seen here frying up some slices of salami, a great pairing for any hearty breakfast!!!  Next we harvested some mangos for Soyla's(our pastor/house mom from Samaná) signature mango smoothie. How could you pass up such a morning treat!  Lastly you can never forget to pick up a 50 cent pineapple from the local supermercado to balance out your morning. Check in soon for more tips n tricks!!!  Quick updates: -to our surprise dogs, cats, and chickens aren't the only animals/critters you'll find on your property. Here in Bani we made a new rat friend and named him Remmy. You'll never guess where we found him! -yesterday we were given the task of cleaning on the pool for the campers coming to the --- this week. The kicker? The deep end holds a puddle of water with thousands of tadpoles occupying the space. We were given a few buckets with jump ropes to hoist up the remains.  Ques

There's an energy in the world that can't be measured. I'm not talking about the physics definition of energy (because spoiler alert: that can be measured), I'm talking about that feeling. That feeling that we as human beings feel and share a connection over that common feeling. When it's midnight and you're in a movie theatre full of people, and that title comes on and you sense all the people around you are over the moon emotional. When you are at a concert, surrounded by strangers and friends alike, and you hear that chord, those notes, and you see the stranger next to you tear up, and then you do too because you realize that you are a part of something bigger than yourself. If we want to relate this energy to something us peeps on this trip might relate to, it's the feeling on a basketball court when all 5 players touch the ball, and keep on zipping it around until the perfect shot is available and we all just know, it has to go in. Energy. It can be fe