Dominican Republic Mission Trip

"The King will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brother of mine, you did for me.'" Matthew 25:40

What an incredible experience! Our team, which consisted of 30 people, 9 adults and 21 youth, returned late in the evening on July 22nd from our short-term mission trip to the Dominican Republic. We left Central Wisconsin airport at 6 a.m. on July 12th on three different flights to eventually meet and regroup at the airport in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. The travel presented challenges throughout the trip but God is faithful and everyone arrived where they were supposed to be and lost only one suitcase!

Our trip was arranged and sponsored through Solid Rock Missions, which has been working in the DR for 20 years. Their main ministry has been in the town of San Juan. Over the years, a guest house, clinic and school have been built and are firmly established in the area. Over 80% of the students who graduate from the Christian school go on to the university. They are looking to expand a similar ministry in El Cercado, which is where our team was ministering. As of right now, a clinic has been built and is operating. Anyway, we began our trip by staying in a hotel in Santo Domingo on the 12th and the next morning traveling by bus for 3 1/2 hours to El Cercado. Once we arrived in El Cercado met our host families. I stayed with a family of five whose children were 21, 19 and 16. The middle son spoke some English so we were able to communicate a little bit. I am hoping to improve my Spanish before I go back again.

Saturday was the beginning of the construction project. We spent the day painting their multi-purpose building, inside and out, with two coats of primer and a finish coat.

Sunday we attended church with Pastor Morales. After church we had the opportunity to take a bus ride to a dam about 1 1/2 hours away to go swimming. After the previous day's work in the warm weather, swimming felt pretty good.

Monday through Thursday we did Vacation Bible School with the children in the morning. The VBS was awesome! We started with 83 kids on Monday, but by the end of VBS on Thursday, we had approximately 300 kids waiting in line before we even started. We had to limit admission to 100 kids due to a limited amount of craft supplies, but the remaining children stood outside and participated in the worship, dramas, etc. Then we all took off to the park for game time. And after lunch we resumed painting the multi-purpose building. Through this 4-day VBS program, approximately 30-40 children raised their hands indicating that they had prayed to ask Jesus to be their Savior. God is good!

Thursday was a powerful day for me as instead of painting in the afternoon, we traveled about 40 minutes into the mountains to distribute rice and beans to extremely poor families. These were not poor in the sense that they had little; it was poor in the sense that they had almost nothing. Many children we saw were malnourished and it was heartbreaking that we could not do more. However, despite the difficult circumstances, the joy that these people conveyed was incredible. I will never forget these people or this experience. To share the love of Jesus in such a powerfully tangible way was truly a privilege.

Our "mission" ended on Friday with us completely finishing the painting of the multi-purpose building. Saturday and Sunday were full travel days and despite some interesting challenges, the Lord was faithful to bring us all home safely.

I can't help but reiterate how inadequate words seem to be to describe how mightily God worked in my life and in the lives of others. I learned in a completely new way what it means to serve the Lord and appreciate what he calls me to do, both at home and wherever else I am. While it was a joy to serve and give, it was made clear to me that I cannot out-give God. I returned feeling that I gained more than I gave up.

"But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ." Philippians 3:7-8

We are headed out...

Tomorrow Jason leaves for his missions trip to the Dominican Republic. He will be gone for 10 days so the boys and I have decided to head to Kansas City to visit the Hedlund family. So we will be up and at 'em at 3:15 a.m. or so. We have to have Jason to the airport by 4:14 a.m. ...yikes! Once our good-byes are said, we are on our way to Grandma's and Grandpa's house. We will spend Thursday there and get up early (again) and head out for Kansas City with Grandma on Friday. I will try and update you on our trip while we are there.

Please keep Jason and his team in your prayers. He is very excited to share Jesus with the Dominican people. I know God will richly bless him and all who are going.

So long for now.

Catch up

Whew! Sorry it has been awhile since I last posted. Our days and nights were plump full of miscellaneous things. But, I am now happy to report that things are slowing down a bit. The baseball season is over and it ended with a 2-17 record. Not great, but at least they didn't end the season at the very bottom. It was exciting to watch them improve and work together as a team with each game. During the season Kyle never got a hit (just a piece of it a few times), but did get on base a few times via a "walk". Two of the times on base he made it home...yea! We are very proud of him and the effort he put forth. Now he is onto swimming lessons and tennis lessons. When those are over and we head into the new school year, he will begin guitar lessons and eventually wants to learn how to play the drums...yikes...headaches, come on down! These have to be better than the recorder, right?


Now I need to prepare you for the pictures you are about to see. I never thought I would be doing this yet. I love my blonde-haired little boy, but Kyle has been asking to dye his hair for months now. Who thought it would start at 9. Anyway, Jason and I gave in. It's not like he is asking to permanently color his skin with a tattoo or put a hole in some part of his body...it's just hair, right?! (I'm sure the aformentioned things are coming!) So yesterday afternoon while dad was fishing, the boys and I made a trip to Wal-Mart to choose the new color. I was fully prepared to dye Kyle's hair, but wasn't quite prepared for Kory (who is 5) to also request that his hair not be this color anymore. I was also shocked by how excited they were to sit and have stuff squirted on their heads and sit and wait some more. Especially when they can hardly make it through a haircut without complaining and asking when it will be done. Anyway, the following is evidence of yesterday afternoon's experiment...

Kyle before

The processing time

The new look

Kory before

Processing...

The new Kory

It isn't quite the color I had hoped for, but I guess it will do for now. A couple of haircuts later and it will be gone! I guess I can always say that we are entering the witness protection program. I can only hope that this is now out of their system and they will be content to remain blonde until their hair naturally becomes darker.

Jason and I have embarked on a very large landscaping project for this summer... our backyard! Three weeks ago we had a landscape designer come out to the house to talk with us about what we would like to see done with our yard. Well, she is now done with her "plan" and we meet with her tomorrow evening to see what needs to be done. I can only imagine the exorbinate amount of money it will be to complete it all...I think it will be scaled down a bit :) But, when it is all done, it will be nice to have a patio and some living things back there besides the deer and the squirrels.

This week is a catch up week. We only have a few extra-curricular activities during the day (swimming lessons) and all but one of our evenings are free! And we have the bonus of dad being home for a day in the middle of the week...yea! We are not sure what we will be doing for the 4th, but for sure will be finding fireworks to attend somewhere!

Have a happy 4th of July and God bless.