So because we do pretty much the same things with each team, I've decided it would be fairly pointless to just go through what we've all been doing again; so I'm going to pick something (hopefully each week!) to talk about. The first of these HAS to be Casa Nazaret - 'Nazareth House', and Sister Mercedes!
I mentioned Nazareth House a couple of weeks back in this post when we went there with the 1st team and mentioned a little of how amazing this place is, but I could barely scratch the surface! So here goes: Nazareth House is the home of Sister Mercedes. The lady I'm working with out here, who lives here full time as a missionary, wrote a post on her a while back here, which is well worth checking out! But in "short"; Sister Mercedes is a nun, who says she ALWAYS wanted to be a Carmelite Sister, living in the monastery and serving God there. And then she was moving to a new place or something so ended up visiting a place in Puerto Plata (she used to live in the capital, Santo Domingo), and helped out a little at a children's home. She didn't mind doing it, but she also didn't particularly like doing it - she just did it in the safety and knowledge that she was going back to the monastery afterwards. But God had other ideas! And various people kept saying to her, "Why don't you open a home of your own?" "A home for abandoned children?" and so on and so on. And God kept tugging at her heart and mind. But she didn't want to. She wanted to be in the monastery, serving God there. And she told it once like this, 'But God kept telling me. And I cried and cried and cried. Because I didn't want to. But God did.' And so she did it. She started with 5 children, and over the years she's had around 25 children in total at various points, but some have passed away or been moved to other places, and there's currently 15 children living with her there. And the amazing thing is; this isn't a staff-run institution. This is a HOME, in a very literal sense of the word. This is Sister Mercedes' house, where she lives with her children. She's their mum, and she loves them and they love her. Yesterday I had the chance to sit with one of the little girls on my lap, cuddling and playing for a while. She's 7, though really quite small for a 7-year-old. She can't talk, and she doesn't seem to be able to respond at all some of the time - but other times she'll clap to the songs we're singing, or make kind of "talking noises". And when she smiles! Oh, when she smiles... you can see she's happy; you can see that's her response! I'm always just so amazed at how each of those children is loved and cherished. Each child is shown that their life is worth living. These children are mostly abandoned; and not through lack of love necessarily, but through lack of the families being able to care for them. Some abandoned at the hospital, some at Sister Mercedes' front door. Some she found wandering the streets, eating from the garbage. And Sister Mercedes took them, and made them her children - loved, cared for and part of a family. How on earth she does that for FIFTEEN children... it can only be through God's strength. And that's the other thing. This house has no consistent income - there's no benefit system to help her or these children. She relies completely on God. Money from donations and teams is what gets her through; what pays the rent, buys the food, pays the huge costs of all the medicine the kids need... And God has always provided for her, and she has faith strong enough to say he always will. She is an incredible woman. Absolutely incredible. “Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.” ~ Hebrews 11.1 Lord, thank you so much for the faith of Sister Mercedes. For her life, completely given to you. Please continue to provide for her needs, and the needs of her children. And help me, Lord, to have this faith too. Faith to be sure of what I hope for, and to be certain of what I do not yet see. For you are above all things, and in you all hope is found. Amen.
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Team 2 arrived yesterday and we’ve been touring around some of the villages where we’ll be working this morning and they’ve just got a bit of time for a swim now before we organise any donations and plan our children’s programme this afternoon (I get the impression most of them are dreading the drama! We’ll soon knock that out of them!!!)! But I’m really looking forward to getting to know this team and watch them, hopefully(!), flourish in this beautiful country of flourishing! So sorry for the radio silence over the last week. My week to myself ended up not being particularly interesting. I went out to a couple of villages and played with a few kids; went up the cable car up the Mount de Isabel de Torres; oh - and went body-boarding in the WAVY sea of Cabarete! I have to admit, that was SO MUCH MORE FUN than in England, with warm waves crashing over every few seconds and a beautiful display of kite-surfers, wind-surfers and paddle-boarders just behind you! I enjoyed that a lot!!! :-D There were also a few of days where I did very little, as my laptop threw a tantrum (and then miraculously started working again a few days later! ¡ALABA!*), and I realised I depend on it A LOT in my free time… By the second day of this technological drought, I had come to the conclusion that if the vast majority of people here could have fun without any technology at all, then I certainly could too! So I jammed on the guitar and painted a picture! Hahaha! Not that most people here have guitars or paiting stuff lying around either, but… ah well!
So I had a good and restful week, even if there wasn’t much to report back about it! Hope you all had a good week too! *’Alaba’ means ‘praise’, and just shouting out this word has become one of the most recent catchphrases of our Translator! He’s a funny man!!! Team #1 left today and should currently be flying somewhere over the ocean! It was sad to see them leave as they're all such lovely people whom I have really enjoyed being with for the last 2 weeks! And there are many people here who will not forget the "gringos" (not in any way derogatory here!) they've spent various points in the last 14 days meeting and playing with! Hope the flight was nice guys and that you can all sleep off the time difference in one fell swoop (who knew it was "fell" and not "fowl", or even "foul"?! :-O)! But that goodbye did also mean that it was time to say hello to the apartment! I've spent my time in the country so far in a beautiful, all-inclusive hotel resort beside the sea with the team, but from now on, I've got an apartment in Sosua! IT'S LIKE I'M A PROPER ADULT!!! :-O :-D I've got one fairly good-sized room with a double-bed at one end, a little table with 2 chairs next to it, and then a breakfast bar, sink, microwave and 4 hobs (2 up from uni!!!) at the other end, with a sofa going down one wall. Then coming off from that there's a little bathroom with a shower, a toilet, a sink and a mirrored cabinet, and a kind of little wardrobe-cupboard-room with a rail and some wooden shelves! I LOVE IT! It's like my own little home! Hahaha! :-D Though now getting used to the non-all-inclusive aspect; my dinner tonight was a macaroni cheese 'just add water' pot with some French Onion crips (don't worry Dad, what little onion extract is present in the crisps wasn't actually sourced in France! ;-P) and my trusty water, of which I have a whole cold dispenser of actual drinking water all to myself! In fairness, it was only a brief trip to the supermarket on the way back from the airport and I haven't yet checked with Claire what out of the fresh produce it's safe to eat! For example, cows' milk here is a no-go because it's not pasteurised... (the saddest feature of my life for the next few months!!! I really love cows' milk! Especially with a little dash of Strawberry Crusha!!! :-D) However, I did ask Claire about the yogurt, and that's good, so I got a big bottle of strawberry! :-D It's not quite as sweet as ours, but it's good and I enjoyed it very much for my pudding today! Also, check out the name below, read that and then say 'yogurt' as if you're American - see what they did there?! ;-D Hahaha!
Mmmm. Today we had our touristy day and went to the garden of this REALLY cool guy called Rudy! And after having a tour around said garden (with 12 different types of banana, snakes, a peacock and AN ALLIGATOR! - amongst other things) and down the river where we could jump off the boat he made and swim around, he and his family had made for us the MOST wonderful Dominican meal! It was chicken (a leg and HUGE thigh each!), which had been spit-roasted above an open fire for a VERY long time! I couldn't tell the seasonings which had gone into it but there was definitely a lemon-y flavour and some kind of almost garlic...! I'll try and remember to ask him next time (CAN'T WAIT TO GO AGAIN WITH THE NEXT TEAM!!!). Then on the side was beautifully cooked rice and beans (the MOST classic dish here!) in a mountain with some potato salad (from which I fished out the bits of potato and left) in a hollowed out top! There were also banana chips, which weren't actually that bad - I ate about half of them, and for someone who doesn't eat ANY chips/potatoes/etc. that's good going! Oh and a dressed salad as a starter. Oh wait, and how could I forget: we had a yucca croquette (thank goodness for Google in the spelling of that!) as well!!! Yucca is one of the many vergetables Rudy was growing in his garden and I don't really know what I can compare it to... We had it covered in dry breadcrumbs and then fried, so the outside was really crunchy and the inside was somewhat soft almost like a slightly more sturdy version of a purée! Previously, Claire had told me about chicken croquettes, which are basically the bits of a chicken you wouldn't eat if they were laid out in front of you, in this fried breadcrumb surrounding. Only she'd said it was "chicken lips". So when she said we were having yucca croquettes today I shouted out, "It's yucca lips!", before coming to discover what yucca is, and also realising that chickens don't have lips...! Ooops! ;-D So I know NOTHING about food (not sure why I thought a food review would work!), but I do know that that was DELICIOUS!!! Everything just had so much flavour and so much variation! Something that seems to be true for most things in this country - I am so blessed to be here in this beautiful country God has made among these beautiful people whom he loves! I can't wait to go back and experience more of this rich culture again with the next team!!! :-D Team #1 have now had their 2nd week, meaning it’s not long now until we have to say goodbye to them. :’-( I’ve thoroughly enjoyed them being here and it’s been great to see them taking hold of life as a missionary in the DR with both hands! This 2nd week has been characterised predominantly by working (surprisingly! ;-P)! We’ve done a lot of building and A LOT of painting! A recent discovery of the Samaritan Foundation has been that concreting and painting the outside of the houses makes them last longer; so that’s what we’ve been doing! And I have to say, the house this team sponsored looks B-E-A-UTIFUL!!! My biggest highlights of this week have been the visit to Nazareth House on Wednesday and House Dedication & visiting the current house of the family who are going to be moving into the one this team raised the money to build today (Friday)! Nazareth House is the home of a nun called Sister Mercedes, who currently has 15 disabled children living with her, whom she looks after along with a couple of staff members she pays to work with her. She has no consistent income, but relies on God to provide for her and the children; and he has! They have never gone hungry or without the medicine they need, and they certainly know what love is. Sister Mercedes is such an incredible woman, who I can’t do justice to in this post, so will definitely write a new post on her at some point in the next 3 months. We got to spend a few hours playing with her kids, and they just absolutely adore her! The more vocal of the children would shout across, “Mummy, Mummy!” when they managed something cool they wanted her to see! And the ones who couldn’t speak, we would sit and stroke their hands or their faces, and they would look at us with the most beautiful, big, brown eyes and smile such beautiful smiles and you know they know what it means to love. I loved going there last year, and I loved it again this year, and I can’t wait to go back again with the next team! And then House Dedication was almost equally as emotional (for a decidedly non-emotional person! ;-) ). To meet the family and see just how thankful they were for this house was great, and then to go and see where they were coming from was incredibly humbling. When you’re building these houses you kind of look at them and think, ‘is this really going to make THAT much of a difference?!’ It’s small; 2 small bedrooms, a basic toilet and shower room, and a living space. But to see what they came from… They were living in one little room; 2 double beds taking up most of the space with a worktop, a fridge and an oven crammed into the corner behind the door. Their clothes were hanging from the roof in the corner, so as not to take up any more floor space, and there were holes in the roof where rain, bugs and even snakes get in sometimes! The toilet was an outhouse behind the building next to a river which, when it rains, floods. It was terrible. And now they’ll be moving into something that won’t leak and flood; where they have more than one room(!); and where there is no threat of being evicted because they can no longer pay the rent. It will make SUCH a difference!
In my Journal, at the bottom of the page in which I wrote about today, it says this; “Thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” ~ 1 Corinthians 15.57 We CAN be victorious over even something so seemingly endless as poverty. One family at a time! |
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AuthorI'm a recent Cambridge Theology graduate now studying for a Masters in Biblical Studies and blogging about all sorts of things! I'm interested in faith, Church, theology, social action, the great outdoors and being creative, and all of those things - along with many more - come through in my posts!
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