So... despite having so many things to tell you all over the summer, and even some time which I might've used for blog writing - my updates about what I was doing in the DR have been few and far between. And now, I am back in England, still trying to adjust back to all the many differences to life here. I may at some point write a blog post more about that in particular, but right now, I'd like to jump back to my last couple of weeks in-country and tell you about what I got up to then! I was in the Dominican Republic for 2 weeks after our final team went home. And in that time, I worked alongside Claire (our country manager) in 2 main jobs: we were creating sponsorship profiles for the children in the school in the village where she works, and we were viewing possible land on which we would like to build a new Nazareth House. On Sunday just gone, I got the chance to preach at my own church in the evening. The evening services are usually quite small, and cosy, and nice; and the lectionary reading was part of John 15. So I extended that reading to look at the whole of John 15 > 'I am the Vine, you are the branches... remain in me and I in you... that my joy will be your joy and your joy may be complete... follow my command... love each other...' etc. etc.! And I talked a little about Sister Mercedes (who I've talked about LOTS on this blog!), and I talked about Claire as well. About how working with her, I have been learning about what it is to remain in Christ, and to see him growing fruits in your life. Claire had spent last year working on the documentation process to legalise a whole community (plus more) of people of Haitian descent to enable them to (1) remain in the country, and (2) be allowed to go to school past grade 8 (into secondary education) and be allowed to work. And that was a HUGE task - Claire was running around finding witnesses, going to various departments and embassies across the country, writing out and translating various documents. And she was SUPER-glad when that was all finished, when the date came which was the cut-off for that process. So then she had a few months, before the teams started in the summer, settling back into what might be the "norm"! She could look at what other projects she wanted to keep going in the village where she works, trying to enable that community to become self-sustainable and to get out of the cycle of remaining in poverty. She, alongside another organisation she partners with, opened a clinic once a week in the village. She's looking at starting an English school, and having educational sessions at the clinic, teaching people how to better care for themselves. And these things on top of supporting the school programme and enabling students to stay in school for longer, particularly through providing transport to high school. And then... around mid-August, the organisation that runs the sponsorship of the school in her village emailed the school director, saying they wanted to close down their operations in the country, and this was their only school there, so they would not be sending any more money. Obviously, this would make it impossible for the school to keep running. So Claire emailed them back, and got them to at least agree to keep sending the money until January, to give her a chance to find another organisation which would take over the sponsorship. And then she started trying to find one which would do just that! She started talking to a couple of organisations, but they wouldn't even consider taking it on, unless all the children had new profiles, as the old ones were really out-dated. Which is why Claire and I spent those 2 weeks desperately interviewing and photographing every child, translating those conversations and creating profiles for the children. And as Claire continued those discussions, it became clear that this job was growing and growing, and that they would like Claire to organise the letter-writing 3 times a year, the translating and the sending, if they are to take on the school with their organisation. And Claire turned to me and said, "God just gives me the next job. The next thing I need to do. Last year was documentation, and now it is this!" I often think about what the job might be that God wants me to do next, or 'in this place' or in my overall future - and it stresses me out sometimes, because I feel like I'm searching for something in particular, like a hidden gem, and if I don't find it, it will be lost forever! But actually, remaining in Christ, and following his command to love as he does - trying to love in every situation, even those who seem unlovable and make it very difficult, and even those who are behind barriers to us and whom it takes effort to love; those hidden by prejudice, social structures, injustice, so on. Remaining in Christ, means that he supplies the work and he grows the fruit. I just need to be willing to see where he will lead me, and to follow in loving obedience in those moments. And it doesn't mean I shouldn't have ideas of what I could do, because all those ideas and plans Claire has for Esperanza (the name of the village) are all great ways that she is working there. But it also means I certainly don't need to worry about what fruit I shall bear - for 'Christ is the Vine, and I am a branch, and if I remain in him and he in I, I will bear much fruit'.
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This morning we (the team and Claire and I) were carrying loads of water pipes for the new water system in Severet village over stepping stones through a river and then up a big bumpy hill along where we'd already dug the trenches with the other teams. We had to keep jumping over the trench at times and ducking under the tree branches which lined the sides! Being fairly sturdy on my feet, on the changing terrain, one of my jobs was to stop at any difficult parts (like the river, or crossing the trench, etc.) and guide the team through them. This was all going well, but what we hadn't realised when we set off, was quite how far we were taking them... It took nearly an hour to walk up and down carrying them bit by bit and we didn't take our big, heavy water container full of drinking water with us. So when we finally reached the end, we realised that everyone was getting really thirsty; but we weren't going to walk them all the way back, get water and all the way back up again to fix the pipes together in the trench - they'd have drank it all by the time we got back and be thirsty again! So Alex (one of our translators and all round jack-of-all-trades) and I went trekking through the trees on the hill to find a road, and then walked along the road for about 20 minutes instead. Then we borrowed a moto from the president of the community - Enson - who's been working with us this whole summer, and drove it through the river (!!!) to pick up the water, and then back along the crazy road with Alex on the front, the water in the middle and me on the back holding - desperately - to the water container! It was really big and heavy and took up most of the room! So we had to keep stopping occasionally, as when we went over big bumps the cooler moved and started pulling me off! And when we went up a big hill, I nearly fell right off the back! But Alex stopped just in time for me to get back on and re-adjust where the cooler was! It was simultaneously the scariest and most fun thing I've done all year! :-D Things I've learnt from today:
Click on the photos for more!
Sorry for the radio-silence about what we've been getting up to out here! I've just been so busy getting back into everything and meeting back up with all the friends I made last year! It almost feels like I've never been away, and I'm once again falling more and more in love with the culture, communities and people I have the blessing of coming alongside in these few months.
Our main project this year has been installing a water line to give a community of around 100 families access to clean, running water - as opposed to getting it from the river, where they mostly have been doing so far. This will give the community much better standards of health and will hopefully be a massive blessing to them. We've also, in the last week, started digging out 2 big pits which will be the foundations for some toilet blocks for the community to use. This is what I was helping with this morning - digging out one of these deep pits, which will be about as tall as me! (And already is so on one side!!!) I have to say, throwing each shovel-full of dirt from the floor of the pit right up to the top of the pile of dirt we'd been forming as we go, really took it out of my puny arm muscles! Now, as I type this, I am very conscious of each muscle being used to do so! Hahaha! As we dig each morning, I've been trying to come up with some "team-bonding" questions for my little team of diggers in that pit - well, I was trying to come up with a reason for us all to take a short break and drink more water at any rate! And this morning I asked, "If you could design a t-shirt, to sum up your time here so far, what would it have on it?" I don't know why I'd had t-shirts on my mind, but hey! And one of the guys on the team said his would say, "Willingness". Willingness, because if they hadn't been willing, it would've just been really hard work, and like slave labour, and there wouldn't have been the joy and blessing they'd experienced through coming out and working. And on the face of it, it's a really strange thing - people give up their cash, their time, their nice comfy English lives, and come here to dig and dig and dig and dig, in the sweltering heat with sweat dripping down their necks, and yet they are SO willing. Every day, this team have come out ready and willing to work hard and to love the people they meet. And THAT has been a major blessing to me in working with them. 'Willingness' also reminds me of so many of the stories of people working here. Missionaries from abroad, local pastors, Sister Mercedes in her testimony; all of them, in their wide array of completely different stories - all of them have one thing in common. That they were willing to follow God, despite not knowing how or what exactly they would be following him into. Willingness to give their lives completely and utterly over to him. That is the challenge I meet here. Do I have that willingness in my heart? This is Cecilia - or Ceci (pronounced Se-see) for short. This is a photo I took last year, but it is so apt! I spent yesterday morning, with the Mission Direct team at Nazareth House, a home for children with a wide array of varied disabilities. Ceci has down syndrome and yesterday, I spent a good while sitting on the sofa next to Ceci as we all sang some songs together. Ceci was dancing and laughing her head off as we sang, and inbetween every song, she'd nudge me and make a short 'hmm' sort of sound and wait... and I'd repeat it, to complete hilarity of course! And when she could finally stop herself from laughing, she'd go again, and we'd repeat - the laughter never fading - until we sang another song! It was beautiful. I absolutely loved being at Nazareth House again. Seeing all the kids - talking to them - playing with them. Seeing Sister Mercedes - hearing her story - loving her. But it was also difficult. Seeing them still in that house, and no building work started on a new place yet. One of the things that brought this need home to me more than anything else was one of the boys, José. José is one of the older boys there, and he has to be separated from the other children all the time because he tends to be quite violent. So whenever we are there, using the back room, he has to be outside. He always comes and talks to us through the windows, and it's not that he's unhappy being out there at all - but Sister Mercedes would just love to have a padded room with things he can do in it, where he can do what he likes, and live and learn and so on. A new, purpose-built house would just make such a difference. This is life for them still. Still without enough bedrooms; still without big enough doorways; still without the right bathroom facilities. Just making do. The reason we're not already building a new place, as we had hoped to be this summer, is because we couldn't find the right land in time. We now have until December to find and purchase the land, so that we can definitely start building next summer. Amazingly, over the last year, enough money has been raised to buy the land - though we'll still be raising money to build the house this year - and so we literally just need to find some! It needs to be near enough to the school that some of the kids are able to go to, and to the people who currently bring food, to the children's hospital and the homes of the staff, and so on and so on. So PLEASE PRAY. Pray with us that land would be found. Land that meets all the necessary requirements and is affordable. We trust in God's timing and God's plan - it is in him that money has been raised this year, and it is in him that it will be spent! This is a video I made last year telling the story of Nazareth House, and what we hope to be able to do with it: You can see more about our project to build Sister Mercedes
and her children a new home over on the PROJECTS page! I've been having a go at some design-work, and I wanted to share the above design.
This design was inspired from a photo taken by somebody working with a different team, but in some of the same communities I was working in last summer in the Dominican Republic (and will be flying out to work with again in just 1 week!!!). The photo depicted the hands of a young boy, maybe about 6, washing the paint off of the hands of an older guy, around 20, in a bucket of painty water. The older guy had been helping the mission team paint one of the buildings in his village, but the young boy hadn't been allowed - but he wanted to help. So, when the others finished painting, he positioned himself next to the bucket of water, and when people came to wash their hands, he stooped down and rubbed the water into their skin to get rid of the paint. If only we could all be like this; willing and eager to help and work together, with whatever skills and abilities we have, with whatever we can do! I then went through my favourite photos from the 3 months I spent working in those communities and drew all the hands from them that I could (and which made sense, minus their bodies!). When I look at it, I see all the relationships that were built there - the child's arm around my neck; the new friend's hand on my shoulder; a boy climbing a palm tree; a girl playing with my hair; and so on. Usually, when we think about hands, we think about doing. But these hands show the people who I got to just do life with. The people I got to meet and know; the relationships that got to bloom and flourish; the reaching out from one life to another demonstrating the love that Jesus showed in reaching out from heaven to live alongside US! I am SOOO EXCITED to be going back! To BE with all these people again! And I pray that I would be quick to reach out my hands in love; quick to share my life with those I meet, so willing to share theirs with me. |
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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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