Hi!
Sitting here i wonder if the world is circling faster or my time here is just to short. Months have passed and they feel like days. Life here never slows down or speeds up, it just changes positions and locations. Its completly seperate from the U.S. because no one here has an angenda or even pretends to have one. They are just spending time doing absolutley nothing and using everyone elses time to fill the absolutley nothing. It really is a fantasic culture.
I want to make it very obvious how much i love this country and how thankful i am to my supporters for listening to Gods call to support me in this mission. Life here is intense there is so much for the Church to do here. I have never seen a harvest so ripe for picking. People here are desperate for the truth. They have been lied to enough and can sense false attitudes, prospects and people from a mile off. I have never had such an amazing opportunity to pour into people like i have here.
For instance, today we did an outreach starting with a childrens program and moving into adults and youth. As always a mass amount of kids showed up. They even walked from other neighborhoods to join us. We played and sang songs. It was alot of fun but as time progressed more and more adults and teens came. We quickly transfered into drimes (drama songs) and the gospel.
It was amazing to see that many hyper crazy little kids on the edge of their… bottoms, listening to every word of the gospel. These kids and teens are not sensitive to much, but God really put a sense of urgency on even the smallest of them and they listened with honest open eyes. It was incredible. In the middle of the gospel presentation who would walk right through it but “The Mormons”. Alot of Mormons and J.W.’s are here and although nice they are not presenting truth and it is hard to watch them walk into the neighborhood that we have really invested in talking to our friends. That was hard to swallow. But God moved in awesome ways at the outreach.
You will see in this picture alot of little faces which probably at first glance dont seem that important. But take a minute and study the little boy in front wearing camo. Although cute you might notice the pose he is using. Like a child caught between two worlds he is posing like the older men when they watch women walk across the street. This little guy is all of the boys fighting to be men.
Next watch the two fingers poking at my eye. This guy was told to put his hand down, but in an effort to stick out he threw his hand out at the last second before the shutter clicked to tell the world he was there. A desperation to be noticed, that is one of the greatest plauges destroying the next generation of Dominicans.
Finally one more, the girl on my right. Sweet quiet and ready to please she puts on a show of standing next to the American holding the hand of younger siblings. Her story has never been her own, she feels like a character in someone elses book. So
many of these kids were born to pre-teen mothers and lived so hard that they expect to grow and carry on in that same tradition.
I wonder when that girls story will ever be told…
Here in the DR i am learning alot of different and exciting things, but more than any of these text book lessons i am seeing the immeasureable blessings i have been given and am so thankful. Thank you so much to all of my supporters for giving me this incredible opportunity to learn and serve in this way first hand.
lov emily
