Our last days here

Today is bittersweet. As we write this we are bouncing along the road to Santo Domingo to catch our flight home. 
Our last few days were filled to the brim with activities. The 4th of July festivities were a grand success for all in attendance! (Four Dominicans showed up, but we had a blast.) Our one “firework” lit up the Dominican sky for 15 seconds and made Lady Liberty proud. Saturday we delivered our last two garbage talks in Don Bosco and Algodon. Because we have built relationships with kids in each community everyone there was more attentive. Showing that we cared for them personally allowed the lesson to be received as more than just a lecture. Rather, it was evident we are genuinely concerned for their health and well-being. 
Sunday morning was a powerful time of fellowship at small local church. Similar to the other two churches we have visited on our trip, the worship had strong singing and praise dancing. Naomi was called upon once again to sing Hosanna, and, without any experience with this new band, made our entire group very proud. The rest of Sunday was spent recharging at the casa and the beach. 
Monday and Tuesday were jam packed as we made the final push to finish our assignments. Jack worked with Tony, the latrine builder, to lay flooring for three new latrines. Another team is coming within the week to complete each of these latrines. Sarah and Candice continued on with house-to-house patient histories and presenting their health lesson. Their last scheduled talk was to the guys at I Love Baseball. Taking what we’ve learned about the multitude of career ending injuries, they decided to focus on arm injury care and prevention. Even the coach noted the importance of, and lack of, these practices. Naomi and Cierra delivered 3 more bible lessons, focusing on forgiveness, identity and integrity. Naomi said that it was rewarding to see the same smiling faces returning, listening attentively and contributing to discussions. It was difficult to explain to our friends, who had become our brothers and sisters, that we weren’t returning the next day. The reality set in: that our trip was coming to a close.
Last night COTN threw us a going away party complete with food, a tres leches cake, merengue dancing, lots of pictures, and our last goodbyes to our friends here. It was truly a special night and the perfect way to end our trip. This morning, we all woke up early to catch our last Dominican sunrise and then head off to the airport.
Each of us are eternally grateful for this trip-the relationships we’ve built, the lessons we’ve learned, and the second home we gained at Casa Betesda. I know we will all deeply cherish our memories here in Barahona and return as soon as we can.
Thanks for coming along with us on our journey! 
Team DR 

   
   

Flight update

Quick flight status update for Candice, Cierra, Jack and Naomi:  weather delayed their scheduled flight, so they’ll now return tonight at 11:30 pm on American flight 134.

Sarah’s flight, American 2245, remains on-time to return to San Diego at 9:50 pm.

Owen.

Home soon!

Hello, friends!

After three weeks in the Dominican Republic, the team will return to the States Wednesday night.  As you prepare to receive them, here are some things I hope you’ll think about to help the team make the most of this trip.

Here’s flight information for those of you meeting students at the airport:

• Naomi, Candice, Cierra and Jack return to Seattle at 12:40 AM on Thursday morning, July 9 on AMERICAN #1901.
• Sarah returns to San Diego at 9:50 PM on Wednesday night, July 8 on AMERICAN #2245.

As the group returns, they’ll continue to think through this experience and its implications for their lives.  It’s likely that this mental processing will involve at least some of these elements:

• Relief upon returning to familiar surroundings,

• Frustration with aspects of home culture that appear less desirable than the culture and values experienced during the SPRINT trip,

• Sadness and joy over relationships and memories developed during the trip,

• And hopefully, Resolve to incorporate the learning from this trip into daily life as life moves on.

It’s our hope that SPRINTers will return to “life as usual” with expanded worldviews and a clearer sense of God’s work in their lives.  The learning process continues after the trip experience; students will participate in a debriefing gathering in October, and we’ll encourage them to keep meeting together to share the story of their host’s work and encourage future generations of SPRINT participants to serve.

I encourage you to give your student time to catch up on sleep, then set aside an extended period of time to share pictures and stories.  Don’t expect completely-formed opinions immediately; the reflection process takes time.  We remind returning SPRINTers that not everyone will have time to hear the whole story, but that they should find a few people with whom to share the longer, more in-depth account.

You might appreciate this perspective on returning to America in a blog post from Emily Brown, a former SPRINTer who spent a year in Zambia with the Mennonite Central Committee.  As Emily looks forward to her own return home she brings up a number of feelings that will also be relevant to SPRINTers in this season.  http://emilybrowntozambia.wordpress.com/2014/06/25/the-countdown-begins/

I’ve mailed team members a copy of the Global Citizen Journal, published by the Krista Foundation for Global Citizenship to help them think through their experience as they move forward.  If you have time I’d encourage you to talk though some of these materials with your student.  Take a look at some of those articles here: http://www.kristafoundation.org/index.cfm/page/the-global-citizen-journal-5/

Thanks for your support of students on this team!   Please let me know if you have questions.

Owen Sallee

SPRINT Advisor

owen@spu.edu

Tonight…Live from Barahona

Hello readers, of the future, because it will be in the future and not in the present in which I am writing this in which you will read this. . .

To begin, Naomi, Sarah, and Cierra honored God with their singing and praise dancing at the church service. We are so thankful that we can worship the same great God together, in different languages and different styles.

Starting last Saturday, two new teams joined us at Casa Bethesda; five college students from Seattle and ten from a church in San Diego. The energy brought by both of these teams in the middle of our second week of work was refreshing and greatly welcomed.

This week Cierra and Naomi helped out in any way they could with the San Diego team. One of the main objectives of this church group was to speak to young women from all of the communities about female leaders in the bible. Cierra and Naomi interacted with the girls by painting nails, having conversations with them, and simply loving on them. As well, they went to Altagracias and Algodon to continue sharing bible lessons with the children there.

Candy and Sarah went to the bateys where they assisted a COTN nurse, Claudine, in writing down patient histories. They also continued sharing their health lessons to the rest of the bateys.

Jack dug a hole and took down support information for the kids in Los Robles.

Since our Independence Day will be spent out of country, we have decided to share a bit of our culture with the Dominicans. We will be hosting a good old fashioned barbecue, complete with burgers, hot dogs, fried chicken, french fries, and watermelon. As to fireworks, in this country a police permit is required for anything more than a cake topper. So we bought a cake topper. Happy fourth of July everybody.

From all of us here in the Dominican Republic,

I’m Jack O’Hara (De-nuh-ne)

Half Way Point!

Sorry for disappearing for awhile! We have a lot to update you on that has happened in the last four days.

The latrine is finished! Jack assisted with raising the walls and roof in Don Bosco on Thursday afternoon. HIs work for next week will include digging and prepping for more latrines in Los Robles.

Sarah and Candice completed all of the inventory in the clinic: a supply room and two operating rooms. They have over 30 pages of handwritten inventory to transfer into Excel and hand off to the nurses for their records. Their next assignment was gathering information to go into each batey and teach a lesson on basic health concepts. Their focus, based on the biggest issues in the communities, is encouraging the use of clean water for bathing to limit the spread of disease and illness. They gave their first lesson in Don Bosco on Thursday and will be going to all the other bateys over the duration of our trip.

Cierra and Naomi planned on taking their lesson on acceptance, prepared for teenagers, to Altagracias. However, upon arrival there were 40, or so, 3 to 6 year olds. After attempting to share our testimony, and being unsuccessful due to young attention spans, we decided to improvise. David and Goliath, dramatized by Yenson (Jason; one of our translators) and a little boy from Altagracias, was found to be vibrant to hold their attention. By the end, all were quiet and attentive and heard the important message: we can face big, scary obstacles and defeat them, because even though we may be small God is on our side to give us strength. We now know to go prepared for multiple age groups! Always learning…

On Friday the entire COTN staff, and their families, climbed with us into vans and a bus to travel about 40 minutes out of Barahona to Villa Miriam. We were treated to a beautiful time of fellowship, food and laughter. We watched an organization spend quality time in such a way that we forgot we weren’t at a huge family reunion, and we had become part of that family. (Apparently Dominican’s express their love through relentless water fights. Thank you. Thank you very much. Dry was not an option.)

Saturday was spent in Los Robles and Altagracias, as we delivered a lesson on picking up garbage. After hearing that teams before us have given a similar talk, we decided to take a different approach. We focused on God’s request to us to be good stewards of the earth and everything in it. We rewarded the kids with stickers (postalitas) when they picked up a piece of garbage and brought it back to shoot into our trash can. Hopefully they can make a game out of picking up trash on a daily basis.

Along with the many new experiences we’ve had thus far, we were offered yet another opportunity to stretch ourselves. Cierra and Sarah were asked to perform a praise dance, while Naomi will be singing Hosanna and Hallelujah, in a local church. The evening service will be at 7pm (Eastern time) and it appears it will be both telecasted and put on the radio. Some 400,000 people are expected to be tuning in. Something must have been lost in translation, right? Either way, send your prayers our way as we allow ourselves to be used by God in this new and exciting way among our new friends in the Dominican Republic (and abroad). If anyone is interested in tuning in, here is the website! http://www.resurreccionyvida.org/tv.html You’ll have to navigate the Spanish, but we believe in you. Have no fear if it doesn’t work, our devoted fan base (Candice and Jack) will be recording it for us.

The work will continue next week, our last full week in the Dominican Republic. Continue to join with us in prayer as we move forward in His plan for us in the remainder of our time here.

Adios!

Team RD

The mustache stickers were a big hit (Thanks Mindy)

Our second day of work is complete! We all woke up pretty tired, although not from jet lag, as we have all become accustomed to Dominican time. Time is a different concept here. I’ve heard talk about island time and the relaxed perspective of islanders, but I thought it was an exaggeration. To make it clear, I was very wrong. It isn’t uncommon to wait an extra 20-30 minutes for the van to arrive for our morning and afternoon ride to work. The idea of productivity follows the same line of thought. People and conversations are the priority, without exception! (The only exception to this is the start of lunch at noon and the end of the work day at 5pm, as it should be. 🙂 )

To affirm this concept, Cierra and I (Naomi) sat in the office of spiritual developement for 2 hours this afternoon. We talked to the pastor and youth pastor, with some help from a translator, and assisted them with their English. It was great to deepen relationships with them all! This morning we were able to go into Los Robles and teach a Bible lesson we prepared. We talked about acceptance; both God’s acceptance of us and our acceptance of other people. The idea that God loves and accepts us all, without regard for physical appearance or social status and that we should do the same, was shared with them through a translator. They were interactive and engaged, and we will miss not seeing them for two weeks.

The latrine is almost finished! Jack is learning a lot and appreciates that he can offer basic assistance through manual labor, while the experienced workers show him the ropes. Their work is incredibly precise considering the lack of specialized tools. The walls and roof go up tomorrow and then Don Bosco will have one more much needed working latrine.

Sarah and Candice continued their work in the clinic, making very detailed records of all the inventory in the supplies room. Jack joined in their efforts, as he was waiting for the concrete to dry for the latrine. They completed the supply room and were shown to the operations room, where inventory continued! When they returned to la casa this evening many pages of inventory were brought with them which need to be transferred into Excel for the clinic’s records. Candice was hard at work making those digital records for most of the evening!

It’s early to bed now!

Buenos noches – Team RD

The Work Begins!

Hola Mis Familia！

Today was the first day of the rest of our lives! Just kidding it was the first day of our assignments. (But still just as important!) We woke up this morning feeling excited but also understandably nervous to finalize our assignments and see who we would be working with. After eating a fabulous breakfast, we were driven to the main Children of the Nation’s office. There we split into three groups- Sarah and Candice (or “Candi” as they call her) were taken to the clinic to help the nurses with inventory. Jack left with Pablo to plan and buy materials to build his 1st latrine. (We’re so proud of him!) Naomi and I (Cierra) sat and waited for our assignments. We waited for two hours! In the meantime Miseil gave us our group schedule for the rest of our time here. For Naomi and I our main objective would be to offer spiritual guidance to groups of teenagers in the Bateys. Before Naomi and I could start our assignment, it was decided that we would visit the “I Love Baseball” camp. This program is specially designed for Dominican boys to learn how to play baseball and then train in hopes of being scouted by American professional teams. The ages of the boys ranged from 10-19 years old. In addition to baseball, they are provided with Bible classes and encouraged to pursue their education as much as their love of baseball. After we all were formally introduced, Naomi suggested that we play a friendly game of baseball. (THANKS NAOMI!) We all did pretty well and had lots of fun. Running in skirts created a new challenge for some of us; we rocked it!

After our lunchtime siesta we travelled back to the COTN office to finish our assignments. Since Naomi and I hadn’t started, we were anxious to get going. We went to Los Robles (One of the Bateys) to give our testimonials. It was interesting to hear our personal stories being translated into Spanish and shared with people we just met. Tomorrow we have been asked to return and teach a Bible lesson; we must have done a good job 😉

Sarah and Candice are looking forward to completing their inventory of the various medical supplies in the clinic. They are feeling a bit overwhelmed by the mass amount of disorganization but I know they can do it. We will be praying for them.

Since the hole for the latrine has already been dug and the supplies were all purchased today, Jack (along with Tony, the latrine builder) will begin construction on the latrine tomorrow morning. It should be noted that there is only funding to build one latrine at this time, which should only take a few days at the most to complete.  Go Jack!

Please continue to pray for us as we get ready for tomorrow!

Peace and Love,

Cierra

Team RD

Que lo Que?

Our answer to the title question would be !Tranquilo!

Yesterday we immersed ourselves in the culture of downtown Barahona. Today we attended church for the first time. We are very excited to begin our assignments tomorrow.

Signing off,

Jack Maverick O’Hara

Signing back on,

The rest of the Team

To elaborate on what Jack said, new translators, Ruben and Renaldo, showed us around downtown Barahona on Saturday. Cierra bought a Bible and Jack bought a newspaper. We all had opportunities to work on our Spanish while assisting our new friends with their English. This morning we piled in the van and headed off to church at la Iglesia Buenas Nuevas (Good News Church). Aside from two songs, all of the worship and the rest of the service was in Spanish. The people were very passionate and enthusiastic; there was praise dancing, which Cierra appreciated being that she is apart of the praise dance ministry at SPU (Shout out to ACF (After Choir Flava)).

After dinner, Misiel (the Director of Missions) shared with us information about our assignments. Sarah and Candice will be working in the clinic with local nurses. Cierra and Naomi are going to be working with the sponsorship director working on sponsorships. Jack is going to Don Basco (one of the bateys) to begin plans for the construction of latrines. We are all so excited! Pray for a good night’s sleep so we can have lots of energy for tomorrow!

Adios,

Team RD

Zoom in on Jack’s face 😉

Day 2: Commence Cultural Shock

Today was enlightening and eye-opening to say the least. We visited all five batey’s in Barahona and got to see first hand the immense impact Children of the Nations has on each of the batey’s. For those of you who don’t know, batey’s were originally homes for migrant Haitians working in the Dominican sugar cane fields. The batey’s are now home to third and fourth generation Haitian-Dominicans (for more background info on the batey’s and COTN’s involvement, see the attached link).

Children of the Nation’s builds schools to offer free education to those ages 4-18, provides food and clean water, provides clothing, builds latrines, repairs/rebuilds homes, provides summer camps and bible studies, offers free health services, and gives out scholarships so their students can pursue their education at a college level. The impact COTN has had became evident today when we heard personal stories and saw the positive affect of the long term work they have done. Multiple members of the batey’s personally told us their life would not be what it is today if it weren’t for COTN. We are humbled to be even a small part of this incredible ongoing work.

We’re all processing our experiences differently, but are grateful that we can communicate and be a support to each other. The foundation of communication we are building within our team will be very beneficial as the days go on. As of right now we are all pretty tired from the mass amount of information, exposer and cultural shock we encountered today. Our Spanish is slowly progressing, but we are experiencing some frustration in our lack of ability to convey what we actually feel in Spanish. Our hope is to be able to participate in deep conversations and accurately convey our gratitude with the leaders and adults in the community. We know this may not be realistic in three weeks, but it’s a goal we’re working towards. We are also trying to keep in mind that we have only been here for two full days… For now we are all off to shower off our multiple layers of sunscreen and Deet. Pray for a good night’s sleep and fulfilled energy!

Buenos noches!

-Team RD (Republica Dominicana)

https://medium.com/@COTNI/no-country-for-young-men-life-in-the-dominican-republic-as-a-non-citizen-8409a5b74c71

Bienvenidos!

Hola friends!

We are officially safe and sound at the COTN base in Barahona. We were introduced to everyone here at the compound, who welcomed us warmly with food, cold drinks and Dominican coffee. Cierra and Jack have been picking up and remembering the conversational Spanish they took years ago, and the rest of us are using the little we know, asking questions, and learning as we go. They are kind and patient and we have hope for much improvement over the next 3 weeks. No serious jet lag has hit us yet! (However, Jack took full advantage of the 3 hour car ride from Santo Domingo to Barahona and napped up a storm. Pictures included.)

The plan for the next couple of days, until Monday when we start our official assignments, is touring the batey’s (bot-ehs), attending church on Sunday, going to the coast, and getting familiar with the people we will be interacting with each day. The main part of our assignment will be working with the community while translating letters for sponsored children. We may also be working in the COTN clinics assisting with wellness check-ups.

Pray for continued safety, good weather and grace as we learn to communicate through the language barrier. We love you all, and look forward to sharing our adventures with you!

Adios!

-Team DR

As Promised 😉