NEW LOCATION

If any of you have come to this site looking for my Haiti blog, well, it's been movie. You can find my blog for Haiti at www.laureninhaiti.blogger.com/ Enjoy! (and please leave a comment)
God Bless!

I should finish what I've started

That's right, I've started this blog and now I should finish it. Many of you may be thinking, 'yeah, she's coming home on Tuesday but I just can't wait to hear about the rest. I mean it's like we get to the part where she goes to Haiti and then, what? It just ends. I gotta know what happened!!' Well, this is for those of you who are thinking this very thought, (and I'm sure many of you are;) that I am going to finish. Okay, there did I leave off...
Okay, I was just reading over the last blog I wrote to try an get an idea of where I left off (and got my distracted by the way) and I just want to say that I'm sorry. I did not realize how many mistaked I make. I hope you were still able to get the gist (is that how you spell gist??) Anyway, I guess I was in the capital and Sonya's house. I've moved around a bit since then. Right now I'm actually at Carrie and Agape's house. They were a couple that was in my DTS but had to leave early because, well, she was pregnent for one thing, but there were some other reasons too. So it's pretty cool to see them. I've been here since Thursday and I'm going to be here until Tuesday (when I go home, remember??) However, I am a little worried about wearing out my welcome, especially because of my experience in the capital. but it's pretty cool here. They are really laid back. It's a little different then staying with Dominicans though. Also, they are fostering a little Haitian baby named Jacob. He's five months old and he is SO cute you wouldn't even believe it. He went to the beach with us yesterday. Anyway, so I don't really do much here. Oh, I should say that it's Carrie's parents house actually (carrie and Agape are just living here for now) They are missionaries here. They were in Haiti before, so they all know creole and if they want to say something and don't want me to hear it, they just talk in creole.
Anyway, so I'm excited to come home. I wasn't really before, during the DTS, but I am now. I think it's just staying at all these different places and meeting all these different people. I mean, it's cool, I liked it. but I miss MY people and MY house and where things are comfortable to ME and MY culture. I miss being able to go to the fidge at 3 in the morning to get something to eat or sleeping in my own bed. At the DTS, it was different. That became my home and my bed, but now, I'm just borrowing them from people THAT ARE IN THEIR OWN HOMES WITH THEIR OWN BEDS! wow. guess I'm just kind of in a weird moment. Don't get my wrong, I LOVED my time here and is all reality, I will probably be back in the not so distant future, but I just think I did this whole "after DTS" part wrong. It's hard to have to say good bye 15,000 different times and it's hard to have plans change and to not really be sure where your going to sleep that night. Some of it was my fault, yes, but not all of it. Whoa, anyway, I am getting waayyy off subject I need to organize this. Okay, lets finish talking about Haiti first, shall we?

Okay, I lied, I said everything that I wanted to say on here about Haiti. I was going to write it down just so I could remember it too, but then I remembered that I already wrote it in a journal. So, if you want to hear anything else about my Haiti trip. Just ask. That also reminds me, I never said what happened with the second trip I was supposed to take to Haiti, because really, I should be in Haiti right now. Well, for one thing, I kind of ran out of money (I even went from my tax return which I still feel a little sick about) I feel a bit like the prodical (sp??) returning home, except not exactly. Public transportation is what kill me here. It's not cheap. Well, okay, I'm kind of tired of typing this and I think we are going to leave soon, so I will finish up later. Bye for now.

I just want to finish so thus, it is finish.

I think its time to come home

Well, I'm not going to Haiti, at least now right now anyway. Long story, I can tell you about it when I get home which will be on this Tuesday. Yep, that's right folks, I'm coming home on Tueday. See you then.

wow, hey, well I guess a lot has happened sense I last wrote. I graduated my DTS for one thing. I also went to Haiti. Gosh, were do I start? Well, ummm I'm in the Capital right now. I'm going to be here until the 3rd, I think, then I'm going to Haiti again for a little more then a week. Right now, I'm staying with a family from Logico's church. They're really amazing. I love Dominican hospitality. It's a family with the mother, Sonya and her two daughters. It's been really great. I thought it was going to be pretty akward but it hasn't been to bad, they are really wonderful people. Today I went to the Gym with the Sonya and then she took me to the salon. It was great. After then I went to Logico's pastor's house (which isn't far from where I'm staying) and stayed there until Logico came. These people from logico's church are amazing, they are mostly women and it's great how much they tease him. It's a little hard with the Spanish, but it's been ok. After Logico came and got me, we went to meet some of his friends to hang out with for a while. There are all people from his Record Label so they are all rappers. We went to this mall and just hung out for a while, it was really cool. It was kind of funny though, me, little miss white girl walking around with these four big gangster-looking rappers. but I liked it. I kind wanted to pick a fight with someone just to be like "you want to mess with me? Oh, boys?" My favorite part though was when we got our food and Logico was just like "well, let's pray" and then to see the four rapper guys in the middle of the mall food court, with their heads down, thanking God for our fried chicken and french fries. It was really cool. I really like it where I'm at now and by the way, I'm really falling in love with Spanish rap and reggatone. I'll have to show you it when i get home. Speaking of which....yeah...as for when I'm coming home...I think it's going to be the 18th of July...I think. Gosh, well anyway, like I said, A LOT has happened sense I last time I wrote but I don't think I will be able to write it all now, or maybe at all before I come home. but I guess I can start.
Well, i guess I'll start with Haiti:
Jacmel was our first location in Haiti. we stayed at the bran new YWAM base there with the Director, Lubens, and his family. (Lubens is awesome by the way) We did a lot of different ministries there including street ministry, a VBS for the children in the community, we worked with a orphanage and also a prostitution ministry but I'm mostly just going to tell you about the orphanage. or actually better yet, because I'm tired and don't really want to type a lot, I'm going to copy and paste what Sandra wrote about the orphanage on her site:

"The local orphanage is run by Pastor Millien. There are 26 children in the orphanage, 4 being his. He has recently lost their food supplier. And time has come to purchase the land. The land was on a 5 year lease. The land was to be sold at a locked price. The time has now come to purchase the land. This is where the $2,000 comes in . $1,000 has to be paid for by the 18th of June. The last $1,000 has to be there by the 24th of June. Recently, this orphanage has gone through some improvements. Because of a short term mission team, the orphanage was painted and cleaned thoroughly. Mattresses were also bought for the orphanage. A plan for construction for the orphanage was formed but unfortunately fell through.Youth with a Mission has a vision for this struggling orphanage. This vision comes from the Director of YWAM Jacmel here in Haiti. Lubens Romulus was himself an orphan, and dreams of seeing a new orphanage built, complete with a school. He also would like to see some sort of Tech/Vocational school started. And of course he sees these children being nurtured in the Lord's teachings.

Vacation Bible School--OrphanageOn June o5, Team Haiti and YWAM Jacmel put together a vacation Bible School day for the 26 children from the local orphanage. The children had fun watching some dramas, playing games and making crafts. The VBS theme was "chosen by God" and the children learned about King David and Joseph. They made their own crowns to remember that they are princes and pricesses for the Lord. They then had lunch, PB&J sandwiches, bananas, and juice. The children have lost their food supplier and are struggling to survive right now. Little ones wrapped their 3rd sandwich up to take home for the next day. As I learn about their struggles, my heart breaks but I know that the Lord is going to move for them. May the Lord use you to bless these children."

Yeah, it was pretty hard to watch them wrap out their little sandwhiches because who know when the last time they ate was or when they'll eat again. My God, they're presious! So anyway, this is what has happened sense then. I well telling my parents about how I need to do something to help and then my dad reminded me that we have I have an Aunt that works with Kids against hunger and we talked to her and she talking with her contact in Haiti which (get this) happens to be Gretchen from Lifeline (the organization that I worked with when I was in Haiti the first time) crazy, huh? So anyway, I've worked with Gretchen before and we asked her and she is sending twenty boxes of food for the kids from her shippment now and they are looking into maybe setting up some kind of continual arrangment. So that was great. But there was also the matter of the land...like you read, they needed $2,000, fast. So I asked my dad to talk to the church and he sent out a letter and the money just started coming in. It was really amazing to see how God works and now I'm happy to say that I just talked with Lubens a couple days ago and the land had been bought! This mean good things for those kids. I've seen their living conditions now and it's heart breaking. but I think that Lubens is going to do a lot of really good things with this place.
Anyway. so that's a bit about the orphanage. Now I was to tell you about something else that happened to me in Haiti. This is what Lubens had me write so he could let people know what happened:
Something very unfortunate happened yesterday. Three other female members of my team and I were down by the beach trying to minister and just talk with some Dominican prostitutes that had been working here in Haiti. This was our third visit with them and we seemed to be making really good progress. The three other girls with me were Spanish speakers and one also spoke English as well. Lubens was waiting for us in the van while we were talking to these girls. Then, these two men came up to us on a motorcycle and starting talking with the girls and us. One man left but the other one stayed. He was obviously very drunk and it appeared that he was the type of person that had caused a lot of problems there before. The girls told him that we were having a private conversation and that they wanted him to leave, but he wouldn’t go. He kept asking if anyone spoke English. We all kept our months shut. One of the girls told him that no one speaks English here, only Spanish and that we were having a private conversation, so leave. He didn’t listen and just kept asking. Then he came up to me, being the only white girl there, and said I know you speak English.
By that time Lubens saw that the man was giving us trouble so he came out to where we were and told him to leave. The man started to get really hostile towards Lubens and started cussing and saying things like “You can’t make me leave, I’m not afraid of you! If you touch me you’re going to be sorry!” Lubens just simple asked him to leave again, but he wouldn’t listen, he just kept threatening Lubens and trying to pick a fight. Lubens showed incredible restraint. The man finally, cussed at Lubens and then walked off, but only for a little while, then he can back and started talking to me. Lubens was sitting near by as well. I just kept my month shut at first. He went on to tell me for a while about how he was such a horrible person and how he wanted God to change his life and make him the kind of person He wanted him to be. He told me about how he would drink all the time and how even now that you could smell it on him. He also told me about how many people he’s killed. He told me that he used to kill people for money. He said he’s killed 6 people. He went on like this for a while and then he started to cry. Finally I said something, because I began to feel compassion for this man. I told him this, I said, “I can only offer you this, that I choose to believe you, I choose to believe that you really want to change, even if no one else believes you, I choose to and the next time you want to do something bad, remember me and remember how I believe that you can change.” I told him, “I can also pray for you, but that’s all I can do.” So prayed for him and he thanked me and then he started to cry again.
I really did believe him, maybe not necessarily every thing he said, but I believed that he was tired of the way his life was and that he really wanted to change. For a second, I felt a really strong hope for him but then something just changed in him. He just started talking about how he couldn’t change and that he needed God’s help to change but that God wouldn’t help him and that God didn’t love him and just wanted him to go to the fire. I tried to reason with him. I told him that that’s not true and about how God loved him just like He loves me, but he just kept going on. He sounded so hopeless. He was saying how he would see the people going to church with there Bibles and he would be so jealous. “I want to change,” he kept telling me. By this time he was crying a lot and then he told me, “I can’t change, if I tell you I’m going to change, it would be a lie. I can only change if God wants me to change and he doesn’t want me to, he doesn’t want me for the heavens.” Then he told me that he was going to kill himself, “maybe today,” he said, “maybe tomorrow, but I’m not afraid to do it.” I told him “no, no, you can’t do that,” but he just kept telling me how he wasn’t afraid to do it and that he was going to show me. Then, he went over and found a glass bottle on the beach and broke it. “Watch,” he said, “I’m not afraid.” At this time Lubens got up and took the bottle for his hands and I started talking to him again. “You can’t do that,” I pleased with him, “please, you have to promise me that you wouldn’t do that!” Then he turned his head to look for the bottle again and was saying how life was so hard and that he was going to show me how he wasn’t afraid. At this time, I grabbed his wrists and pleased with him some more to please not hurt himself. Then I let go of his wrist but he went right for the bottle again. Then he took the bottle and stabbed himself in the shoulder. It was a deep cut and he started bleeding right away. He didn’t even flinch when he did it. Then he put the bottle up to his neck and started walking backwards towards the sea. We kept eye contact the whole time. I had my hands over my month and I just started praying that nothing would happen to him. When he got to the water he waited there for a second and then dropped to his knees, threw the bottle and put his head to the ground. I wanted to go over to him but I couldn’t move. Then he got up and started walking towards us again. At this time Lubens thought that we should get out of there. The man can up to us again and said “no, no, don’t go, don’t be scared, please, don’t go!” They told me that we needed to go and so we started walking over to the van. He kept following us. Lubens made sure that we all got in and then he got in and started the car. The man came up to the window where I was and looked at me and started crying again. I looked at him again through the window with tears in my eyes. The others with me told me not to look at him. Then Lubens started going but the man put himself in front of the car. Lubens told him to move but he didn’t move so he just went and the man was kind of pushed out of the way by the van. I think Lubens handled the situation very well. He was telling me how he knew that man and how he had promised to change before and was doing well for a while but then fell back into this same kind of lifestyle.
We had to go to the police station and report what happened just incase the man tried to say that we were the ones that hurt him. It was difficult trying to get the help we wanted. Apparently they told Lubens that they were just hoping that he would go and kill himself so that he wouldn’t be a problem anymore. This broke my heart.
For me personally this was a very difficult experience. People say “Oh, he’s just a drunk” and “he’ll never change,” and maybe he wouldn’t. I don’t know. Maybe everything he said to me was a lie and maybe we was just trying to get attention, maybe. Probably, I guess. But I just think, what if, what if he’s telling the truth. When I was talking to this man, I saw something in him. I saw a hurt in him that seemed similar to hurts I’ve had. Now, maybe this doesn’t make sense and maybe I’m just being naïve but I believed him and I didn’t see him as so different for myself. Yeah, sure maybe the world would see the things he’s done as a lot worse in comparison to what I’ve done, but I know how it feels to fall into the same sin over and over again, wanted so bad to change, but still falling and knowing that only God could help me but not feeling like He would. But I had people who believed in me, even when I proved their belief in me wrong. I don’t think this man had that. This broke my heart so much, you see, because I felt like I was his last hope.
I don’t know where this man is now or what he’s doing or if he’s even alive still, but I asked that you will pray for him, believe in him, but more importantly believe that God can change him. I want to see this man again. I want to hear his testimony about what God has done for him and how that He didn’t give up on him. So please, join me and pray for this man and for all the others like him, here in Haiti and all over world.

That incident was really hard on me. I wish I had good news to give on this man, but I haven't heard anything and I don't know if I ever will.

Well, I'm kind of getting tired and I have church tomorrow so I better get to bed. Maybe later I will try to put in pictures and talk about the grosses experience I've ever had in my life (the Haitian meat market) but for now, I think i've left you with plenty to read. God Bless and I will see you all soon!

It's not always easy being a missionary....

I'm not going to lie to you, sometimes being a missionary just isn't that easy. I mean, God calls us to go to the ends of the earth and we just have to follow. I was pondering this as I was lying on the beach sipping my Pina Colata. Yep, it's not all ways easy being a missionary...
Every two years all of the YWAMER's from all over the Caribbean, and even some parts of South America get together to have the "YWAM Caribbean Conference." Lucky enough for us, it happened during our DTS so that meant that we got to go. It was five days in an all explusive hotel. That included food, drinks, everything, even a day at this go kart place and an day at this water park. We had two sessions; one for 8:30 to 12:15 in the mourning and then another in the evening from 5:00-7:30, but other then that, the rest of the time we had free. We were right on the beach too, so that was really nice. And you want to know the best part of it? WE WERE ALL TOGETHER AGAIN!!! Africa team and all. It was great. It was really the perfect rest we needed after our national outreach and just before going to our international outreaches. The only thing that made it a little stressfull however, was that Sandra and I were in charge of the children's ministry. This meant creating a program for them to do while the adults were in the sessions, making sure we had all the materials were would need, making sure we had people to work when we weren't working with the kids and making sure that they had all the materials too. And lets just say that these weren't the easiest bunch or kids I've ever worked with. Well, other then that though, everything else was great. I can't even describe how great it was and how much we really needed it, especially having that time to hang out with the Africa team before they left. Almost every night we would walk on the beach and just hang out and stuff. And another good things was that we didn't have any certain time that we had to be in by so I usually stay out talking with people until like 3 or 4. I had a lot of really good conversations and especially with this person that I didn't really get to talk to that much before. He's a really neat guy. We had a couple really good talks. I also got to have some good talks with people I had already grown really close to. I really can't even describe how great this time was but, before we knew it, we were saying good bye to our Africa team at 4 in the mourning. It was a hard good bye. However, little did I know that is wasn't the last time we would see them before they went. Since we weren't leaving for Haiti until Tueday, Sandra and I decided to spend the weekend with Soraya in the capitial, that also meant that we could stop by the Santa Domingo Base and see the Africa team one last time. It was soo good, we even got to go to the air port to see them off there. I tell you, it wasn't easy. Honestly I felt a little sick sending these people I loved so much off half was around the world for a month. I guess maybe I got a little taste of what some of you felt. I'm not used to sending people off, I'm used to going. But anyway, that was that. The Africa team was off and in Tuesday we would be going to one of the poorest, spiritually oppression, difficult countires in the world. Yeah, I've felt better, but I'm was excited!

AZUA

The third and final location on our national outreach was the hot, hot, hot city of Azua. This city though, however, happened to be my favorite place. Oh, but before I tell out about Azua I need to tell out about this really crazy thing that happened. I don't think I mentioned this but, I almost died. Seriously. So here's what happened: I was doing my laundry outside in the sinks behind the building that I sleep in and I was just washing, washing and then I turned and took a step to put the clothes that I had just washed in a bucket and at that very moment CRASH! a palm branch fell right on the spot that I had just moved from. Now this was no small palm branch, not like the kind you see the little kids carry in on Easter Sunday at church, but it was thick. It was taller then me and when we weighed it, it weighed over 25lbs! That's heavier then a bowling ball! Now imagine that falling on your head. All I could do was laugh, I was a bit stunned. I went and told Sandra and after going over and looking at it a picking it up was just like "oh my gosh, Lauren!" It was pretty crazy. Anyway, so that was that, back to Azua. While in Azua we stayed at the house of the pastor of the church we would be working with and his pregnant wife. She was six months pregnant and while we were there her water actually broke so her, her husband, and Terry (one of a leaders) ended up having to talk her to the capital. So we were on our own for about half the time there. The last I heard was that she is doing fine and the baby is still alive and she hasn't giving birth yet. I don't really know what is all going on exactly but also, suprisingly enough she hopped on a plan and is now in Brazil with her family. If you remeber, she a little Samualito (the baby) could sure use prayer. So that was one thing that made Azua a little interesting. It wasn't an easy place to be. One reason being the heat. It was soo hot and most of the time we didn't have electricity so we couldn't use the fans. We usually had about two programs a day, sometimes three. Usually in the mourning we would go to a school or something like that and then at night we would usually have a street ministry (I liked those the best and you'll hear why) . But in between really, the only thing you could do was just lay there and be hot unless you were lucky enough to escape the hottness by falling asleep for a little bit in which case you would later awake up wet from your own sweat. However, I've had some of the best showers I've ever had in Azua, well they weren't really "showers" exactly, you see the thing was that in this city (and a many parts of the Dominican) there isn't really running water, well kind of. You see, everyone had their regular facets and stuff just like we would for the shower and sinks and everything just here, the city only turns on the water for a certain amount of time once a day. So they have these big pastic garbage can-like containers that they fill up with water and that was your water until the next time that the water came on, it was possible too that they would miss a day of turning on the water, which wasn't very fun. Now this wasn't our drinking water, as I think I mentioned earlier all the water that you drink in the Dominican has to be bought (usually in those culligan jug-looking things) this was was for wash clothes, cooking, dishes, etc. and, the reason I'm telling you all this, showering. So basically was you did was just bucket shower, using the water sparingly of course unless you were lucky enough to being taking a shower when the water was turned on, then you could use as much cold water as you wanted. But even if it was went the water wasn't on, showers were still amazing, because the water was cold you know (I think the only time I've ever REALLY enjoyed a cold shower. It was the one part of the day were you could escape the heat. Well, after telling you all this, you're probably wondering why on earth Azua was my favorite place, remember how I said that? Well, here's why: the people, especially, well mostly, the children. There were so many children there it was great. I think another reason why I liked Azua so much was because it reminded my of Haiti, the children did too, except for here I could actually talk to them a little bit. This town is also kind of used to teams coming in so when the little kids saw us white people there were like "Americana!" It was great. It was the best in front of the church because there would be all these naked little kids just running around and waving at us (I got a video, it's hilarious) they were so cute. The kids in the church were great too, I clicked with them right away. We had so much fun. Here they called me Lorenia because it was easier for there little spanish-speaking months to say. I have a lot of great stories about them. There was one time where we were waiting before church and one little girl just started putting flowers in my hair and then some other ones started doing it too and before you know it, my whole head was covered with flowers. I didn't get a picture when is was completely covered, but the little girl in the pictures here that I do have, her name was Angolina and she was one of my favorites. Also, we would have so much fun dancing during the worship times and the church services I can't even descibe it. It was one of the most wonderful memories I will even have. I guess that's was heaven will probably be like for me (except for the heat, that's was hell's for) Gosh, thought, these children were so great. I really wouldn't mind going back there for longer term. If I was fluent in Spanish, I would maybe have been looking for a home there to live after the DTS was over. Lucky for you all, my spanish is still lacking;) Oh, but this is my favorite memory. It was after one of our street ministry programes and all the kids usually find out where we are at that night so that came come watch and they know that I will play with them afterwards. Well, first I should describe how crazy these kids are, they, like, swarm you. Sometimes we paint our faces so they'll like us to rub our faces on theirs so they can get some paint on their faces too. You're pretty much surrounded by a croud of kids all the time, and we it's time to leave, you have to fight your ways to get through the kids to the van and then even when you're leaving they chase the van and ranbomly stream our names. It's kid of reminds me of a scene for 28 days later or Dawn of the Dead, when all the zombies are chasing the vehicle that all the people are in. First its a whole sworm of them, then slowly they start to get tired and give up until there are no more. But anyway, for my favorite story, so it was after one of the programs and I was (suprise) hanging out with the kids and then this one little girl gave me a little boquet of flowers tied together with a little piece of wire from the street. I just about melted. It was so sweet. But then another little girl saw how I reacted to the first little girl's gift so she brought me some flowers, then another, then another and then before I knew it, all the little boys and girls were giving me floweres (and did I mention that I LOVE the flowers here) it was really an undescribable moment, really probably one of the best little moments in my life so far. Another little girl even when to get me a cup with water in it to put the fowers in then she arranged them for me and took out the "ugly" ones. Then she wanted to take a picture of just me with the flowers so I took out my camera and gave it to her so she could take the pictures but the thing about most Dominican children is that when they see a camera, they come running. So, needledd to say, I wasn't in the picture by myself, which I was glad for. But the camera drew a lot of kids over, it was like a little mob. It was almost getting dangerous. I felt like a celebrity. Anyway, one of the little bit older girls saw that I was getting mobbed so she took my hand and took me to her house to get away for a sec. Her house had a gate, luckily, so I was able to escape the mob for a little while. She was such a sweet little girl, she when and got me a chair and we hang out and played with her baby brother for a bit. This was a very humble house too. I think I'm kind of getting immune to it but it still breaks my heart sometimes. well, then I desided that they might be looking for me and that I should probably get back. As soon as we left the house we could hear all the kids outside the gate screaming "Lorenia! Lorenia" It was great. When went out and gave them a big hug and we shuffled our way back to the van with kids on every side of me holding on to where ever they could, whether it be my hands, my shirt, my pockets, whatever. Then I get back and Sandra was like "where were you? some little girl came up to me and said that someone took you and locked you in there house and wouldn't let you out!" I guess you of the little kids that was outside the gate was telling my team that. I though it was pretty funny. Gosh, how I love those kids!
So that's why I loved Azua so much, I plan to go back after my DTS for a couple days, I'm excited to see the kids again. Another great thing about Azua too, was what we got to do, I think was the second to last day there, we went and got the van washed. Now, that probably doesn't sound all to exciting in and of itself but where we went and how we did it was great. We took the van down to this little river and we could drive it right into. This littl river also happened to be right next to the beach. Washing the van was great fun. We got eachother completely soaked, which felt SO good. Then, after we got done we went to the beach, it was great. I think it was probably the best beach I've even been to. It was like the kind you see in magazines. That day was really fun, however we had to major downfalls to the day, the first was I ended up pretty sunburn but that wasn't so bad, what was worse is that while we were down at the beach, Sandra got her camera stolen, she left it in the van. She also got her mp3 player stolen. We all felt pretty bad.
Well, that was Azua, I can't don't really want to end on a bad note with Azua so let me think of something lese to say about it....Oh yeah, I can tell you about this, it's not a great but it's kind of funny. So this was after I had been pretty badyly sunburned and we were walking around and just talking with people in the community and we stoped to talk with this one old lady and she invited us in to her little tiny house to talk and have a seat. It was me and Sandra, and we were talking to her for a little bit and I made the mistake of showing her my sunburn. Then she was all like "Oh my goodness girl what have you done!" (it was in spanish of course, but it was something like that, with that amount of concern. So then, this little old lady goes and gets this little jar of, or well what once was, lotion. It was who knows how old and all yellow and separated, and she started rubbing in on my sunburn. I didn't really know what to say or do. At then end she was like "oh, is it better now?" I just smile and said "oh, yes, much better, thanks" then she even offered to give me some for later. It was a really sweet gesture. And even though I'm sure the lotion didn't help, things like that have to be good for your sole or something:)
So that ends Azua and thus ends my national outreach. It was a good outreach. Next we have the Caribbean Conference in Puerta Plata then, it's off to Haiti (actually, where I am right now)

The Capital

So, I supose I should continue with may national outreach experiences. After Jumunuco we went to stay and work at the YWAM base in the capital. It was pretty cool. We did a lot of different ministries. One of the first places we went to was a Lepore colony (I don't really know how to spell it but Lepore like Lepresy) That was pretty cool. Most of the people there were older people who had been abondoned by their families because they had the disease. Also, a lot of them were mission body parts and had big sores. They don't really get a lot of visitors, much less people that are willing to hug them and hold their hands and things like that, so they were really happy to hae us. They were some really neat people. I talk to this really cool old guy for a while, in spanish. It was a little rough but he was really fun to talk to. It was really and amazing experience. Also we went to an orphanage. The kids were really fun. I mostly played with these to little guys. They were great. We also went to a couple schools and a man's youth prison, which was actually pretty interesting. I was not too excited to go there because I know how most Dominican guys acted to white girls and I was the only white girl there AND these were also guys from prison. But they were actually pretty good. I only got one little comment as I was leaving but that was it. Also, you see we have this program that we do when we go to these places with some Dramas, a message, and stuff like that and I didn't know how well these big tough guys would take it, but it went really well I think. Omira (the director of the Capital base) went with us and talk to them a little and when she talkes, people listen. She is a really amazing women and I have a lot of respect for her. Anyway, it was our last day of doing ministry before we got a free day and we were just returning to the base and who do you think was there waiting for us?? THE AFRICA TEAM!!! It was so great to see them! And we got to spend a day with them before we left for Azua. Gosh, the way we greeted eachother you would have thought we'd been away from eachother for years. I think we have a really special DTS. And I know that everybody probably says that their DTS is the best, but really, ours is. And even if you even do a DTS, it still probably won't be as good as ours ;) We're just all really close and we have a really special group of people. I've seen a lot of other DTS's (A DTS is the type of school I'm doing by the way, they have them all over the world) and their not all the same and I don't think any of them are as close as ours, but that's just me.
Anyway, that night I went to a movie with Kristen and Terry. We went and saw Mission Impossible III (which was pretty good by the way). And I tell you, there is nothing like watching a movie with a theatre full of Dominicans. They're are just...really....into the movie. It's pretty funny. The theatre was in a mall so afterward we went to a food court to eat and they had a KFC. I was really quite excited because I thought I was going to get to enjoy a crispy chicken twister wrap with no tomatoes and light on the sause. But let me tell you something, they are NOT the same. I was very disapointed. Oh well, they have other good foods here that we don't really have. but, oh, how I was looking forward to that twister wrap.
Well anyway, so that was pretty much the capital. We has a lot of really good experiences and I was so glad that we got to see the Africa team before we left for Azua. They had actually just come back for there and they said it was a really hard place to be. I guess we will see.