Time

Our journey to the Dominican Republic lasted 24 hours, arriving at 1:30 am, with no luggage. You see, our flight to Miami was delayed and so when we actually arrived we had 10 minutes to catch our plane to the DR, therefore the plane didn’t have time to catch our luggage. But, praise God because 48 hours later, our luggage was delivered to the home where we were staying.

 It was a crazy and hectic way to begin our trip, and this whole not “on-time” thing really set the precedence for the rest of our journey. Our God sure does have a sense of humor, though. This whole summer He is absolutely trying to teach me how to just “go with the flow”. If ya’ll know me…Kayla isn’t too well with the whole go with the flow attitude. But, our God knows way more than me and He is really changing my heart. I see that He is instilling a peace in my heart that I have never had. Usually I get so spun up if we aren’t running on time or if we aren’t on a schedule. But, slowly and surely that uptightness is fading as I begin to truly trust in the timing of Our God.

 

 

God really showed the virtue of trust and patience in the DR. It’s funny it’s like the time of the Dominicans is basically, they don’t have a time. If they say be ready at 9:00 am, it’s really more like 11:00 am or whenever you want to be ready. I didn’t get it at first, but that changed quickly.

We arrived in the DR on Thursday and were able to explore for 3 days. The first couple of days in the DR it was just the staff and our boss/leader , Steve. We really were able to explore the country, get acclimated to the time change and get our program & work sites in order. It was really wonderful to be able to just chill and explore with the 4 of us. We were able to attend mass at the first church in the Western Hemisphere, visit Christopher Columbus’s home, walk around the city, see the cliffs, visit the Mercado (market), and just enjoy the beautiful Dominican Republic.

On Sunday our team from St. Boniface located in Minnesota arrived! All 16 members of the group were so wonderful to work with and get to know.

 

This first day at the Community Center was pretty intense. At first I was frustrated because Raphael, our coordinator, wasn’t around and we had our group just standing around. Then God shown through because minutes after I was started to get real frustrated, Raphael came out to tell us that one of the little girls in the community was hit by a car the night before and died. There isn’t a hospital around or clinic except for the center but the “emergency” center is the part that we were going to work on so the little 4 year old girl couldn’t get into the hospital quick enough . So, the community was mourning the death of this girl and so they were just having a hard time getting started that first day. Talk about humble pie, right?

I mean come on , God. Day 1 your already teaching tough lessons…guess that’s what being a missionary is all about. Well, he didn’t stop there. So, as if I hadn’t learned my lesson, Big Man had more in store for me that first day. ( Back story is that the driving over in the DR is SOOOO crazy! People don’t stop for red lights, run through stop signs, drive on the opposite side of the right, etc.) So, there was a whole lot of traffic on the 2 way street out of the village and our van was literally stuck in non-moving traffic. I was getting real frustrated because I knew we had to get home to get to mass. But I mean sitting in non-moving traffic really isn’t a good way to get to mass. So, just as I was about to get up to ask the driver about trying to go an alternate route, our driver Jose told us the traffic is from the whole community  walking to the home of the little girl who had passed away. He told us that when one of the members of the community dies , everyone in the community goes to the families home to grieve and pay their respects. So, the traffic wasn’t from cars, it was from all the people in the village walking. What an incredibly tender and beautiful moment we were given to witness such a feeling of community and love. After knowing what was going on, i then noticed the people. How silly of me. I just sat back and smiled, not because I was happy for the reason why we were essentially stuck, but in thanksgiving for God to present me with so many teachable moments. In my head, He’s just sitting up there in Heaven like, “Come on, Kayla, when will you get the picture?! Trust in me, breathe girl. Your time is not My time, life is a journey and you MUST embrace it”. Alright, I get the picture, well I’m trying to at least!