Flying to the DR was an all-day process, but we eventually arrived early the next morning. The Dominican Republic for me was a beautiful time of change and sanctification too. I was quickly working on my site at Physical Therapy, and got to serve others through this site in the same way that I used to help Grandma Doris with physical therapy in the months leading to her passing, all of those years ago. However, I felt useless in this and like I wasn’t really getting to make much of a difference. For much of the sessions, I was simply sitting there counting to ten in Spanish. However, I was reminded how just bringing my childlike faith and the joy that Jehovah Ori shines upon me.
As the next week went on, I got to firsthand get more experience working with our site-leader Silvio, with helping with a lady named Anna getting up, helping with leg/arm movements at the nursing home, and helping another lady with walking, when these were all difficult things for them, and much more. I was walking on a winding path in the economically humble, hillside community of Los Higos, as I had done many times before, while walking to our site. Which was a two room concrete-brick house with doors that don’t close. I would just think about how everyone in the DR is so happy with so little, being surprised by that, and what I finally got convicted of was my heart posture. By the world’s standards, these people have nothing… Yet these people have everything, if they are walking with the Lord having Jesus in their heart. How wrong were my thoughts and worldly attitudes that were ingrained in my brain.
The people of this community also live with rolling green hills all around and a family that they love and cherish, what a gift! Getting to serve in Physical Therapy for the week and a half I was in the Dominican Republic was both a privilege and a full-circle moment for me. I was able to serve in a way that before was so hard, but the Lord used my experience helping Grams to prepare me with PT in the DR today and then my moment of devos in SoCal to prepare my heart to be ready to handle it. I am going through the process of metamorphosis and God continues to be so good to me every time. The joy of the Lord is my strength, but so is the pain of the Lord.
Psalm 23 (English Standard Version), “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.
2 He makes me lie down in green pastures.
He leads me beside still waters.
3 He restores my soul.
He leads me in paths of righteousness
for his name’s sake.
4 Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil,
for you are with me;
your rod and your staff,
they comfort me.
5 You prepare a table before me
in the presence of my enemies;
you anoint my head with oil;
my cup overflows.
6 Surely[d] goodness and mercy shall follow me
all the days of my life,
and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord
forever.”
-Aaron Malena (Current Student)