We have arrived in el Dominicana de Republico!!! We drove. We flew. We shuttled. All 50 of us. And after a long 24 hours of travel, we arrived Monday afternoon at Students International in Jarabacoa. For the remaining afternoon, we all ended up hammocking and sleeping in desperate hope to ward of the inevitable jet lag. We ended the night ready for bed, our tummies filled with amazing food, and excited for the next day to come.
The next morning we woke up and went straight to devotionals to read through the book of James, as we will continue to throughout the next two weeks. After devos and a message where Dave, the mens sports leader, challenged us to be joyful in trials, asking God for wisdom as well as doing whatever it takes to avoid temptation. For breakfast we are delicious pancakes, Domincan style. Then we spent the remainder of the morning in orientation, learning about the history of the DR, their culture, and how we can interact best with the Dominican people. After lunch, we set off to the sites we were each assigned to for site orientation. I (Bethany Bramble) and Siera are both in the Women’s Volleyball site, so we got to sit down with our site leaders and hear a little about how they got to Student International, and then what our schedule will look like for the next two weeks. All the groups came back basically fluent in Dominican Spanish (haha!) and so stoked for the weeks of work to come. We are all eagerly waiting for tomorrow to come so we can start our first official day serving alongside these amazing people.
The Joshua class is anticipating two weeks of volunteering our time, emotionally and physically; so please continue to pray for our joy and strength throughout our time here. Stay tuned for the good things that will happen!! We are so excited!
Yours truly,
Jet-lagged, delirious, Joshua students
Check out the video from today!