Monday, June 29, 2015

2015 DR Discipleship Trip Day: -1

Location: Great Falls, Virginia

This morning started with an AMAZING breakfast by Joshua! Fried eggs that oozed and did all kinds of wonderful things to the little mountain of peas. nom nom nom... It was wonderful.

So far today I've been on my own yet not alone, if that makes sense. The Raimundos are here with me, but everyone is packing and doing "stuff" (laundry, errands, calls, etc.) and thus I have quiet or rather mostly quiet.

Mr. Raimundo spent 20 minutes telling us how he would run America if he was the president. He'd be a great candidate on every point except the part about not being eligible to run for the US president.

A friend sent me this. As neither of us agrees with "Children's Church" this was a fun way of presenting the case. So enjoy.



Later the team is going to be arriving around 5:00pm. I'm so excited!!! I'm posting early because I don't know if I'll get the chance to after everyone arrives and it's crazy. This may also happen in the DR, so be on the look out for mid day posts and even early morning posts! My goal today is to write another short post of this evening so that you'll get one more look into the Pre-Trip life.

Please comment with questions, ideas, thoughts, requests, or even hugs! Also...I'm going to be putting a few questions up on the blog, PLEASE VOTE!!!!

love,
Jessie Bear

Ephesians 1:13-14
"In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory."

Sunday, June 28, 2015

2015 DR Discipleship Trip Day: -2

Location: Great Falls, Virginia


Blog List of the DR trip:
Here obviously,
Jenn Raimundo,
Terri Raimundo,

I will try to update this list through the trip if there are any additions.

About this series:
Days marked with a "-" are before I fly out of the States, days marked with a "+" are days of my trip after getting back to the States but before I get to my home in Oklahoma.


For all the parents, here is the itinerary.


June 30th, 2015

Flight # 723 leaves Reagan International Airport (DCA) at 7:00am and lands at Orlando International Airport (MCO) at 9:10am.
layover
Flight # 1705 leaves Orlando International Airport (MCO) at 2:38pm and lands in Santo Domingo Airport (SDQ) at 5:11pm.


July 17th, 2015

Flight # 410 leaves Santo Domingo Airport (SDQ) at 2:28pm and lands at John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK) at 8:30pm.

Flight # 1507 leaves the John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK) at 10:15pm and lands at Dulles International Airport (IAD) at 11:28pm.


So...today (Sunday)...Jenn, Naomi, and I drove to church together. We had way too much fun rocking out (with the windows down) to Queen, Jazz, and a whole gambit of genres of music! Church was fantastic! Maybe more of this another time...

Us girls jammed out like this on the way home as well. Due to everyone else going to a lunch we were free to do as we wanted. Thus, we played all sorts of music on the drive...and purposely passed up the house to drive around some more just to listen to music. Way too much fun I say, it was awesome!

While this is a short post, I will have more to talk about tomorrow as everyone will be arriving and staying the night. It'll be a crazy night for sure!

Please pray for rest of the whole team!

Goodnight!

love,
Jessie Bear

Hebrews 2:9
"But we see him who for a little while was made lower than the angels, namely Jesus, crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone."

2015 DR Discipleship Trip Day: -3

Location: Gainesville, Texas; DFW, Texas; Baltimore, Maryland; Great Falls, Virginia (all in the States)


If you've read previous Dominican Trip posts, then you know how likely it is that I will write a lot at the start and not at the end. This is not caused so much by lack of writing ability or desire but mostly due to lack of internet. Thus please be forgiving on days I don't post. Although, I and my team would dearly love for your continued prayers.

This is just an introduction to the series for this years trip.


We will be traveling out of country on June 30 and flying back on July 17th. So please do pray for that!

TODAY!!!

I had breakfast in Gainesville, Texas with my dear friend Bianca! She's a fellow missionary, although we've yet to travel together, she's certainly dear family to me. It's been a joy to share stories from trips with her. This morning it was food, mission trip stories, and hugs both hello and goodbye. She just returned from Guatemala and I'm headed out to the DR!

After this, Mom and Beth drove me to the Dallas Fort Worth International Airport (DFW). Because I have the habit of attracting the attention of TSA (just ask any of my travel buddies...) I downloaded an app that live streams audio and video. So I started videoing and locked the screen and put it in the little bin to get x-rayed. While in line for the naked body scanner I made friends with a young couple from Brazil. Turns out we were on the same airline to Baltimore, Maryland, so we walked together. Philippe and Gabriella were darling! It was a real joy to have the chance to talk to them. They had been married 10 months and had met in college.

Alright, now for some goofiness...Bianca got me a stone hippo (because I'm obsessed with hippos...but that is a story for another time and place) to take on my adventures. I'm going to try taking pictures of Steve the Hippopotamus and post them for you to enjoy!

So this is Steve's first flight!
Also because all the people around me were speaking a language I couldn't understand (Ethiopian) I couldn't talk to them either...as this is atypical of my flights, I took the chance and went to sleep. Admittedly, I did feel like a kid. We went up, I slept, we landed! It was great! I didn't have to sit there waiting forever on a 3 hour flight.

On the drive home from the airport (My Virginia home with the Raimundos) Josh, Dad (Mr. Raimundo), and I talked about what "is" eternity, we also caught up on each other's lives, but most of the time was spent working out what is eternity in the context of well...God.

When we got home I was introduced to the girl who would be house-sitting while we're gone. Naomi is a sweet 22 yr old linguistics student. Soon after meeting her I totally fell in love with her sense of humor and love of life...and ability to throw pillows at Joshua.

Naomi and Joshua got into an entertaining discussion of how certain songs can be turned into pieces sounding like offertory hymns. To demonstrate his point, Joshua hopped on the piano and turned Taylor Swift's song "Trouble" into a convincing offertory piece.

This lead to the necessary description of what the song actually is, and the discovery that Naomi had never heard the Gollum version of the song. So, Joshua and I quickly remedied that issue.

Goodnight everyone.

love,
Jessie Bear

I Thessalonians 4:7-8
"For God has not called us for impurity, but in holiness. Therefore whoever disregards this, disregards not man but God, who gives his Holy Spirit to you."

P.S.
I wrote this last night, it was getting late so Jenn and I agreed to work "10 more minutes" where I finished the post, everything was finished, so I shut the lap top...before posting it. Sorry!