2015 DR Discipleship Trip Day: 7

Location: Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic; Jara Bacoa, Dominican Republic

Praise God! Bronco's van has WiFi!!

This morning Andrew and Roger's made a breakfast of scrambled eggs with cheese and ham, it was tasty and perfect to start the day. After breakfast we work on the plan to head out to Jara Bacoa. First a team would leave to go get groceries from Bravo Market and a team would stay to clean the house. I stayed to clean. Bronco was to arrive at 10:30am but it's the DR, so we began to place bets on when we'd end up leaving:

12:45pm - Connor
1:00pm - Emanuel
1:15pm - Josh
1:30pm - Knepps
1:45pm - Jessie
2:00pm - Rogers
2:15pm - Andrew
3:00pm - Janie
4:00pm - Patrick

After hearing the totals Josh and I said we'd put money on Janie's 3pm guess. But after a few minutes Mr. R came over to say that if we left after 12:30pm then we could not go to Típico Bonao. This spurred us into much action.

The shopping group left after they put their suit cases in the living room and we started cleaning right away. Sweeping, laundry, dishes, counters, sheets, packing, and all things cleaning an apartment. We finished cleaning by 11:45am. Bronco arrived at 10:30 on the dot, this shocked all of us!! Patrick went down to see him and invite him up. Turns out that the trailer didn't have a lock, so he couldn't leave it alone. So Patrick stayed with him for a while, and we sent down a quadruple decker sandwich for Bronco.

While we waited for the shopping team to get back Josh's uncle and cousin came over, that was fun. Then we drank some of the juice they gave us when we first arrived in the DR. When they left we went to the girls room and everyone laid down and played dead till the shoppers got back.

When they arrived we loaded up the food into Bronco's van and packed everyone in then headed out...at 12:25!!!!!! Típico Bonao here we come!! Then we stopped at Patrick's house for his guitar. Then we stopped at the Santana's house to give back a towel and pick up a foot pump for air beds. Then we got slightly turned around. Then finally headed out around 12:37, but it's okay because we're driving to Jara Bacoa!!!!!

love,
Jessie Bear

Hebrews 2:18

"For because he himself has suffered when tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted."

2015 DR Discipleship Trip Day: 6b

Location: Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic

After church we went to an Italian restaurant for lunch. The girls piled into Patricia's car again, but this time she wasn't there and Mr. R drove us. All the guys hopped in with Jorge Santana in his new car. By the way, everyone who remembers last year, Jorge is totally all better, he's been fine for a long time now. All good. No worries anymore.

On the way to lunch we passed a Claro van with a few guys working on the power lines...with the ladder set up against the power lines. Yes...like ON the power lines themselves. Shockingly, no one died.

At lunch we had pizza. How American of us. Pizza. Yesh...and way too much grease.

Since today is Mr. R's 58th birthday and Mr. R was so sad that Jenn and Mrs. R would not be joining us since Jenn's been sick. But I got an email in the contrary...so for a birthday surprise we told Mr. R that his girls had plane tickets and would be joining us on TUESDAY!!! This sent the group into a buzz of joy. Then we sang happy birthday to the birthday boys, because it's Andrew's birthday too.

When we went home everyone took a nap, I particularly slept super hard. I woke up to a phone ringing and ringing and ringing, it was annoyingly loud and repetitive. So I went over and answered it...

"hola"

 - hola

"hello"

 - hello...

"who is this?"

 - Emanuel

"oh, hi Emanuel"

 - Can I talk to Pastor Josue?

"On the phone?" <-- that's how not awake I was...

 - yes

"let me go find out..."

 - okay

*goes to look for Mr. R*

"Emanuel, he's sleeping"

 - okay, I'll call back in 10 minutes

It was so funny...now that I'm awake.

Skip forward a few minutes and it was time to go to church. But Mr. R wasn't ready to go. So we left on our own. This time we timed how long the walk to church is. It was 8.5 minutes. It was fun.

At church I had the chance to do a Skype call with Bianca. It's really neat to share missions with other missionaries. 

Tonight was also the Church's Lord Supper, it was wonderful to share in this with the body of Christ in the DR!

Now we are hanging out with the Santanas for games and flan....yum.

love,

Jessie Bear

Hebrews 2:16

"For surely it is not angels that he helps, but he helps the offspring of Abraham."

2015 DR Discipleship Trip Day: 6

Location: Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic

This morning was a lot more relaxed than the rest of the week. We had oatmeal, chilled, and analyzed the lyrics to a few CCM (Contemporary Christian Music). Mr. R went to church early and told us to wait until Patrick or Emanuel came to get us. But then we realized it was a bad idea for that because both of the Dominican's have a lot of responsibilities at church. So Josh set an alarm for getting to church with a minimal time to be there...it went off. So we headed out without the Dominicans. Josh lead the way, then Janie and Knepps, then Connor guarded the middle, then me and Rogers, then Andrew guarded the back of the group. Our guys are awesome protectors. Just about 3 minutes from the church we meet Emanuel who had come to get us and let us know that Mr. R had just told him to fetch us and didn't know we were waiting the whole time. It was lots of confusion, and now we had more protection, and yay we made it to church in time!

Because the church live streams their services we all had to turn off our wifi during the service. Church started at 11:20 and ended at 12:45. Connor played piano with the band, then Rogers played a wonderful offertory song! Singing with the Dominicans is so much fun.

So...today is both Mr. R and Andrew's birthday. So we will be going out for dinner. Knepps gave him a card and some candy, it was 'sweet'...

I'll write more when I get to church tonight. Take care everyone!

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: -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."