2015 DR Discipleship Trip Day: 8

Location: Jarabacoa, Dominican Republic

Amid a cold night air I was smacked awake as Janie passed my bed tossing me a, "Wake up lazy bones."

Okay, it wasn't so blunt like that, but it was hilarious. She woke me up for the sunrise. It's always gorgeous. The only disruption to our precious quiet morning was the screaming sick noises of a retarded rooster.

I went downstairs and made coffee. Then went on the deck to enjoy the lizards soaking up the morning sunshine. Then went to sit on the couch and play with the guitar (quietly since I was the only one awake). But by this time I was starting to wonder why I was the only one downstairs, when Mr. R comes in to say that Tomás, Josh, and Connor aren't feeling well.

Breakfast was plantains, cheese, and eggs. Yum. Then we start our I Thessalonians Study time. After this was over, Mr. R and Tomás left Andrew in charge while they went to pick up Terri and Jenn from the airport.

With Andrew in charge the fun began rapidly growing. He instigated a picnic hike. Sandwiches, bananas, and water bottles were packed for us. We headed out on our hike with a back pack full of water and a towel for the picnic, a back pack full of sandwiches, and a guitar. When we reached the bridge over the river it was flooded with about an inch of water over it. A few started to cross, and I began, then Janie behind me when suddenly she fell and got pretty scrapped up. It was sad, but since she's a trooper we kept on our marching. We went up a huge hill, then down the other side into the woods to the bottom where we found the river. I stacked some rocks and that was really fun, I'll post pictures when we have better internet. I had the guitar, and it was kind of scary but really epic to hike through a river with a guitar on my back. When we hiked back up the river (we came full circle to the bridge and headed back up the hill) and Rogers found a stable with a horse in it. So we hung out there for a while! Then we kept hiking a while longer till finally we found a sort of park/pool area on the river and we rested and ate our lunch. Then we headed back to the house.

Janie took a shower to clean up her scrapes. I spoke with Rogers (she's in school to be a nurse) about what we might try to do for her cuts and wrist (she couldn't really move it much) then I went and talked with Josh (who is considering becoming a Dr.) and Connor (who brought essential oils from home). I ended up going upstairs with a handful of supplies from all of us. Janie came out of the shower at the perfect time.

In the end we used:
Ice pack,
Bandana,
Tweezers,
Needle,
Tea Tree oil,
Bandaids,

Then it was my turn to take a shower, then I made another round of coffee for our Fearless Leader's Minions. Janie saved some of the coffee for a cake she wanted to make for the team. Then Connor started a game of Movie soundtracks. He would play a theme from a movie and we'd have to guess what it was, person with the most points wins.

Rogers and I chilled on the porch waiting for Jenn to arrive, and I see that one of the trees in our yard has fruit on it. I ran over and climbed the hill (these are seriously steep hills) and gathered 3 of the fruit. Patrick and Emanuel said they were guava. It was very interesting.

Just as I pull of the THIRD batch of coffee of the day, we get a call that they are almost home. Jenn, Terri, Tomás, and Mr. R arrived home with groceries and were a bit disappointed that they hadn't called earlier to tell me to start coffee for them to have, I let them know that coffee was ready, they all perked up. It was cute.

As groceries were put away, dishes were done, and Tomás made dinner. We all chilled on the lawn and climbed a hill to sing and dance. Jenn joins us and just not even 2 hours after joining us she's bitten by a couple dozen ants. BUT, in typical Jenn fashion she stays with the group to take a Slow Mo jump video. She is allergic to the ants, so thus began another medical intervention of the day. She rushes to the shower, takes allergy medication, we all prayed for her, and we applied Tea Tree oil on all the bites, and she laid down till dinner.

We had a I Thessalonians Study. Then all of us went to bed, the girls had a great talk, before we crawled into bed. Josh stayed up late playing guitar and we loved falling asleep to it.


love,
Jessie Bear

John 12:46

"I have come into the world as light, so that whoever believes in me may not remain in darkness. "

2015 DR Discipleship Trip Day: 7b

Location: Santo Domingo and Jarabacoa, Dominican Republic

So, we all climbed into Bronco's van and headed out...right, that is about where I left off?

*pause*

Okay, good. Alright, we made it down the road for about 30 minutes before I started to get a little car sick, bummer, but by the time I decided that it would be a great idea to try sleeping it off, we pulled into Típico Bonao. We all jump out in anticipation of epic Dominican food. Of course we had to go look at the 3-D map of the island before we could settle down to sit for our food. I ordered Chinola Ca...I know...shock.

Now, it is important to mention at this point that the DR trips have been rained on at Típico FIVE, yes 5, years in a row.

Back to our program. I ordered a sort of fish that had basically been drowned in a whole head of garlic. It was wonderful. *happy sigh*

After lunch we headed to our new house. It was a different spot than the house we'd used in previous trips. While driving around this gorgeous country we often sing songs of praise to glorify the Creator of such beauty. But sometimes things get a bit crazy. Josh gets the guitar and Patrick bangs on anything that could ever be a conceptual percussion instrument, and thus starts the madness. We ended up with songs like:

Strumming Like A Maniac - A tune where madness became brilliance.
I'm Missing My 6 String - The sorrowful tale of the lost love of the bass 6th string. Oh babe, come back...

Once the wildness cooled off a bit we started a list of songs for the trip. Maybe this list will be published later. But while we were working on that list we stopped at a gas station (pay attention because this is kind of amusing later) to meet the owner of the house and have him lead us up to it. It was here that our Ford Explorer's trany began to say goodbye. We made great use of the time though, we all crawled out of the van again and took tons of pictures then with the help of a few people's brilliance began to take slow-mo videos of ourselves jumping. (They will be posted once we get to a place with enough bandwidth to upload videos.)

We gathered up at the van to head out then realized that it was going to be a while since a handful of DRians were surrounding the engine of the Explorer. It was at this moment that the whole team made the discovery that Janie has a epic dance talent. Thus struck the dance party. House, Dubstep, Jazz, and even a Rap song and we jammed out. Then we pack into the van again and head up to the house. So we make more crazy songs and it was getting more and more crazy. Then we stopped for gas. (why didn't we just get gas at the other place???)

Connor started the quiet game. I won. It was epic.

When we got to the house, Josh made hot chocolate. There were FIFTY steps between the car and the house. It was intense.

After unloading we needed to decide which rooms where for what persons. There was a large room with it's own full size bathroom...but no AC. Then there was a smaller room with an AC but no bathroom. Usually the girls get the AC but we wanted the bathroom more, so I went to take a shower and discovered that our room actually DID have an AC! Praise God!

I went downstairs and went to the girls to say that we have good and bad news. The bad news is that we will have to keep our door shut all the time, but the good news is that we need to do that because we have an AC. They didn't seem to be inconvenienced much.

As the Emili and I were outside enjoying the breeze we heard shouting and tires spinning out. After a moment of thought we realized that it was Bronco trying to get over a hill and the boys were out there trying to help push it up the hill. Us ladies go inside, put on better shoes for the job, run through the pitch darkness of our hilly yard, and go to help the guys.

Dominicans are creative, not safety minded...

The van couldn't make it over the hill with the trailer attached...so we disconnected the trailer and pushed by hand the trailer up a steep, muddy, hill. It was scary and crazy and really hard work and we learned that we are committed to each other. We all realized that if any of us ditched pushing on the trailer then it'd too heavy and would roll backwards. But it never did, even when we were nervous about trying to hold it still while they reattached it to the van's hitch. BUT...the good news is everyone is fine, we ate a lot of food afterwards, and it was a bonding experience for the group. Thanks for sending all your babies to the DR, we're still all alive, so it's all good.

After this adventure we had a Biblical Thinking Study. Where we spent the whole time talking about a plastic deck chair and how it relates to our souls.

Patrick gave a Spanish word for me to figure out overnight. Cisped (grass)

Then we went to bed!!!! (my favorite)

love,
Jessie Bear

John 12:44

"And Jesus cried out and said, “Whoever believes in me, believes not in me but in him who sent me."