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: 5b

Location: Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic

After the band's practice was finished at the church we went to dinner with the Santanas Family. All of the girls rode with Patricia. She's a really fun driver in her cute little sporty Mini Cooper. We jammed out to all sorts of music while she drove, from EDM to Jazz to Dubstep. It was epic.

We ate at Adrian's again, this time we weren't as hungry, so Rogers, Janie, and I split the fried fish that Mr. R had the last time we went. We had juices, tostones, avocado, and everything Dominican...it was a very tasty dinner.

The waiter added an extra seat to the table, and we joked that it was Jerry/Zanie and that he was with Janie, it was hilarious. Connor has this hand motion he does to indicate that someone has crossed a "line" depending on the situation. And by now it cracks the group up like the wasted joke. About the wasted thing...it only gets better with age.

After dinner and on the drive home we had to actually stop at a red light. Well, a group of three kids were running up to cars stopped at the light and playing drums and dancing for the cars in hopes of spare change. We laughed because this is probably what Patrick might do if he wasn't a Christian. He's always overflowing with music and movement. Finally the light went green and Patricia floored it, it was epic.

Once back in the apartment the guys told us how they made plans on how they'd attack the dancers if they tried to do anything on the girls car. Josh and Connor were going to get out and beat up on the 3 Dominicans, and once everyone was beat up and the initial adrenaline was gone, Andrew would get out of the car, slowly shut the door, dramatically put on his aviator glasses, schwagger over and if they didn't run off then he'd beat on them too.

Aren't the guys great?!....it is nice to know they want to protect us from wild Dominican guys.

Following the story the girls just crashed into bed, read I Thessalonians (we take turns with the last chapter still holding out hope that Jenn will join us sometime soon), and promptly fell asleep.

much love from the DR,

Jessie Bear

Galatians 5:24

"And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires."