The late night ramblings of a missionary...

So, I'm up, so I might as well take advantage of the time and write :) lol

Let's see...let me write down interesting things that have happened to us thus far/things we have noticed particularly about the Dominican Republic...

1. The missionary diet: ...basically I would call this the involuntary fasting one! The 5 of us in one month, because of all of the changes and lack of food availability at first, lost a combined 25 pounds. Now things are getting normal.

2. So...I thank all of you who pray protection over me and our group. In the first week of being here, one day in particular we were riding in a taxi (2 in front and 4 in back... cramped, but normal here). It was raining and the taxi driver wasn't really paying attention as we were coming up to an intersection. The light said green but the police officer in the middle of the street was signaling to stop...and we stopped alright. Inches away from the bumper of another car. Not two minutes later as we were strategically moving through the next intersection, a car from the right comes to a screeching stop, inches away from the right door of the taxi. (Wipe sweat from forehead...okay that I can handle) What freaked me out was the following: The next day, I'm walking to a store. Okay, let's look both ways, I do. Clear. As I take my first step into the street looking off into the left where traffic flow should be coming from, I turn my head back to the front and realize that now there literally is a taxi RIGHT in front of me...his right back tire was an inch from my right foot. Confused??? OH YEAH... my mind could not comprehend just how that happened. Within seconds, I'm standing there, aware that I could have just been ran over, and my reaction? I hit the car with my right fist to make sure he knows that there is a person he almost crushed and for him to not move anymore. What had happened is the taxi was parked on the street, and the driver just decided to randomly back up at an accelerated rate without looking. Totally a miracle that I wasn't hurt at all.

3. One of the girl team members had an encounter with a stingray yesterday. Don't worry ladies and gents, I now know what to do if someone ever gets painfully(understatement) stung by one of these things. If you want to read in detail about that...here's the link to her blog: http://stillhomesickforheaven.blogspot.com/  She provides a detailed/throughly entertaining description of yesterday's events at the beach.

4. One of the harder things for me to deal with here is with unwanted attention on the street. To this day, one of my team members has been followed from a restaurant, myself and other team member followed as we were running (yep, they were running too...and laughing.. for them maybe it was funny), I'm hoping I don't have any more of those crazy stories just yet. I just know that out of all of the places I've been to yet (Mexico, Ecuador, Brazil, Nicaragua) I have never seen such bold, borderline harassment (if not harassment) actions from guys before.

and yet....we are here for a purpose :)

"Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus." Philippians 3: 12-14