Dancing with Joy

Hola a todos!

Hope that all is going well in your respective cities.  Here in the DR, we are just entering into an autumnesque phase. Which basically means it is 70ish instead of 80ish. I am told that it will soon be "frio," which I don't believe for one second! I think that cold here means a nice cool breeze in the morning and the evening. But enough about the weather!

Things are going really well here, which isn't very descriptive so allow me to elaborate. I have been learning a lot about myself, God's love and about community over the last 2 and a half months.  First of all, I came down here expecting to "do" a ton and have found that while I have been able to help in some ways already by doing, my life has made a greater impact just by "being" that is spending time with people. What I have invested most of my time in is relationship building. And I never knew how really powerful that could be! 

The best example I have is that a girl that I met here who has hung out with me a few times, emailed me to let me know how very desperately she wanted us to connect and be friends. That she was so happy to have someone to talk to besides her family. This floored me... to think that if nothing else, just my being here, my presence, enabled this girl to feel that she had a new friend. Having been without friends before after moving to a new place, I understand how hard that can be and am so thankful that the Lord is giving me the opportunity to build into this 20 year old's life.

The women in this community are absolutely amazing! The mothers, sisters, aunts, daughters and grandmothers work so hard to keep their households running smoothly. I have so much admiration for their diligence and caring. But sometimes they just need a break! One of the groups of girls that I have been spending a lot of time with -- Alba, Eneri, Lissette and Karen -- has a talent for and a love of dance. Recently, we were able to assist them in entering into a dance class with Amy Zamora, an instructor from South America who has a studio in Santo Domingo and teaches classes on how to use dance for worship and teaching.  The dance class gives them a chance to exercise their passions, get away from their daily struggles and have a break.  Last weekend, the girls performed a dance that they put together at a women's conference at the mission.

the girls warming up

exercise where the ladies had to come up with a way to illustrate a concept, here is "to adore"

wrapping up class

The girls are coming over to spend the night at my apartment tomorrow night again and I am enjoying being the older sister in their lives. It gives me the chance to encourage them in their walk with Christ and be there for them when they are going through hard times. I am also benefiting from the relationship by having great friends!

Speaking of great friends, two other amazing friends are my Spanish professor and a fellow translator who are both in the process of seeking God's guidance in finding jobs. My own job search has allowed me to encourage them in their pursuit of God's will in their lives, but it is always difficult waiting. So, if you could please pray for them as they look for jobs and seek God's will for their lives, I know they would really appreciate it!

Just one more quick update... Brenda, the little girl who had heart surgery, has recovered and is doing fantastic! She was at church Sunday and her smile brought tears to my eyes. I have seen her at our clinic three or four times over the past few weeks in pain and with infections in her stitches, but Sunday she was beaming from ear to ear and walking with ease. Praise God for his amazing healing touch. Please continue to pray for her, her family and for Mari Rosa who is receiving chemotherapy treatments for her breast cancer.

Other prayer requests: my new job responsibilities with the clinic, patience and love in all the work that I am doing, Mission Emanuel and the communities of Cielo and Nazaret.

Peace and love be with you all!

Blessings,

Anna

Its November!

Hello all!
I'll try to keep this update shorter... so that you actually read all the way through, LOL. Its been a great two months here and I can't believe it went by so fast!

One of the most memorable moments so far was at a church service (Culto de Damas) of the women in the community. We went to the house of Mari Rosa who is battling breast cancer to pray for her and her family. Imagine if you can a house at the bottom of a hill where the way is narrow, littered with stones and garbage and beside a polluted stream. At the bottom of this hill you find 30 women, some sitting, most standing outside the porch of a little concrete house. Around the women are flies, mosquitos, and chickens all attracted by the polluted stream running less than a foot away from where the women stand. In the middle of the service, a little boy playing nearby runs casually to the stream to urinate. This is a place where we would never visit. A place we would not want to spend 5 minutes in, and certainly never 2 hours. Here we had a church service, here I felt the presence of the Lord. The women prayed, sang worship songs from memory and testified what the Lord had done in their lives. There was such a sense of community, of love and of belonging. Though Mari Rosa is the only one who is battling cancer, every women there felt a sense of loss and sympathized with her struggle. I find it hard to think of a better example of God's love poured out for us than what I saw in this service.