dominican republic

this post was started while i was on my trip but not published until now. 

 

I am spending my week soaking up the sun in the Dominican Republic,spending time encouraging and enjoying converation with my friend Christy.  Christy is spending the year teaching history at Jarabacoa Christian School.  Jarbacoa is a village in the campo, as it is refered to by the locals, or in our language, the country.  It is nestled in between a valley of moutains.  The climate is humid but mild.  There is a lovely breeze that lingers in the room at night as I sleep. 

On Saturday past, Christy and I journeyed towards the playa.  On the map it appears that the beach is a lot closer than it really is.  A journey that began at 11am did not end until 5pm.  After several gwa gwa’s, motor bikes, taxi’s and luxury buses we made it to Hotel Kaoba.  A small boutique hotel managed by a European. The accomodation was clean and well, accomodating.  Our room over looked a bay that was full of sugar cane and egrets.  You could taste the salt as you stood on the balcony.  After we each picked our bed, we happily but our bags down and made our way promptly to the beach to enjoy the happy hour specials.  Our first stop in Cabarate was a nice resturant on the beach.  The resturants were smooshed in a general area on the beach so it made it easy with making a decision.   

We made our way to the small table by one of the resturants.  I ordered a pina colada to celebrate my vacation, while Christy ordered a glass of white wine.  It was a breathtaking view to lookout over the ocean and see kiteboarders and wind surfings sliding around on the surface of the ocean.  It was paradise!

the road to sosou

The road to Sosou was more than a journey on a min-van from one beach to the other, it was  an immersion of a cultural experience with twenty-one of my closest Dominican comrades.  It was the road towards understanding the heart beat of the world.

I must admit there is adrenaline in learning something new when you are in another country.  You have somehow become the master of taking the motorbike taxi and actually getting where you need to go.  Or perhaps you have excelled at lighting the propane range without catching yourself on fire or even gracefully won over the pump on the water bottle. Its in these experiences that you realize the heartbeat is loud and strong of the world.  It radiates hope, pain, encouragement and creativity.

So although my journey on the gwa gwa from Cabarate and Sosou felt like an adventure, it really is only a piece to a complex and gigantic puzzle that connects misshapen worlds, cultures, and genders together.

So today, as I sit reflecting on how I am going to take this experience back to the United States with me, I think of the little boy that sits by me at the concert or the woman standing outside the house begging for money, I am reminded that it is compassion and humbleness that I believe God has called me to.  He has ordained me to be a grace give, as he extends grace to us, his children.  I can look around and life seems hard here, but its life and it is lived passionately, gracefully and intentionally as Christ would want. I am reminded that I need to live my daily life experiencing ‘the adventure on the road to Sosou’.  I need to approach my life with just as much excitement, compassion, humbleness and wanderlust as I had on embarking on this trip.