A Day's Work

This isn’t nearly as exciting in writing as it is in reality, but it’ll help you realize what we do every day on a trip.

On a normal day we got up for breakfast at 7:00am, which we ate at the hotel where we stay. Then we piled into the buses/van at around 8:15 to drive about 20 minutes to Cielo where the Mission Emanuel compound is. From there, we split up to work at different projects such as construction, helping with the Haitian literacy program, or labeling and bagging water bottles at the water treatment facility. As staff, we would generally direct and help with whatever work was being done, as well as serve the group members by bringing them water and mortar and things like that. Then at about 11:30 the staff would leave to help set up for lunch, while the group would work a little longer and come to lunch at 12:30. After lunch a variety of things might happen. Some people might continue the construction projects, while others may go and hang out in the community with kids and families; while some groups held different community outreach activities some afternoons (like mass chaos on the baseball field, aka a kickball game). At about 3:30 we would head back to the hotel for some much needed free time spent at the pool, napping, reading, and general relaxation. Each night we would have dinner at a different place – one night at the hotel, another at Jumbo (Walmart with a food court attached), others at a couple different restaurants. Wednesday nights we would grill burgers and bratwursts at the Mission before going to church, while on Thursday or Friday we would leave the hotel early to tour the Colonial Zone of Santo Domingo then eat a restaurant there. (By the way, if you want to find the first of anything in the Americas, look in Santo Domingo , the oldest city in the New World.) Also, sometime during the week we would go to the market, a building full of stalls literally stuffed with souvenirs and vendors trying unceasingly to get you to buy something. Then each night after dinner we would have a staff devotion, often followed by playing some hilarious group games.

I told you it might not sound very exciting, but I don’t think I ever had a bad or uninteresting day there (except maybe the day I got sick). Through what we did, it was so easy to see God, most especially in our interactions with the people – workers on the worksite, children in the community, families in their homes, and people worshipping at church. His glory was everywhere, even in the midst of suffering and poverty – in fact, He overwhelmed it. When it was all done, we were really tired, but it was a good kind of tired. We had spent ourselves for other people and for something bigger than ourselves, and while we were tired, we were also satisfied. We had given, yet we were full. God is Good and worthy of all praise, and his word is true:

And if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry
and satisfy the needs of the oppressed,
then your light will rise in the darkness,
and your night will become like the noonday.

-Isaiah 58:10