The End of the Beginning

 The last full day in the DR was definitely a memorable one.  In the morning we went to church at Nueva Vida in Jarabacoa. It was very different from the other churches we had been to.  The building had wooden pews, bathrooms, Sunday School rooms, and even a basketball court outside. This was the mother church that had planted the churches in Los Calabazos, Buenos Aires, and Boma, as well as two others. During the service we sang some worship in Spanish (words were projected on the wall so we could sing the words while having no clue what we were saying). We also sang a few familiar songs like Mighty to Save, so it wasn't all gibberish for us gringos.  We did the chair skit once again and Evan shared his testimony. We then listened to a very emotional and charged sermon about the three types of fear: panic, preserving, and reverential. The speaker often shouted and made wild hand gestures, and the church's translator attempted to mimic it for us. It wasn't quite the same. Stanley said afterwards that he could listen to this guy's sermons all day.  After the service we made a final trip to the supermarket and stocked up on food (particularly Florentinas) and returned to La Salle. We enjoyed a relaxed afternoon to pack and play some final Ka-Boom ball, which included Canadians this time. Before dinner we headed over to the Mackey's to help organize everything we were donating and talk to them about their ministry.  It was cool to hear some of their stories and how the Dominicans can teach them just as much as they are teaching the Dominicans. After having the last supper, it started to really hit us that we were about to leave. We had some team time upstairs, where we sang some worship (in English!) and did a really cool candle ceremony thing where we discussed how God has spoken to us while on the trip. The emotions were already starting to show, and then came the foot-washing.  The tears rained down then in many of us, and the translators seemed especially hit. We closed with some more worship and then had some fun for the last two hours we had with our translators. We signed the translators T-shirts and had some dance lessons. I learned how to do the Spongebob. As each translator had to leave, they were bombarded with hugs. Soon only Daniel was left.  We created a tunnel for him to bike through and then ran after him for a few yards. A silent salute marked the end to an awesome sendoff. It would have been so much more epic if Daniel hadn't shown up the next morning to go with us to the airport…

                The Lucky Charms I had bought at the supermarket tasted especially homey Monday morning. It was probably because we found out that the box came from Minneapolis. Talk about foreign. By nine we all had our bags ready to go and lazed around for the next two hours until it was time to leave for the airport. We passed some riots on the way there, which caused Rick and Daniel to leave quickly after dropping us off at the airport. We all got on the plane and, fast-forward 10 hours, landed in Minneapolis. It was an awesome trip and no one wanted it to end. We all miss the translators and the trip in general a lot. Thank God for Skype. God taught us all a lot on the trip, and hopefully we are now ready for the real challenge, back in the States.