First Impressions

My first week in the Dominican Republic is finally over, and wow-- what a week it has been! From merengue dancing in "Las Ruinas" to the small village of Duquesa that is located just a stone's throw away from the trash heap of all of Santo Domingo, I feel like I've seen it all, and yet I know that I've only scratched the surface of everything that the Dominican Republic has to offer.

I'd like to highlight just a few of the experiences that I've had that have really made an impact on me. I hope that what I have to share will somehow be valuable to those who are reading this.

1. God is with me.
The most prominent lesson that I have learned here was revealed to me in such a subtle way. Essentially, God has shown me that He is here with me. For those who don't know the level of my Spanish abilities, they are bad; really bad. Almost everyone has a hard time understanding what I'm saying, and I certainly have a hard time understanding them! This has been extremely frustrating to me because when you can't communicate with the people around you, 1) you don't know if you are misunderstanding something very important--to your safety, to the person who is talking, or to your understanding of the culture and its people; 2) it's a bit difficult to be yourself when you can't communicate through words. You have to resort to a lot of body language, smiling, and weird noises.

However, through all of that, God has had provisions for me in the most delicate of ways. I was originally placed in La Romana but was moved to Santo Domingo Norte because Esperanza has a lot of new staff in La Romana, and they wanted me to be with more experienced persons. Because Esperanza hadn't originally looked for a host-family for me there, I had to stay at Patricia's (one of Esperanza's employees that helps us interns get acquainted with the DR) house for one night. Patricia is fluent in English, and she could help translate when people spoke to me and it was obvious that I didn't understand. She explained a lot of things to me that would have been difficult to figure out on my own.

Also, another intern named Megan is working at Santo Domingo Norte for two weeks, which is incredibly helpful because Megan speaks Spanish very well (though she might disagree)! For those who are unfamiliar with the way this internship works, all of the interns are placed at different branches, so we are essentially alone in our respective offices, surrounded almost entirely by people who only speak Spanish. Though Megan is placed at the central office in central Santo Domingo, she is with me in the North for two weeks so she can visit some "campos" (the villages that we visit).  No other interns are together. So the fact that Megan and I are together right now is such a blessing from God! I have no idea how I would have figured out the metro, or where the office was, or what in the world people around me were saying without her! Another gift from God.

And lastly, when I was finally placed with my host-family in Santo Domingo Norte, I was placed with a family that is not only incredibly kind and helpful, but that has a son who speaks English very well. What a blessing! So while I'm still able to practice my Spanish all of the time, I know that I'm not missing something incredibly important because Javier (the son) can make sure that I understand by repeating it in English.

I know all of these things are a gift from God. He's showing me that He is taking care of me; that I can depend on Him even in a country where I know no one, when I don't speak the language (well), and in which whose customs are incredibly different from America's! So, for all of my friends and family who are reading this, I would encourage you to put your trust in God, as I have essentially been forced to do, because in the end, He is with you, too.

2. Work hard, but keep what is important in perspective.
If you have talked to me at any point in time over the last two years, I probably complained to you how stressed I was all of the time. Grades and school have been the primary stressor here, but there are other things as well, as with everyone's lives. Because I have been pushing myself so hard in school (usually a good thing, but it can [and most likely has] become a bad thing), I had essentially no time to focus on what was really important to me. These past two years I have hardly had any time to go to church (I don't even have a home church in Fort Worth) because I spend all of Sunday studying for school. While I have good friends at TCU, I hardly get to spend time with them outside of the classroom or take-home projects. I was able to see my roommates during short meals, but hanging out with them besides that was sparse. Robert and my family usually had to force me to relax and take a break.

And then I came here.

These people are some of the hardest working people I have seen, and yet they still make time for what is important. For example:

1) Esperanza has a mandatory 2-hour devotional every Monday in the office. That's right. Mandatory. 2 hours. In God's Word. A two-hour devotional is almost unheard of in America (at least in the places that I've been--get to an hour and 15 minutes and people start to get antsy). Despite everything that an organization like Esperanza needs to accomplish during the week, at the very beginning they start by centering themselves on Christ. That's a pretty amazing picture of devotion.

2) There is another employee at Esperanza that we will call "Jessica" because I didn't ask to share her story (so hopefully this is okay). Jessica shared her story of how she began working at the organization, and I was incredibly inspired and touched by it. Here's the short version, though some of my details might be a little shaky.

Jessica is incredibly intelligent (she didn't say so, but I thought you should know that about her). She works her butt off, but she gives all of her thanks to the Lord. But here's the thing: she didn't just say, "All thanks to God. I know it's from Him." Nope. I could tell, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that she truly knew that God was the one who brought her to where she was today. She repeated it in her story several times. Jessica always knew that she wanted to work with microfinance, but of course right out of college that isn't what happened. Nope, God took her on a 12-year detour (or something close to that). She randomly heard about an interview with, we'll say, Super-Large-Company-X (aka: SLCX) and, not knowing what the company was, interviewed with them less than 2 hours after. Her interview, where she was dressed simply in what she had worn to work that day (not interview-ready), lasted only 15 minutes. She and one other got the job.

At SLCX, Jessica rotated jobs every 3-4 years not because she was bad at it, but because she always had another job offer within the company. The Lord gave her a ton of experience, and little did she know that she was being prepared for her work with Esperanza. Through a bit of a rabbit's trail, she met 2 men who wanted to start a micro-finance organization. Through them, she got connected with Esperanza. Just as she was offered another position at SLCX, one that she had been wanting for a very, very long time (where she had the ability to manage large projects), she was contacted by Esperanza for a job. She had to make a choice. Stay at SLCX, with a great career and great pay, or follow what she had always wanted to do? She chose the latter. Choose what is important to you.

All of this to say, Jessica worked incredibly hard, but she made time for what was truly important to her. Even while at SLCX, she used all of her vacation time to do missions. Wow. Okay--even with an incredibly busy schedule (and I can hardly say that my schedule compares to the weight of hers), she makes time for what she values. As should I.

3) My host family. The Guerrero family owns a restaurant, and the father also does freelance graphic design. My older sister here, Claudia, just graduated college on Saturday. Javier, my older brother here, is currently studying at a university. All members of the family help Nelly (my host-mother and the chef of the restaurant) run their business, and all help out at home. Even after their busy days (and Dominicans have very long days! My body is so tired!), they all come together in the evenings to spend time with one another. It's a beautiful family dynamic, and a great picture of a loving family centered on what is important.

4) "The poor" here are so...rich. I hate to be cliché, but I guess there's a reason that that is said so often. These people have so little materially, and yet they freely give me whatever they have. A chair, a mango, a tour of their home, their stories. While they work hard to grow their businesses and gain more materially, their goal is to support their family and friends. The goal is not to be richer; the goal is to more richly live. And they are living more richly than many of us in the United States. They sit out on their porches and laugh with each other. They take the time to care for those they don't even know (aka: me). They show me all that they have done and worked for, and then they tell me why the purpose behind it.

All of this is a challenge to me and everyone I know to survey the intentions behind our works. Our work can become so much more meaningful, and our lives so much richer, if we stay centered on what is important: loving God and loving others.