Saludos de Louisville, Kentucky! It has been wonderful to be home. Autumn is my favorite season of the year, and I returned home just in time to catch the beautiful colors of the leaves before they all fell off the trees. As much as I enjoy living in Santiago, the cooler weather has been wonderful. I returned home in time to go Trick o' Treating with my niece and nephews. They were so cute. Autumn was a black cat, Ethan was Cesear, and Conner was Curious George. I have had alot of fun visiting with my family and just relaxing. I am currently working at the G.O. offices here in Louisville. We are winding down the old year, and making plans for the new!
We certainly were hopping the last couple of weeks that I was in the Dominican. Those last two weeks, we hosted four churches, had a women's conference, had two folks in for exploratory trips, and had a trip to Haiti! We had two medical clinics, a dental clinic, and a soccer camp. Whew!! We were busy, but we also had alot of fun. We went to La Mosca (spanish for fly) and had a great medical clinic there. This place is a live garbage dump, and is home to hundreds of families. The flys are everywhere, and you have to be careful when you speak, because they will fly into your mouth if your not careful! We saw about 1000 people in two days in the medical clinic. We also had a soccer clinic going on with about 80 participants. A few days later, we headed to Los Perez, where we had a medical and dental clinic going on at the same time. We set up clinic in a church there. We had medical in one corner, dental in the other, pharmacy in the front, and the waiting room in the middle. It began to storm really hard, so more folks came crowding in to get out of the rain. It was an adventure to say the least. We saw about 600 people there in two days. It's estimated that this year, with the help of medical staff coming to the Dominican Republic, we were able to treat about 5,100 people! God is soo good!
I want to say thank you again for all of your support and the prayers. I could not have done this without you all! Working with mission's these past five months has been an amazing experience for me. I have learned so much about myself, and my role in ministry. Being a missionsary is so much more than selling everything that you own, and going off to the great unknown. It's a journey in faith. It's listening and obeying what God has in mind for your life. It's raising support and trusting people. It's stretching and growing, and having complete faith and trust in God that He is going to take care of you no matter what happens in your life, or the lives of the loved ones you have left behind for a little while. I believe that the biggest challenge of all for me though, is to learn what it really means to be a servant. A quote from a recent book that I read by Donald Miller says, "That if we are not ready to die to ourselves every morning, we should question whether or not we are a true follower of Christ." A servant is a person who is devoted to another or to a cause, creed. I thought it was easy for me to say that I am a servant, until I look at the word devotion. Devotion is loyalty or deep affection and the act of ( which means I am in a continual state of )being devoted. I have learned over the past five months what a challenge that can be. Being a servant is a 24 hour job. It's serving the folks who come to the Dominican for their short term experience, for many of them it's their first experience. It's realizing that while alot of these folks are christians, there are some who are not. It is their encounter with me(and God through me) and the other missionaries that I serve with, that will make a difference in their lives. Being a servant means when you are working in a medical clinic, and it's 100 degrees, and storming, and rain is coming throught the roof, and it's crowded....that you still smile and wait on people, and go that extra mile to show them that Jesus loves them. Being a servant is serving my fellow missionaries that I work with, and taking the time to learn about them and what matters to them. And most of all, Jesus said in 2 Corinthians 9:7, "For God loves a person who gives cheerfully." I think that the biggest lesson that God has taught me over the last five months is to always be happy about serving, inside and out. When I walk around with a smile on my face....mean it on the inside as well.
I return to the Dominican Republic in 6 weeks. I am really excited about it! We have a team from the U.S. coming to host a medical clinic January 7th. I am excited about the plans God has for my life and for the future of G.O. Ministries. This past weekend was the Global Health Conference at Southeast Christian Church, and I had the oppurtunity to talk with missionsaries from all over the world, and to make some great contacts for our ministry. I will be visiting three churchs in the next several weeks, so pray that the Holy Spirit will go before me, as I need to raise more money for my budget. I look forward to spending time with you all very soon!
Thanks again for all your financial support and your prayers!
Bendiciones,
Sunshine
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