DR Winter 2025: Day 4

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Today we have two more students giving their perspective on the day!

___________ 

Jie Jie:

Today was a wonderful day! We started off this morning with breakfast made by Julia, Bryn, and Kaity. It was muy delicioso and we all had fun conversation around the table. Afterward, we all finished getting ready for Sunday morning service and did our daily devotions. We wore our best clothes for the service and were well equipped with our Bibles and notebooks. We began the service with prayer. Different members of the congregation and our team prayed for one after another like a family. The worship team sang in a combination of Spanish and English and we all tried to follow along with the Spanish lyrics on the screen. Then Levi introduced the song our Missions team was singing, which was "Reckless Love." We gathered on stage together and poured out our hearts to God in worship. Mr. Zaleski preached a message about marriage and its importance to the church. The main points were this: marriage is good, marriage is the gospel, and marriage is to glorify. Afterwards, the church offered light sandwiches and hot chocolate to the congregation, and everyone fellowshipped with one another.


After the sermon, we left to eat lunch at the mall. Then we had our siesta hour, otherwise known as afternoon break. In the late afternoon, we visited the Historical Downtown - Ciudad Colonial Santo Domingo - which is absolutely beautiful. We saw the statue of Christopher Columbus, took photos by the Catedral Primera de las Américas de Santo Domingo (the oldest Cathedral in the Americas), and fed the pigeons. Then, we split into two groups, one went to grab boba tea from a local shop and the other perused the souvenir stores. I got boba and it was 👌. 


Finally, we at dinner at D'freddy Parrillada, a restaurant that served us family style with meats, fries, and vegetables to share. When we came back to the church, we debriefed and had a fun little adventure. Overall, it was a fantastic and very memorable day. Please continue praying for our team as we do street evangelism tomorrow. Pray that we have courage in preaching the gospel, discernment in everything we day, and confidence in our faith. Thank you for all of your continuous support! We can feel God moving with us this week!



Ellison:

Hello all Ellison here! As a kid who grew up on the mission field and as someone who came last year on this trip i knew pretty much what to expect and felt pretty comfortable with the environment. Nonetheless i still was a little bit anxious and nervous about what all would happen.



Mr. Z said the night before that breakfast would be at 8:30 so me being myself, I set my alarm to 8:20, it won’t be a good day if your not rested. Woke up after snoozing twice and rolled downstairs to breakfast right at 8:30. We had bacon, eggs, and avocado toast for breakfast prepared by two members of our team, it was very delicious. At 9:30 we all went up for prayer to the room where we’d be having church. Basically this was a time to pray for the church, for the community, for the youth or whatever God has laid on your heart. What stood out to me was how long the dominicans prayed for compared to people in America, people here pray for 3-8 minutes which was different than what i’m used to but it made me realize that prayer is just talking to God and you don’t have to know exactly everything you want to say but rather just let the Holy Spirit lead you in prayer. After 30 minutes of prayer church started. We worshipped in english and spanish and even went up on stage to sing “reckless love” for the church. That was the highlight of my day was singing for everyone. after worship Mr. Z spoke a sermon on marriage. After church we mingled and greeted followed by a trip to the mall to eat a delicious meal. I ended up having rice, chicken, avocados and some coconut cupcake desert. After lunch, we came back to the church for an hour seista than headed to the colonial historical city to do a little souvenir shopping. We walked around the beautiful downtown and learned more about the Dominicans history. After souvenir shopping, we stopped at a restaurant on the way home and had a beautiful dinner that ended a fun and relaxing day. After dinner we had our debrief time where we wrestled with the question “what is our goal here and how do we know we’ve attained that goal?” 



prayer requests:

- health and safety 

- open hearts 

- effective ministry 

- personal growth













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