Through The Wilderness: Dominican Republic

In January I had the privilege of traveling to the Dominican Republic with my Joshua Class. We partnered with Student International and had the amazing opportunity to work along side Missionaries who have dedicated their lives to changing the lives of the people living in the Dominican Republic.

To say my life was completely changed would only begin to capture the effect that the DR had on my life.

I spent two weeks working at the healthcare sites with some very amazing missionaries who constantly showed me what it means to love God and love others in there everyday life.

My main site leader was Dr. Fernando; he grew up in the Dominican Republic and has devoted his life to medicine and sharing Christ with the people he comes in contact with. He is an OBGYN in Jarabacoa, Dominican Republic. My Joshua brother, Brandon and I were under his wing for the two weeks that we spent working.

Our other site leader was Rachel, she is new to the Student international team and truly inspired me in the time I was able to spend with her. Rachel is from New York, she is a young physicians assistant, who fell in love with the Dominican Republic and followed God to the place where He showed her there was a need. We were her very first team of students that she was able to work with and we got to be a part of helping her set up two brand new clinics in the communities.

On our first day working Dr. Fernando gave us a tour of the public hospital in Jarabacoa, talk about culture shock, I had never been in anything other than a shiny new bright American hospital. I was shocked at the condition of this hospital. The hardest part for me to wrap my head around was the Maternity Ward, before I left for the Dominican I found out that my brother and sister in law are expecting their first baby and so with that fresh in my mind I saw the stone cold delivery room followed by the rooms filled with 5-6 new mothers and babies on beds with no sheets and it just hit me really hard how different life is here in the states.

As the week went on Brandon and I would show up everyday at the hospital and cram into Dr. Fernando's little tiny exam room, we would measure all the expectant mom's bellies and use a fetal Doppler to find the babies heart rate. It was really fun and Brandon and I ended up being prose at finding the little heartbeats. We were even able to watch a C-section preformed, which was probably the craziest thing I have ever seen in my life.

During our first week we would drive over to the Monta Gorda preschool, where Rachel's clinic was set up in a spare room and help her and her team members. The second week we helped her set up a clinic in a Haitian community in Jarabacoa. There I was able to help with more general healthcare needs like taking blood pressure and finding heart rates. We were able to work with a lot of little kids and my heart fell in love with them instantly.

Work filled up a huge chunk of our time but it was time that was not wasted at all.

When we weren't working we spent a lot of time at the Student International base were we stayed during our trip, it was a beautiful property with a lot for us to do in our free time. Down time was really fun because on this trip I realized how important my Joshua community is and how unique this year of being in Joshua really is and how I have to take advantage of it because it will never happen again.

We had a lot of opportunity to learn about Dominican culture, our first night we had "culture emersion" night we sipped on Dominican coffee, learned the a Dominican dance and even played a game. One night we had went into town walked, shopped and ate dinner at a local resturaunt. One of my favorite nights was when we were able to go have dinner in the communities, friends of our site leaders invited us into their homes, cooked us dinner and talked and played games with us. It was a really fun experience to see the family life of a Dominican home and to just be there guests for the night.

Being in the Dominican taught me a lot about myself but more importantly God showed me a lot of who He was, through others and through his creation. He pressed me and pursued me in a unique way. He sparked in me a love for life, people, community and Himself. He started to challenge me with authenticity in my own life and relationship with him.

This trip changed me in ways that I am still finding out even two months after I've been home.

Thank you so much for all your prayer and support and I apologize that it has taken me so long to update all of you.

Forever in His Grip,

Paige

p.s. Here is a video of our trip

https://vimeo.com/58761019#at=0