Saying goodbye.

Time is almost up for me here. With three days left I look back at to who I was three days before I arrived. I was full of fear, anxiety, and doubts about what my time here would be like. I look at where I am now and am so greatful I took a step onto the plane. Not only am I returning home without fear or anxiety, but I am going home with a renewed relationship with both God and my family. We have just skyped and talked on the phone, but by just doing that we have grown closer and mended old wounds that have distanced ourselves from each other. When you do what God calls you to do he seems to bless you.. and then some. 

With three days approaching, I have had to say some goodbyes that have broken me to the core. When you spend everyday with people for two months, they become closer than you could ever imagine. The hardest thing for me is having to say goodbye to the children. Parents, I now understand the bond you have for your children and why you worry about them so much. These kids have become family and to have to let go and leave them for a very long time has brought so much pain to my heart because to not be in the know of what they are doing or if their parents are actually caring for them or if they are hanging out with the wrong type of friends scares me. That is one thing I have to learn to be at peace with. I have to have peace with the fact that I am leaving them not knowing if they are going to be okay. and it hurts 10x more when they hold onto you begging you not to leave them. Although it hasn´t hit me that I won´t be seeing the faces of the children I have grown so close to everyday, I´m sure it will when I wake up and notice that I´m a country away from them and that I won´t be going to visit them everyday. 

I´m going to miss walking into the neighborhood and having Tato and Miguel jump into my arms and them bursting out into contagious laughter after I start tickling them. I´m going to miss those long hugs Andrecia gives me when she sees me. I´m going to miss sitting with Enrique as he lays in my lap and looks up at me smiling with his crooked teeth. I´m going to miss Julie calling me crazy every five minutes. I´m going to miss little David punching and kicking me. I´m going to miss Nino sitting next to me and not getting on my shoulders, but quickly climbing on top of me when kids aren´t looking. I´m going to miss Carlito asking me loads of questions. I´m going to miss when Angelica Maria runs quietly behind me and places my arm around her. I´m going to miss Angel Manuel and how he acts cool around his friends but runs up and hugs me when his friends leave. I am going to miss all those days when I would walk into the market with Junior and Heremiah and have icecream with them as they joked about hooking me up with a Dominican girlfriend.I have grown to memorize what these kids are like and what makes them both happy and sad. They each have a special place in my heart and I thank God that they were placed before me. 

Thank you! Thank you! thank you! to those who made it possible for me to be here. A special thanks to my parents for believing in me and encouraging me throughout these two months. Thank you to Mallory, Elora, Papa K, and Stephanie for witnessing to me through your walk in Christ. Thank you Mrs. Marie, Taylor, Jordan, Mrs. Annette, and whoever else donated supplies for me to hand out to the poor here. And a big thank you to my Savior for holding my hand every step of the way. This will be my last post for a while so thank you to those who have been following and sharing my blog :) love you guys!

Carry your Cross

We were sitting on the bus on our way to a batay when me and Marcos came across a man literally carrying a cross down the highway. I laughed a bit at first at how ironic the situation was, but then I began to really process what I saw. What does it really mean to carry our cross?

In Matthew 16:24-25 it says, 


              ¨Then Jesus said to His disciples, if any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it; and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it. ¨


I have read this verse over and over again wondering if I am really carrying my cross, or if I am just dragging it on the ground behind me... There is a big difference between calling yourself a christian and being a follower of Christ. Am I risking myself for the love of Christ as Stephen did when he was martyred? Am I sacraficing everything to live for Christ like Job did when he lost his family, crops, and had boils all over his body? Am I being as open about my God as John the Baptist was? And most of all, am I carrying that cross that my savior was nailed to? I am giving 100%? 

 I know that right now I might never do enough, but I won´t ever stop trying. I want to push myself for Christ, give until my wallet hurts, test my limits, go to the places where happiness is scarce. Living life being 100% with my faith is who I wish to be seen as. One of the most uplifting things about being down here is having that constant reminder of what it means to carry your cross. 

I see it in the 14 year old girl who is taking that 30% chance of living through her surgery on Tuesday. I see it in the teenager who got his arm cut off by a machete yet still goes to church every sunday to worship the God who prevented him from having both removed. I see it in the 70 year old woman living in a Hatian Batay who although is mentally challnged, led her husband to Christ and leads worship every time there is a service. 

To have a constant reminder that carrying your cross is worth every ounce of struggle gives me reassurance that All of this work I have been doing these past two months, no matter how little it has seemed, will lead others to pick up their cross as well; and when it seems as if my cross has become too heavy, I have a savior who I can lean on. 

Faith

There are just some things in life that I don´t understand. We were so close... Julie was finally in celebration that she would recieve a surgery that would save her life! Now they are saying that she has a 30% chance to live through it. Her doctor suggested that she not go through with it and to just live the 5 months she has left on earth. Just the other day she was singing and dancing and now her and her mother are crying and weeping. 

When we first recieved the terrible news, I grew frustrated with God and confused as to why He would let us get Julie´s hopes up then just take all of that hope away and replace it with a 30% success rate. But then Marcos told me what came out of Julie´s mothers mouth when asked if she wanted to go through with the surgery. ¨I rather have my daughter go out fighting with faith rather than waiting to die.¨

I now have to remember that God never leaves us. Whether he wants to keep Julie on this planet or is calling his little daughter home, He won´t ever leave her side. He´s been there since she was born and will continue to be there through her surgery and even after it is finished. 

Sometimes we just don´t understands, and sometimes we lose sight of God when all that is around us is darkness, but that is when the faith in the unknown steps in. And it´s not having faith that Julie will survive the surgery. It´s the faith that the family of Julie will accept whatever God´s will ends up being. 

As I sit here hurting for Julie, crying for Julie, and praying for Julie, I have to remember something I told myself back when I was going through moments of darkness. And that is to trust God, even when things don´t seem to make sense. Trust God even though we can´t see the end of that tunnel, or the sun during a storm, or even a 100% success rate in a heart surgery. TRUST GOD, even when things don´t seem to make sense. 

Everyone please continue to pray for Julie as her procedure starts on Monday. I will definately keep you posted. God bless.

Hope, Faith, and a little bit of dancing.

Hey friends, many things have happened in the past week, so bare with me. Last Friday, me and Marcos welcomed a mission team from Pennsylvania and they did a week long VBS. They stayed at a camp about 25 minutes away from where we live, and to our suprise another group was staying at the same camp. We had no idea what to expect, but when we arrived, the group happened to be 25 or so children doing a week long christian camp.Since I had returned from my second mission trip in February, I felt a call from God to start up a summer christian camp in the Dominican Republic. Being able to help out the counselers has given me so much hope that this is really what God wants me to do here. 

While helping out with the Christian camp, I also got to help Marcos deliver two loads of amazing news. There was a woman who lived in a house that had holes (too many to count) in her roof that was made of tin. Every time it rained, her house would flood. (it rains almost everyday here) Along with having to deal with the burden of a flooded home, she recently just lost her mother. Marcos and the Pennsylvania team felt a tug on their hearts to help out the woman, so we replaced her entire roof with brand new wood and tin. When we delivered the news, she began to weep and then ran outside and began jumping up and down and praising God. Other neighbors asked what she was doing and began to worship God along side her. 

The other bit of news we got to deliver was to a little girl named Julie. In case you didn´t know, Julie is 14 years old and was born with a heart defect that is slowly killing her. When doctors gave her a checkup, they told her she had 1 year left to live if she didn´t have surgery done. Well, by the grace of God a mission team from South Carolina donated the money to have the surgery done!!! When we told little Julie, she took chalk and ran over to a wall and drew the words, ¨I get to live!¨ then proceeded to start dancing and shouting, ¨I get to live!!! I get to live!!!¨

Sometimes, I feel like I´m not doing enough here. I feel as if I can do so much more, than I remember these stories and begin to realize that no, we can´t help everyone, but like Mother Teresa once said, ¨We ourselves feel that what we are doing is just a drop in the ocean, but the ocean would be less because of that missing drop.¨

Some of the kids from the christian camp that stole my heart

The wonderful Pittsburgh team 

Little Julie. 

The Little Things

I arrive at the market and the first face I see is his. The 14 year old kid wiped sweat from his brow and ran over to the car with a smile stretching from ear to ear. He had holes in his shirt and shorts, his shoes were broken, and he had been standing outside for hours washing cars. "Landon! Landon!" he shouts. He then greets me with a big hug.

To most, he's a begger, but to me he is one of the most joyful and humble kids I know. He is not allowed inside the market because he is a street kid, so he stands outside washing cars until dawn only to recieve a dollar a day. I would give him anything if I could but whats best now is to give him a friendship. He needs someone who doesn't look at him disgusted and walk away fast. He needs someone who can be there for him. I can't speak to him that much due to my lack of knowlege for the spanish language, but I love to just sit with him. 

That's the best someone like me can do at the moment, and sometimes that's the best thing to do. At times, building walls or giving out food can be helpful, but in some cases, the best thing is to live out the little things with people. To sit with children, carry little ones on your back, hold a little girls hand, play tic tac toe in the dirt, laugh until you cry with kids who think jumping up and down in a video is the funniest thing ever to occur on this planet, to hear an elderly woman give her story while sitting in her home with all her grandchildren in your lap. Sometimes, those moments will do alot of helping. It will cure alot of pain and can rejuvinate a huge amount of hope. To get it into the Dominicans minds that your not here to just build then leave strengthens alot of trust and love in the bond of your relationship with them. That's how I want to live out my life. I no longer wish to take living for the little things for granted, because I have now met people who can't afford living for anything bigger. 

Break our hearts for what breaks yours

Today we visited Brises Del Mar. As I was riding through the barrio I could here kids in the distant shouting, "landon! landon!" out of no where three familiar faces came running up to the car. It was Tato, Miguel, and their cousin whose name is too long to remember (but I'm trying). They are kind of the outcasts of the neighborhood. Other kids make fun of them and call them "dirty" but to me, I've never met such joy filled children. Their parents don't attend church, but that doesn't stop them from going. They have little food, but they still offer what they have to me every time I see them. I am so thankful that God has placed them in my lap.

While walking down the road with the three, I came across a boy named Ellian. He is both deaf and mute, but can say maybe 1 or 2 words. They said he would never be able to speak, but hey... that didn't stop him from trying. Today it was difficult to keep him quiet haha! He shot down a bird with a slingshot and was yelling and laughing and showing everyone what he caught. 

As we continued down the road, we met a little boy who had been left outside by his parents. No one was home and he was about 2 years old. He had wet himself and was just sitting in the middle of the road. I still picked him up and spun him around. His facial expression of fear instantly vanished and a huge smile spread across his face. 

These group of kids have broken my heart. They are so happy and so joyful and deserve to be liked, deserve to speak and hear things and have parents who won't leave them, but what I have come to understand is that if we let God break our hearts for what also breaks his, we can be opened up to more things than ever before. These kids stories have broken me, but the fact that they still smile, laugh, and look at life positively grows my heart and strengthens my faith so much. It also shows me that even the least of these can have more than those who are better off than them. 

Tato

Miguel

Villa Hermosa

57 As they were walking along the road, a man said to him, “I will follow you wherever you go.”58 Jesus replied, “Foxes have dens and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.”59 He said to another man, “Follow me.”But he replied, “Lord, first let me go and bury my father.”60 Jesus said to him, “Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and proclaim the kingdom of God.”61 Still another said, “I will follow you, Lord; but first let me go back and say goodbye to my family.”62 Jesus replied, “No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God.”

The scripture above is what I live by. I have spent my whole life sleeping, and now that I have been woken up, nothing is stopping me from resting. I want to live every moment, everyday, proclaiming the truth of Christ to the rest of the world. 

He was 15. He had no idea why he had gotten on a plane to travel to a country he had never been. The Principal of the school said that if you went, you would be out of school for a week so that is what drew him in. He had no idea what God was going to do in his life. His first day there, a little 6 year old boy ran into his arms. He had never met the kid yet the boy had already shown him an immense amount of love. By the end of his trip, he was in tears. He was so broken because he knew that he had been throwing his life away for such a long time. He was a lukewarm christian who focused more about being socially accepted rather than accepted into God's kingdom. And there he was in a third world country surrounded by children showing him the love he had never thought existed. Giving him the hope to carry on when he thought he'd ran out years ago. Showing him the faith he had forgotten about for a long time.

Now here he stands at age 16. He had found the love, hope, and faith given to him and is now spreading it to others who were once in his position. He has become selfless instead of selfish. He has given up his life of comfort to live the life of sacrafice. He has decided to not make his mission just coming on a one week trip once a year to a foreign country. He has decided to make his home amongst the poor and powerless. He shall eat with the poor. Work with the poor. Sleep amongst the poor. Cry with the poor. Experience life with the poor. The poor shall become his family and he shall become theirs. 

Over the past two years, God has guided me to a place called Villa Hermosa. It is a very large and rough area of the Dominican Republic, but being a missionary is about risking yourself for the love of Christ. Some may agree with me or disagree with me about what I'm going to do, but I'm not turning down a call from God because people don't like what I'm going to do. God wants me to move out of the United States next year after I'm finished with highschool and make my home in Villa Hermosa. College is a thing to talk about later, but for now this has become my decision. 

Today I got to walk around where I want to live, and immediately I drew a crowd of followers. I turned around to find about 15 boys and girls going wherever I went. I look back to when I first came here. I was young and clueless as to what was going to happen. I look at my life and am thankful that the one boy who ran into my arms has now turned into 15 smiling and crazy kids jumping, climbing, hugging, and laughing on and with me. Praise God that a kid who thought he would go no where in life has turned into a young man who has made something of himself.