I LOVE a musical

My friend Lisa and I surprised our daughters this past Thursday with tickets to see Mamma Mia at the National Theatre! It was WONDERFUL!!! I heart musicals!! WE bought the sound track and have been singing ever since! Next on our list is Wicked!

By the way, I hope the movie that is released on the 18th is just as good as the musical!

The DR day one

The homes had one main room that might have a table and chairs and a kitchen. There were 3 bedrooms and one bathroom. The shower was separate from the toilet. 
This is outside the girls house. the orange tank outside is the gas that they use to cook with. These homes are very nice by Dominican standards.
Nice dominican homes have concrete floors. A lot of homes only have dirt floors. You are really rich if you have tile on the floors.


You see a fridge in this picture but they are not normally plugged in or used because they don't have consistent electricity. The slogan for this area is "hay luz?" which means "is there electricity?" The plastic lawn chair in the corner of the pic. is what most homes I saw had for chairs.

We arrived Tuesday afternoon and got our stuff situated and had orientation, dinner (delicious rice and beans!) and devo. It was a little unnerving to sleep on a thin mattress with mosquito nets over them. I had Cassey tuck me in! Thanks Cassey! In fact, Cassey or Chelsea had "tuck-in" duties each night for me! I never quite got the hang of tucking in my mosquito net!

We woke up on Wednesday, and ate breakfast...which consists of whatever food items we bring for this. The camp provides fresh fruit! We drink water provided by the camp that is bottled water but contains sodium...so yes, my feet got swollen!

We headed to the children's home that is just up the road to do painting of the houses. The rumor was that they were going to be inspected soon and Brian takes great pride in the children's home and so wanted everything to be just so!

It took my body about 24 hours to adjust to the humidity and only drinking water and sweating like a pig. I just kept drinking and drinking, I did not want to get sick. Our teens were troopers! 1/2 the group went to haul rocks from the river and the other 1/2 painted. We broke for lunch and a little siesta and came back and finished what we had started!

trying to find the words

Here's the group ready to go!

A nice Dominican Road

A nice Dominican house

I haven't blogged about the Dominican Republic Mission trip that I was blessed and honored to have chaperoned.

I don't know how to find the words for the amazingness that happened while there! I will tell you that Fairfax has the BEST teens HANDS DOWN of any youth group!!! I cried everyday watching them be uncomfortable and pushing that aside to do God's work and show the people we met what it means to be a Christian! They were so selfless and unselfish and poured their hearts out in some really nasty situations.

Thank you guys for allowing me to be a witness to that part of your life!

I will try to post pictures and a synopsis of what we did everyday! You will find to the right of this post, the links to the Missionaries who live everyday there--The Bynums, The Wallaces, The Lambs, and The McClouds. I encourage you to read their blogs and pray for their efforts.