Makenna Burns 3-14-17

After a long, flight- filled Saturday, we finally made it to the Dominican Republic! Then after a two and a half hour drive from Santa Domingo to Santiago, we made it to the missionary site where we were going to stay. God graciously blessed us with safe travels. This being my first out of the country mission, I was very nervous about meeting people serving and staying with us due to the language barrier, but they welcomed us with open arms. 
To start the week, Sunday we went to church. A three hour church, may I add, but I loved every second of it. God really prevailed through that service as we had an English preacher with an interpreter. It really showed how despite different ethnicities and languages, there’s only one God we worship. At the service, we had people representing four different countries all here to serve and it showed how God works in mighty says. After the service, we all loaded on the bus and drove up to the site in which we were working. We unloaded everything and began setting up for our medical clinic. I had the privilege of sitting along side our doctor, Dr. Pete and learned how to take blood pressure and hear the heartbeat. Along side of us, we had two interpreters, about the same age as I, who were just so loving and compassionate towards us and we became so close in just a matter of hours. As soon as we saw our last patients, we packed up, went to our site and ate a wonderful dinner made by Pastor Sairy and her mother, Mami. That night we also got to see a live broadcast of Pastor Sairy’s show, where she talked about domestic violence and though I couldn’t understand what she was saying, I could tell she touched people in the communities lives.
The next day was similar to Sunday, we went to the worksite and continued with our medical clinic. I gained such good friendships with the teens in the community working with us. We played games, got all hung in a hammock and just got to learn about each others life’s and aspirations. It’s just so amazing to see how God is working in their life’s and the community. We met so many loving, inspirational people whom were so welcoming and loving towards us. I can’t wait to see what the rest of the week has in store.