I have ARRIVED!

I was up at 3:45am Monday morning to fly out from the Fresno Yosemite International Airport. A BIG thanks to my mom and dad for driving me at such an hour : ) I flew to LAX and had a quick jump to my next flight to Miami, FL. I was suppose to fly out to Santiago, DR at 6:50pm. However the flight was "15 min. late" which turned in to 1 1/2 hours. So together with the 3 hours later time change, I was picked by the DR director Lowell Troyer and arrived on base at 11:20pm.

I was up the next morning at 6:15 am for chapel with the current team here doing outreach. What a beautiful sight. There are palm trees, flowers, and green, green, green everywhere. Not exactly knowing for sure what I would be doing each day I came prepared for whatever.

Have you ever wondered exactly what does a missionary do on a day to day basis? Well Monday I got a dose of Missions 101. I went with Lowell to the airport to pick up mail. Unlike most of us in the states it does not just show up on a missionaries porch mailbox. You only get it every other Tuesday here AND it is not easy. Depending on who the "captain" is that day it could take just one day or most likely two. So we hurried up to be on time and spent 5 1/2 hours of day two doing paperwork, waiting, talking, asking questions and then they inspected every single box belonging to us and ALL the other missionaries on the island getting mail through customs from the U.S.. Wow! They finally released it to us all 10 minutes before closing!

So the lesson is, to be a missionary you must learn patience, grace and above all flexibility. It does no good to get upset or demanding. Remember you are a missionary and are expected to represent God well. You may be the only Jesus the people your working with have seen. So ask yourself, what does Jesus look like to them in the circumstance? Hmmm, I think this is pretty much a life lesson for no matter where you live.