Gloria a Dios

I am currently on vacation from my busy schedule - the first time for at least 7 years that I have taken a month off of work. Right now I am in La Republica Dominicana visiting my brother and some friends. I just experienced a shocking situation this afternoon so I thought I would share it. A couple of days ago, a man that my brother and friends knew died. They have 9 days of mourning in this country. Both yesterday and today we went to pay respects to the family. Today while we were there, a Haitian mother and about 6 of her children were walking on the road and came up to us and other people around the house asking for money. It was obvious that the house we were at was going through their 9 days of mourning because Domincan's hang a bright blue tarp outside for the family and friends to gather during the time of mourning. The children weren't having any luck getting anything from the people outside so we watched as the mother proceeded to enter the house. A few minutes later she came back out with some food! It was totally shocking to us that she had no problem walking into a place of mourning, past the open coffin and asking for food. We thought it to be a very disrespectful thing to do as she obviously had no shame. I wonder what Dominican's thought of this. It just boggles my mind at what people will do when they are hungry.

This experience just made me thank God for all He has provided me with. I am so blessed. It has been a real experience for me. I have seen the slums and the garbage dumps that really are towns and on the totally opposite side I have seen the resorts totally exclusive from the poverty found in this country.

I have also had the experiences to go to several churches here. It is fascinating to see these people in these small little buildings so excited about God! It was awesome to see all the people going up to the front to accept Jesus Christ into their lives. The most amazing thing was to hear the Pastor ask the congregation who wants to be filled more with the Holy Spirit and see people young and old running as fast as they possibly could to get to the front of the church!! You don't see that often in North America I find. It was really a touching thing to see the passion and the desire of these people to be totally over flowing with as much of God in their lives as possible.

I really hope that the passion in this country continues to grow and it overflows to North America as well because it really is needed badly. I look forward to the day that I will see every church with people sprinting down to the alter with such a hunger and passion for our God.

Dios Bendiga