(i’m posting this on the suggestion of a friend)

(9 6 2008)

FURMAN FREE PRESS – UNPUBLISHED
“You turned my wailing into dancing;
you removed my sackcloth and clothed me with joy”
(Psalm 30:11)
I can’t possibly explain the significance of this verse to my last month here in whole, but I shall make a feeble attempt. We had three hurricanes during August, I caught Dengue Fever, and I have had to daily submit myself to the Lord to even have the drive and motivation to sustain me in my time here (even when I wasn’t feeling it…for if I didn’t, it was like night and day). I have learned much, but I have even more to learn. Even though the month was crazy at times and chaotic at others, I am still here. God has shown his never-ending faithfulness and love in sustaining me here alone, though I am a doubting Thomas many times over. Not to mention that my research has actually come along quite far during all of this.
The simple, yet profound lessons keep on coming. As an American and native Texan, I often think that I can do things on my own and in many cases, I can. I’m not one for study groups because nothing gets done often, I don’t like living spaces that are crammed or have too many people, I love people but I often need a little space, I consider myself social but too much is too much. These were my thoughts more or less for the last few years. What has God done with these petty predispositions and preferences? Tossed them into the wind. And then some. If you’re from Covenant, then you know that I have moved around campus, almost nomadically, since my arrival in the search for a better place to live with the right ratio of space/people/friends. These last years at Covenant only prepared me for my time here in the most necessary ways. Here in the Dominican Republic I am living in a house of 9 that fluctuates (I say this because cousins and friends are always coming and going). I’m working in a community where I must watch my every word and action to portray the image and example that I should (not that I’m being fake, that is different). And I’m doing some grassroots research that entirely depends on my ability to either find or form networks of people in a culture that would rather have nothing to do with anything that even smells like structure. I love people, don’t get me wrong. I think what I am saying is that no number of cross-cultural classes could actually prepare one for what it is like working and trying to be productive on an American scale in a Dominican context.