Day 9: And So It Ends

Day Nine of a ten-day mission trip is always bittersweet. Make no mistake, all 23 of us are looking forward to coming home to see the ones we love, sleep in our own comfortable beds and enjoy such extravagances as air conditioning, clean tap water, properly flushing toilets and, not to put too fine a point on it, but...roughage. For the love of all that is good and holy in the world, please have salad ready for us when we return!

But back to the bittersweet part. This week, relationships were built. Dominicans and Americans from past trips enjoyed a ten-day "family reunion." Rookie missionaries became veterans, eager to share their stories. And as always happens on these things, long-time Woodsiders who only knew each other enough to smile and nod politely on a Sunday morning actually got to KNOW each other. (No, the irony of having to fly 2500 miles from home to accomplish this simple feat is not lost on any of us.) It's a spiritual and emotional mountaintop. And mountaintops are hard to leave.

Today some of us helped to lay few more courses of block to the church walls, while others conducted another VBS for the Haina church children. Tonight, we will enjoy one final worship service with our Dominican brothers and sisters (not to mention inevitable hugs and tears). Tomorrow, we'll shower, pack, grab one more wonderful breakfast prepared by our killer kitchen staff, then board the bus once again...only this time turning left toward the airport instead of right toward Haina.

This was an unusually great team that bonded from the moment we boarded the bus in the Woodside parking lot last Wednesday at 3:30 a.m....and only seemed to get closer with each passing day. We dug. We shoveled. We prayed. We laughed (a lot). We carried. We picked. We questioned. We grunted. We groaned. We strained. We stressed. We endured. We worshiped. We cried and hugged. We broke bread. We broke a sweat. We did it all together. And best of all, we drew nearer to our God.

Many blessings to our Dominican family...and to our Woodside family who supported, followed and cheered us fro Bucks County. We love you and can't wait to see you all again!