JANE'S STORY - Part 1

This is a story of the renewal of Faith from the power of Prayer. My name is Jane; I grew up on a farm in a family of ten. I was raised in a Christian home, I have been a believer for a very long time, but this experience certainly impacted my life.

We have all stumbled at sometime in our lives, some of us more than others. We have had experiences where we said, "Why me Lord?" or "Why not me Lord?" Times when we thought God was not with us, when our faith was sitting on the fence and then at our lowest point the power of prayer confirms and renews our faith. I would like to share an incident in my life when through a desperate prayer my faith was strengthened and it quietly changed my life, my priorties and the realization that I was blessed in more ways than I could admitt. Outwardly I don't look differently, but inside I have a quiet comfort, strength, belief, optimism, contentment, love, calm, fulfulment, satisfaction and a stronger faith. It is said that faith is a gift. Hebrews 11:1,3 says "now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. Through faith we understand."

The year my daughter graduated with her Honours BA I invited her on a holiday, the destination was her choice. She decided she would like to see the school she had raised money to build in a third world country. The school had been built in the remote mountain region in the Dominican Republic near the Haitian border. Our tickets were bought and we had filled four extra suitcases with school supplies and hygiene items as well as toys. We tried to coordinate transportation to the location before leaving Canada but continually hit roadblocks and decided we would deal with it upon arrival in the Dominican.

Once at our resort, we asked at the front desk if they could arrange to take us to the location of the school, but the answer was "No"! They stated they lived in this country and they would not go into the mountain region. We attended the information sessions at our resort, we asked our travel representative if he could help us to arrange transportation to the school. He told us his company would not permit him to arrange such a trip but before the session was over, he came to tell us he may have a contact to take us where we wanted to go.

So the contact was made, American dollars were paid in advance and we were set to leave the next morning at 8:00 A.M. in order to make it back before dark. It was to be a 3-3 1/2 hour drive to the area, Leon was to be our driver and interrupter. The resort took our pictures, pictures of our bags of supplies and teacher's supplies and pictures of the van and driver. Then we had to write down where we were going and at what time we would return. The manager made it known he was not happy we were going and he would not be responsible for us. We assured him we were going and this was our sole purpose for the trip.

So off we went, just outside of the resort I asked the driver if he could possibly get us to our destination in less than three hours. You can imagine the look on our faces when Leon looked at us and said, "I don't understand, I don't speak English!" Well, my daughter is an amazing girl, she had her Spanish dictionary with her and she was able to converse with our well paid driver.

The drive was horrendous, up and down, dust, extreme heat, no air conditioning, the smell of gas, roads which were more like trails, and we just kept climbing and climbing. I thought we would never get there, the heat and motion sickness got to me. I was sick to my stomach until there was nothing left but dry heaves and I was regretting having the big breakfast offered by the resort. Thank God I had a plastic bag with me, but that just added to the unplesant smell in the van.

Finally we arrived in the small village, but could not find the school. One person would tell us to go one way, the next would send us back the same way, then we were told to go futher up the hill, there didn't seem to be any street names. Finally we came across a school area, my daughter and I waited in the van while the driver went down to the building to bring someone up to talk to us. The village appeared deserted, then two little girls came along and my daugher decided to hop out and give them each a backpack of supplies. Within minutes we were swarmed by people who came out of nowhere. My daughter was pushed up against the van and teens were grabbing things out of the back of the van where I was standing with the hatch up. Leon was a big man and came to our rescue, he came back with a teacher who soon regained order and had everyone line up to receive a back pack. This deserted village suddenly had 60 or 70 kids and adults lined up down the hill towards the school. We soon realized we did not have enough backpacks to give one to each child, so we started opening them and giving 1 or 2 items to each child. We talked to the children and handed out many items, then showed the teacher the supplies we had for them. They were very excited; they said their Government would never give them this amount of supplies in five years. They taught their classes verbally, little or no writing materials were available. We were given a tour of the school buildings and the children sang songs and were delighted to see their pictures in the camera. The school rooms were very,very simple, but the kids were proud to show us around. They were thankful for the school supplies and toys we had brought, the paper and pen and pencils were the biggest hit. We brought class sets of notebooks for the teachers; one Teacher hugged her package in her arms and never set them down the whole time we were there. She was so excited to have workbooks for the children.

We stayed a couple of hours then needed to get back on the road in order to arrive back before dark. We were overwhelmed by our experience of the day and started our long drive back to the resort.

The next day we deceided we would like to go back to the school one more time. It took some arranging to find Leon again, and set up the journey back, but once the contact was made he replied, "Oh yes, I take the sonoritas, they pay me good money!"

So off we went for the second time, two days after our first visit. Thank God, I ate a light breakfast of toast and tea and was able to keep it down during the trip. The money was paid, Leon was happy and we were better at communicating with each other. The winding, rutted roads did not change be we arrived back at the school in record time, 3 hours, 10 minutes.

Once again the village looked empty, but once they saw these light skinned ladies, whose arms they loved to touch, we had a warm welcome. They remembered us, we had a following everywhere we went, even the Elders came to hug us and say "Good morning". We were shown in their homes, we saw the single pig that was the meat supply for the village, the chickens that run around everywhere, and the skinny dogs that were plentiful. The children had the day off from school for some reason. This worked to our advantage because we had the day to spend with them and get to know them. The kids were amazing, they sang songs for us, did cartwheels and danced, they were so excited to entertain us. We got some terrific pictures, faces I will never forget. As we prepared to leave we thought we had had an eye opening experience, an amazing day. Little did we know that our trip home would change our lives forever.