Plans B, C, and D

I'm three blogs behind so tackling the low hanging fruit - a post about ONE day. I said goodbye to a team of seven from Trinity Lutheran Church in Davenport, IA, this morning at 4:30 am (yes, I'm fading, so please chalk any grammatical errors up to lack of sleep) after just four full days on the ground. I had a meticulously mapped out plan, as is my custom, but I thought the fact that NOTHING we did on Thursday, Day 1, was part of said plan - at least not Plan A. 

Plan A: An early morning, 90 min. drive to Kilometer 28 for a tour of the state-run psycho-social rehab hospital + enrichment activities with residents, followed by lunch at the Chocolate Cortes "Choco Lounge." 

Why it didn't work: The hospital was hit by a bout of COVID and not allowing visitors, and Cortes is too far to drive just because. 

Plan B: My go-to chocolate factory, Chocolala, followed by Deac. Danelle's brilliant presentation on the connections between mercy & church planting...via Zoom from home service. 

Plan A: Yaroa (a loaded French fry delicacy originating in Santiago) for lunch. 

Why it didn't work: My UberEats driver got lost and made ZERO attempt to contact me. 

Plan B: Pica pollo (fast food rotisserie chicken) on my way back to the seminary after waiting the requisite 10 minutes. 

After lunch, these willing servants made quick work of prepping 40 of the God's eye craft I volunteered to bring for escuela bíblica in Cienfuegos on August 2.

Plan A: Visits in Licey. 

Why it didn't work: Both pastors on vacation. 

Plan B: An outdoor devotion in the El Congo neighborhood near Iglesia Luterana Pueblo Nuevo. 

Why it didn't work: The church's main contact, Mercedes, was otherwise occupied with her role in the graduation ceremony for the school in Cerro Alto, the missionary/married seminary student neighborhood.

Plan C: Go to said graduation! This made sense on several levels, chiefly because Trinity is keenly interested in supporting Lutheran education in the DR, and our outing gave the team members a chance to see and experience the Dominican educational system "in the wild." They met Mercedes, who coincidentally serves as Director of the sole DRLM Lutheran school, for a fleeting moment before she was hustled away to her spot on the stage but got plenty of time with two seminary families whose kids figured into the proceedings while we waited for the "4 pm" ceremony to get underway. 

Mercedes (in pink, looking at the camera in the center of the photo), in the processional. 

Diego, son of Héctor & Yudaimy (Cuba) rocked it on keyboard. He played from Himnario Luterano!

Mia, daughter of Oscar & May (Mexico), graduated from the equivalent of kindergarten and had a few speaking lines when her class recited a poem later in the program. 

Plan A: Scory Cafe for dinner, because it's not terribly far from El Congo and they have an English menu. 

Why it didn't work: It could have, but we'd be coming from a different area of town, and when I took last week's group there, the online English menu was a broken link. 

Plan B: Duck out of graduation early (Oscar & family did it first!) when it hit the 2 hour mark and was still going strong and try a new-to-me place near Santiago's most iconic landmark, 500 m. from where the graduation took place according to Google Maps. 

Every plan has a plan B, every plan B has a plan C, and every plan C has a plan D (thankfully we didn't get there). Later in the week, the team asked fellow missionary Tirzah & I the most important characteristic of a missionary. She responded "flexibility" in no time flat. Their next question was about the most important characteristics of volunteer teams. This time I answered without skipping a beat: "flexibility!"

Until next time, blessings in Christ!