missionaryMAC

​Much like I did as I prepared for my move here , I held a venta por mudanza (moving sale) on what turned out to be a beautiful Saturday morning to get rid of anything that won't be coming to St. Louis with me. It went exactly as expected, in large part due to my KISS philosophy of pre-sale prep:  Piles in my empty back room grew by a little bit every day or couple of days until this is what Josh & I were faced with carting outside the morning of the sale. Early on, I wisely started categorizing items by price: RD$100 (~$1.64), RD$200 (~$3.29), or FREE.  I'd shared a Google sheet of individually priced big ticket items back in January but still managed to fill four borrowed tables with things I cleared out of closets, cabinets, drawers, and shelves.  Yes, I would put out a plate of homemade treats ( molasses crinkle scones and pumpkin chocolate chip cookies ). Josh put on some tunes to round out the vibe.  Cutest shopper (but no, they didn't buy the mug)! At the...

​Holy Week in the Dominican Republic is synonymous with one of two things: the beach or the mountains.  While we as Lutherans value gathering together with our church families for the holy days of the triduum, beginning with a Maundy Thursday service this evening, the early part of a week with no work/school nationwide was perfect for an overnight getaway to Santo Domingo to see friends Franco & Kelsey and their 16 mo. old daughter Anza one more time; I've known them since they were just novios .   We made an 8 min. detour on the way into town to see Parque Logístico CCN , the enormous, new-ish (2022) distribution center/factory complex owned by the parent company of my favorite grocery store and where Franco works when he's not at his corporate office.  After passing through airport-esque security, we started by peeking into a warehouse with 70+ semi-truck bays (A-C on the map below) for incoming deliveries and shelving stacked 5-6 levels high with product that'...

​Another last : Sunday (March 22) at my church, Cordero de Dios in Licey al Medio.  I've been a faithful member since early in my tenure here and even served one extremely elongated term as treasurer ...whenever I was in the country, that is. My frequent travels meant I missed many a council meeting and often needed a backup to count & record the offering.  Why so early, you ask, with three Sundays remaining? I wanted Josh to be with me because a) I knew it'd be an emotional day; and b) he's the reason I'm leaving. He needed to be at his church for Palm Sunday, Easter, and his own despedida , so we worked backwards.  The congregation gifted me a beautiful necklace with Dominican amber and a cross pendant.  Josh & I with... Seminarian Francisco (Chile) & his wife Macarena.  The Rev. Sergio Fritzler.  The Davis family, of Chopped fame - some of my closest non-missionary expat friends. They joined Cordero de Dios mere months after my arrival....

Now that the cat's out of the bag  and I'm living the "retired" life (see photo, although the piles of stuff in my formerly empty back room would say otherwise...) I'm going to do my best to fill in as many of the gaps as possible for you, Q&A-style.  Q: When are you leaving the DR?  A: Josh & I will fly to St. Louis together on Monday, April 13.  Q: When and where are you getting married?  A: October 3, 2026, at my home church, St. Paul's in Des Peres, MO. Get all the deetz on our wedding website .  Q: What's left in terms of Josh's studies?  A: He has one more year of classroom learning, which will begin in mid-August. Lord willing, he'll graduate in May 2027 and "walk" with the class behind him (since international vicarages are 2 years).  Q: What are your summer plans? A: Wedding planning! No but actually...dress shopping, suit shopping, cake tasting, and more. Boring stuff: physicals, dentist appointments. Hopefully buying a ...

I'd just finished annihilating Josh at rummy when Dana sent me a WhatsApp message.  [8:07 pm]: Are you at the monument watching the game?!​ *Me, 8:29 pm: Spontaneously orders an Uber from Josh's apartment to the Monument to watch the DR play the US in the World Baseball Classic* There were thousands  of people. If I hadn't realized the depth to which this island worships baseball, I did now. Bars and restaurants were packed and illegal broadcasts were projected on the sides of otherwise nondescript trucks, but you didn't even need to be near one of the bajillions of screens airing the matchup to know what was happening; the crowd's collective reactions told all.  As we abandoned the Uber and scurried up a dirt path to the base of the Monument, it started sprinkling.  By the time we found a spot where we could see the screen if we craned our necks, it was full-on pouring.  I was that most miserable of combinations - cold AND wet - but the rain worked to our advan...

I'm officially in my last month of living abroad in the DR. Accordingly, it figures that my last trip , featuring my last team(s!) , was only the beginning of a string of "lasts," and I'm positive there's more where these came from: LAST beach trip? Dana asked me to walk her through the paces of taking a volunteer team + the 6 residents of the Good Shepherd Lutheran Homes group home to Playa Costambar , so I happily obliged. It was a short-ish beach day, but I wasn't mad. A drizzly morning (see above) gave way to a few hours of sunshine, but a steady breeze brought another freak shower right as we - finally! - sat down to lunch. LAST missionary conference planning meeting with the entire committee. LAST FORO (we busted out the deck of cards that lives in my glove box during a length lunch break!).  Actual LAST missionary conference planning meeting, with the addition of newbies Ashley and Makia , who'll be taking over my role hosting the MK Program Team. ...

While my last couple blog posts have been informative, they've left out a few key details: Panama was my last trip, comprised partly of hosting my last team .  I've always said this was my dream job and I'd be here until I retired or the Lord called me elsewhere.  After 7 1/2 years abroad, The Lord is calling me elsewhere...with someone  else. Now that the cat's out of the bag, click here or on the image below to read my final newsletter.  I'll share much more about my current frame of mind and answer all your burning questions in a subsequent post, but for now, enjoy these photos I may have intentionally left out of the aforementioned posts:  Seeing the TX portion my last team off to the airport.  A touching send-off from the Panama team: wool "paintings" by the Rickman girls of a) Josh & I; and b) Redeemer Lutheran Church. We're laughing as Eva explains that my hair is made out of alpaca wool I sourced from Peru. They even included my ever-pres...