Hola mis amigos en los ustados unidos!
However, as soon as we got to the church children from who knows where just came running up to us and soon into our arms. 
We were told that these kids regularly attend the church with their families and were so excited to help us. All of these children captured our hearts. Between grabbing our hands and pulling us to sit down so they could play with our hair to being fascinated with our cameras, I think it's safe to say that those kids are one of our favorite parts about the trip so far.
It seems as if my blogs will end up being posted a day after the actual date. The wifi for some reason gets bad at night which is when I have the time to write and upload them. I think it might be because there's so many people on it during that time.
Anyways this blog is for Wednesday, New Years Eve and Thursday New Year's Day!
Wednesday:
We woke up a little earlier to work at the church this morning except we ended up waiting an hour after we got up for breakfast haha. We were warned about "Dominican time". That being that nothing ever happens on time. So if we're told breakfast will be served at 8:30, you can wake up at that time and you can guarantee that it still won't be ready by the time you're ready haha.
In the afternoon we served at a church that we hadn't been to before but previous Tri-S trips have served at. The church was located in a very poor part of Santiago and hardly looked like a church with concrete walls and floors and plastic lawn chairs in the main area. Our job was to help them clean it up.
They didn't want us to leave! :(
After our work was done at the church we went to our host's church to help set up for the big New Year's Eve service that night! We all got dressed up and had a great night ringing in the new year with our new Dominican family through a lovely message and worship.
Our group even got up in front of the congregation to lead worship for a couple songs. We practiced prior to the service and it definitely paid off, it was a lot of fun! 
Their style of worship is so lively and always loud with clapping and yelling so our worship contrasted that a little bit but they loved it! Once the clock struck midnight the room went up in whopping and hugs all around. It was such a cool feeling to bring in the new year in a different country with my team and Dominican family. 
We ended up not eating dinner that night until after midnight. In the DR lunch is the big meal of the day and dinner is lighter and served around 9 pm.
I'm so grateful for my time here it has been such a growing experience and I can't wait for my next week here!
We really didn't do anything today (Thursday New Year's Day) besides go to the beach. I had been looking forward to this day since I signed up for the trip!! And now I can finally check off swimming in clear blue water with white sand. Man, it was beautiful!!! I was just in awe of how blue the water was!! I'm so used to Lake Erie haha. We went to a beach in Porto Plate, DR and we spent all day there until sun set. It was such a lovely relaxing day. 
Well, that's what I've been up to the last two days!! Our team leader Tami has not been feeling well and has almost completely lost her voice. So prayers for her would be so appreciated!
Thanks for reading, talk to you later!
