FlowerDust.net | Anne Jackson

Dominican Republic - Day 2

Words cannot do today justice, at least of my own experience. I have a picture which will tell a story I will never forget.

Sure, everyone worked their tails off, moving thousands (literally) of buckets of sand, water, and concrete up and down stairs…but my own personal highlight included a Dominican Spa Facial.

I’m waiting for a team member to give me the picture tomorrow….and I will just let that speak for itself.

Tomorrow I am going to “The Hole” which is a dump where people live. The poorest of the poor. I’m sure I’ll have lots of stories to share tomorrow night.

Thanks for your prayers!

Dominican Republic [Sidebar]

We are sleeping in the middle of the city of Santiago, in a cement dormitory with 10 foot high, 3 level bunk beds and open air. Our power is battery generated and toilets do not like toilet paper. No hot water (at all, at the moment), but who needs that anyway?

Outside my slatted window are the constant sounds of Spanish voices, children playing, birds, bikes, and squeaky brakes less than three feet outside where my head is. If I stuck my arm out, I could probably touch one of the children walking by.

They told me to bring ear plugs to help me sleep since it was loud, but I can honestly not think of a sweeter sound to fall asleep to than the life of this city.

Dominican Republic - Day 1

Sedative drugs are a very good thing.

I am normally not a nervous traveler, but always the night before a big trip, I get nervous. I downed 20 mg worth of valium last night at 7:30 pm and woke up fuzzy and drugged at 2:45 this morning.

Nerves, nerves, nerves.

Safety is always a concern, but normally while I’m on a trip. I don’t take into account the fact I am not graceful at any point in time, and sometime whilst showering, busted my face on a mirror. Blood began pouring out of my nose, on my hands, on the floor…and thirty minutes later with no end in sight, I pondered if it was broken.

(It is now 6 pm ET and it hasn’t bled since, so I’m going to go ahead and call it good).

Flying into Miami, and then into Santiago was pretty seamless. A small weather delay and two hours later, we’re in the DR. All of our luggage made it which is a miracle. We were warmly greeted by our hosts from GO Ministries, ate a mid-day meal and are taking advantage of the wifi.

It’s warm. It’s humid. But the breeze is nice and the sounds of a city yet to be explored surround us.

I’ve uploaded some photos on our Flickr page here…there aren’t many…the bandwidth isn’t like home, but I hope you’ll stop by and check them out.

We’ll be heading out for ice cream later, getting a good night’s rest, and then on to a construction site tomorrow.

Thanks everyone for your prayers!

prayer for dominican trip

it is 3:40 am, also known as the ungodly hour, also known as i need some red bull, also known as five minutes before i am leaving to meet the team from cross point at the airport.

it is early.

but, i am excited…i feel privileged to take another out-of-the-country trip into a land which will stretch me far beyond my comfort zone. humbled at the chance to serve some with some amazing people.

the dominican is not far away. a quick trip to miami, then right into santiago. we’ll be arriving there about the same time you’re eating lunch.

your prayers are so needed for this trip. we have a pretty large group (26) going and with luggage and some camera equipment and well, just 26 people, logistics can get hairy.

please pray specifically for…

–our health & safety. this one always makes me nervous. especially after my roommate in africa had to go to the hospital in uganda while we were there in february. my asthma has been flaring up lately too…so yes, please cover us and some in this area.

–logistics. sometimes, luggage gets lost. it’s not the end of the world, but can distract us nonetheless. it was a miracle nobody’s luggage got lost with all the connecting flights we had to africa. please pray for smooth logistics.

–hearts. most importantly, our hearts. there are a lot of first-timers going on this trip and going to a new country and doing hard work out in the sun, away from comforts and family can do many different things to a person. please pray that we will keep our hearts open and flexible to ministry.

thanks everyone…i’ll update when we have some down time, and hopefully, i’ll be able to send short updates via twitter…so you can follow me that way too.

The Waitress is Watching

This is an excerpt from an article I wrote for the Catalyst monthly online magazine thingy…

Evidently, this little freestanding building was the place Nashville’s best comfort food called home. Tucked away in a residential area with limited and awkward parking, my husband Chris and I decided, after several recommendations from friends, to explore what this cozy little café had to offer. We moved to Nashville at the end of June, and finding delectable hole-in-the-wall restaurants is one of our favorite hobbies.

A waitress with frizzy blonde hair appeared. She seemed older than her fifty years, with deep wrinkles and a posture of a woman who has spent most of her life carrying food to hungry customers. Her southern accent was thick as she took our order. When she returned with our rolls and butter, she grinned as she asked us a question that caught us completely off guard.

[read the rest of the article here...i hope you enjoy it!]

one person makes a difference

i will be the first to admit: i can be pretty self-absorbed. i don’t think about how many things i consume or throw away in a day, a month, or a year. after all, it doesn’t seem like very much. i’m just one person.

artist chris jordan has some stunning pieces of art to represent production and consumption in america. (disclaimer: some of the photos could be considered graphic in nature, but not in a smutty way).

here is an example of one of his prints. it represents the 410,000 paper coffee cups used in the USA every fifteen minutes. (39,360,000 per day, if you were wondering).

here it is in a detail view:

anyway, i thought his artwork was extremely worthy of passing on. click here to view his site.

Catalyst Road Trip in Nashville

friday, pete and i had the amazing opportunity to meet up with the guys from the catalyst road trip. if you’re not familiar with catalyst, well, you need to be. [read more about catalyst and the catalyst road trip]. if you’ve been around here for any amount of time, you probably know that i’m a bit of a conference cynic. catalyst is much, much more than a conference, and has totally won my heart!

anyway, after some fine dining at star bagel, we took them to cross point to show them what it’s like to have church inside an old baptist church building…we talked about blogging, blogging, and well, blogging.

(by the way, holy cow has my hair gotten HUGE since moving to nashville. the humidity here is nuts! why hasn’t someone told me??! big hair rivals having something between your teeth!)

i’ll let you read more about what talked about here on their blog, but i have to say, it was such an honor connecting with these guys.

have you ever been to catalyst? are you going this year? if you are…i’d love to connect. i’ll be there doing some undercover spy work.