Throughout this trip, we saw many divine appointments individually and as a team. From our travel days to our service days and even on our “free day,” we saw God moving and using our team. We spent most of our time in Arecibo, where we served the community in multiple ways and immersed ourselves in the culture. The town was beautiful: cobblestone roads, string lights across the alleys, murals on walls, old Spanish architecture. However, Hurricane Maria hit hard; parts of the town are in ruins or abandoned, as many people fled to the mainland and never came back. With that came crime, drug cartels, and gang violence. Many people in the city live in poverty, and we partnered with Dream Center Esperanza to meet this community’s needs.

 We started on Sunday, August 2nd. We all arrived at our church building before first service to complete check-in, then attended service together. During service, our pastors and church community prayed over our team.  After that, we took communion as a team, then debriefed. Next, we loaded up and headed to the airport. We got through TSA, got our tickets, and had breakfast at the airport. We were ready to board when they announced our flight was delayed due to storms in Orlando, and we ended up waiting several hours. While that was inconvenient, it ended up being a good thing, as several team members had served the day before at an all-day back-to-school event, and the delay gave us time for a nap. The rest of our team read, played card games, or visited with people they didn’t know before the trip. Finally, the storms cleared, and we boarded the flight to Orlando. Since our first flight was delayed, we missed our connecting flight, but God provided another flight that had just enough space for us to get from Orlando to San Juan. Once we got to San Juan, we had about a 90-minute drive to the mission in Arecibo. Finally, at about 12 am, we arrived, were shown to our dorm rooms, and went to the kitchen for a late dinner and debrief. The mission was simple but clean and efficient; we had access to an event room that doubled as our commons area, a large kitchen, and the camp-style dorm rooms. We went over the start time for Monday and headed to bed.

Monday, Day 2, we were up bright and early for our team’s time of prayer and worship before the debrief with Dream Center Esperenza. We heard the plan for the week, the center’s history, and the pastor’s testimonies. Afterward, half of us went over to the apartments  Dream Center has for people who join as full-time interns. That team built furniture and prepared the new apartment for the coming intern. The other half of us went to an old historic church, La Iglesia de Piedras, which has stood in Camuy since 1912. We got the pleasure of cleaning up the grounds, painting fences, and painting new lines in the parking lot. It was a beautiful place, and it was very nice to have access to a bathroom and air conditioning for breaks in the modern building on the church campus. After finishing our work there, we headed back to the mission, then went out for dinner, and we had the best roasted chicken in history. It was crispy on the outside and perfectly juicy and tender on the inside, and it fell right off the bone. I ate until I nearly made myself sick because it was so good.  We also got to try some traditional foods such as Plantains, yuca, and Tostones. Then we headed to a worship service in a historic park square where we saw the most beautiful tall trees, which I am convinced were portals to Middle-Earth. We prayed and worshiped in both English and Spanish. The walk there and back let us see the town after dark and other pretty sites along the way. Afterward, at the mission, we did our nightly routine: God moment, team shout-outs, and daily debrief.

Tuesday was day 3, and we got the honor of partnering with Revive Areicbo church. They are a newer church to the area, and we were able to come alongside them and help care for their community. We packed grocery bags at the Dream Center, then went door to door in the neighborhood surrounding Revive and passed out the groceries along with information about the local church.  While serving this community, we met 2 different women with a connection to our home state. One young mom had attended university here and had moved to Puerto Rico for her husband’s job. Another had a son and daughter-in-law stationed at the Air Force base back home. We prayed with both of these women and many others. During our hike around the neighborhood, we saw beautiful old, unique houses with little gardens out front, avocado trees, and our first wild Iguana in the trees. That evening, we went to a local pizza place and enjoyed good fellowship with our team.

Wednesday was Day 4; we spent most of the day parked at an apartment complex serving free hot dogs. We also did door-to-door ministry, walking around the complex, letting people know about the free meal, and offering prayer. This was a poverty-stricken area that experienced a lot of pain and gang violence. We were able to offer support to the local community and meet a daily need. This was the one day the heat got to me, and I unfortunately had to withdraw to the cool van with a couple of other team members. That day, we saw a lot of free-range chickens and even a horse wandering the complex. That afternoon, we returned to the center, filled more grocery bags, and prepared for the evening church service. That evening, we welcomed the local community into the Dream Center for a night of worship, a free meal, and some dry clothes, since many people arrived soaked from the storms that had moved in. After the official service, a few of us were in the kitchen cleaning up dinner when we heard the worship music start up again. We poked our heads out of the kitchen to witness some of our team starting to praise again. We came back into the commons area/event room and began to praise and dance before the Lord. We kept singing at the top of our lungs for over 30 minutes after the service ended. We then supported a team member who got a hard call from home with prayers and hugs before heading into our evening routine.

Thursday was Day 5; that morning we walked a block over to the waterfront and did morning devontion and worship at the beach. It was a beautiful area with rocks and large rolling waves. We had time to walk around, pray, and ponder at the beach (more on that in part 3), then headed back to the mission to begin service for the day. Our first project was a trip to another local park to pray over the city and island. This was another beachfront park where we could see the water and stand in the shade of palm trees. We all stood around the flag and took turns praying for the local community. We then had some time of worship. During this time, we had a man approach us and start screaming the name of his god at us, as well as some other illegible sentences. He just stood there screaming and pacing back and forth while we prayed and sang, then suddenly rode off on his bike. After wrapping up our prayer and worship time, we had lunch in the park and took a short walk to enjoy the scenery. That afternoon we went to a local nursing home/retirment community and passed out free lunch. Some of our team stayed in the fellowship hall for residents who could come down or needed to be in the air conditioning, but most of us went door to door and handed out containers. They were very welcoming, and many invited us into their apartments; we prayed and talked with people. Afterward, we prayed over the staff at the home and headed back to the dream center. That evening we ate dinner at the center, then, as a treat, our friends arranged a Salsa dancing lesson. I was just as uncoordinated and terrible at it as anyone who knows me would expect, but it was such a blast. That evening we had another deep time of prayer and worship as a team, specifically praying over our missions pastor, then into our evening routine.

Friday was day 6; this was our “free day,” which our church normally doesn’t do on a mission trip. On this specific trip, though, Dream Center arranges a free or tourist activity day in Old San Juan. We got up that morning, had breakfast, did our morning chores, and then headed to the coffee shop. They took a while to get our order, so we hung out in this cute local shop and chatted for a while. After that, we had to get gas, so we started later than planned, but we arrived right on time for where God needed us. While driving down the highway to Old San Juan, we witnessed a rollover car accident in the oncoming traffic lane. Without hesitation, both vans pulled over, and our pastors, 3 team members who are nurses, and a US Marine went bolting across the highway to help. The rest of us stayed by the vans with the teenagers and prayed for the safety of those in the car accident and our team. It was a tragically beautiful moment; there was no discussion, no question of whether we get involved, and the pastors and the nurses were out of the van and headed across 6 lanes of traffic before I fully grasped what was happening. It was truly a divine appointment; had we been on schedule, we would not have been there. Both drivers were alive with minor injuries, which was a miracle; we also realized that had the car rolled the other direction, he would have rolled off a cliff. Our team prayed with the victims and helped first responders clean up the highway so traffic could get through. Then we got back on the road and finished our drive to San Juan.

Old San Juan is beautiful: cobblestone roads, gardens everywhere, colorful buildings, and a bright blue sky. First we went to the Catedral Basílica Menor de San Juan Bautista, which was absolutely breathtaking. On the way, we saw a beautiful old fountain that was empty from the drought, but the statues were still gorgeous. We also walked along the paved beachfront and could see boats on the horizon. After that, our team split into two groups; one half went to the fort, and the other half to Pigeon Park. I went to the park, where hundreds of pigeons live in the trees and on the wall of an old building. The birds let you hand-feed them or sit on your head; it also had a beautiful ocean view. After sightseeing, we went for lunch and tried a local dish called Mofongo, then our two groups rejoined, and we headed to the beach. The beach was beautiful, and this was my first real visit to the ocean. On the Mexico mission trip, I got to wade in the Gulf, but since so many of us got sick, our team didn’t get to go to the beach. This trip, I got to go in the water up to my chin. It was so much fun and refreshing. After swimming for a few hours, the Dream Center team brought us chicken and rice to eat dinner and fellowship at the beach. Towards the end of the meal, it started raining the most beautiful dream-like summer rain. After that, we headed back to the Dream Center to do evening chores and pack for the journey home.  

Saturday was day 7, and it was our travel day home. We were up bright and early and in the vans before breakfast. We started our final team debriefs, then headed to the airport. We got a meal or a snack at the airport, then boarded our flight to Orlando. The flight from San Juan to Orlando was uneventful. We had a bit of a wait for our next flight, so we did more debriefing. Then we boarded our second of three flights for the day. We had only enough time for a bathroom break between Orlando and boarding for our flight to Dallas. Then rushed through Dallas to catch our flight to our home state. The last flight was a little rocky; we hit some turbulence, which I was not a fan of. I got super nauseous and mainly just sat there with my eyes closed, waiting for it to be over. Finally, about 9 pm, we landed home; we did our final goodbyes, prayed together one last time, and headed out. My mom picked me up, and we hit the Chick-fil-A and went to pick up Caspian.

This whole trip was a wonderful healing experience, full of wonder, divine appointments, and healings. I also did not get sick! No hospitalization or misery this time. This trip was different because I felt more present most of the time, as I wasn’t sick and isolated for several days. Even running on 5 hours of sleep a night, sleeping on a squeaky old camp mattress, and waiting an hour in line to shower, I never felt stressed or ran out of energy, which is a miracle in itself.  Puerto Rico is a truly beautiful island, and I get to check off some more “firsts” for me: first time on an island, first time swimming in the ocean, first time Salsa dancing. The Dream Center pastors and staff were so kind and open with us, even taking special care to make sure those of us with food restrictions got to eat. This was the trip where I realized I don’t actually like or enjoy flying; I would prefer to drive, but that is not always an option. Thank you to all of you who donated to the funding of this trip that allowed this wonderful experience and the work we did to happen. There is so much more that happened behind the scenes and personal parts that I will share in part 3!