Day 16: Sacred and Secular Dominican Culture

Vanel gave seconds to the first person who asked and was
suddenly besieged. Lazarus' Basket is a difficult ministry
to witness, let alone to sustain. There is so much need.

Well, this time Kristin is down for the count. She slept most of the day away. We hope she feels better soon!

I myself didn’t feel very well after getting sunburned at the beach yesterday. After Eucharist and the Lazarus’ Basket feeding ministry, I slept some of the morning and rested up.

After lunch and through the afternoon, I helped Charlie Nakash develop a flyer describing his mission work and a Facebook presence for the Episcopal Church in the Dominican Republic. Like it!

Those of us from VTS have opted to lead Evening Prayer all week. Sarah led it today, and I played guitar on a Spanish version of “Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence.”

Adolfo y Annie

After that our friend Adolfo (a Dominican VTS grad, now a priest here) took Annie and me out to this movie. It was a silly, predictable, slapstick flick, but it was wonderful for two big reasons: (1) it was 100% Dominican, and (2) being the kind of film it was, I didn’t need to understand much Spanish at all to have some idea of what was going on. It was sweet and charming as well, and I recommend it for Spanish learners (not that it’s at all available in the U.S., or even listed on IMDB).

The cinema was located in an opulent mall that included many American chain stores. Annie described it as “a good look at secular Dominican culture.” We ate in the food court before the film, and I finally got to satisfy my craving for Asian food.