Carnival -- 2 years of thoughts rolled into one blog post!

Sorry that this post isn’t very fun and won’t have a lot of pictures of cute kids and sports in the DR .. but this topic is something that has been developing in my mind and I have been processing for about 2 years now. I LOVE the Dominican culture, that is probably obvious given that fact that I’ve lived here for about 2 and a half years and plan on being here for a while! But sometimes I tell people that there are 2 things that I really don’t like about this culture – Elections , and Carnival.

Carnival is a huge celebration in the DR and in other latin American/South American countries. It involves some combination of costumes, alcohol, satan worship, more alcohol, dancing, lots of drunk driving and yeahhhhh more alcohol. My first year I had a very limited scope of what Carnival entailed, just seeing the mini version in Constanza. This was pretty watered down and just a big excuse to party for about 6 weekends straight. Lots of cars with huge speakers, big beer/rum advertisements and lots and lots of people. Not too out of the norm though, just lots of partying.

2 years ago for some reason I found myself more aware of what was going on around the country with Carnival. I was a little more independent and saw Jarabacoa/La Vega/Santiago in small parts and how they celebrate. I learned that each city has little differences in which demons/characters they dress up as in the parades and other things like that. I also realized how huge this was in the culture here. I also realized I didn’t like it one bit. There is so much darkness and so much evil you can really feel it during the month of February in this country.

I was out of the country last year for Carnival, but this year it makes me sick! Today was the first parade day for Carnival, which will last for all of February. It makes me so sad to see all the girls wearing next to nothing trying to “impress” and desperate for any attention from the “men” in the country. What makes me even more sad is seeing how early this starts, as girls as young as 8,9, or 10 years old are following the example set by the women/teenagers in how they dress and dance and act.

Recently a study came out that 25% of all pregnancies in the DR are girls between the age of 13-16 years old, and sadly that wasn’t a huge shock to me. That is about right with a lot of what you see in the poorer areas of the country. I’ve seen it too many times to kids I care deeply about and it hurts everytime. The cycle of poverty is so deep here sometimes it seems impossible to make a difference. Sometimes I get depressed or frustrated with deep the issues go in the country. 

The other night I was driving through my neighborhood on a typical weekend party night, it was lined with hundreds of people drinking and dancing and who knows what else. I remember thinking that this is just one small part, of one city, in one of the smaller countries in the world, and it seemed impossible to make a difference. It was an overwhelming moment. I felt like someone would have to be SuperMan to come in and even make a small dent in a place so lost and filled with sin. Then I realized that God already sent someone to do that and it’s already done! He sent his only son Christ Jesus to defeat the power of sin and death over 2000 years ago and He is the only one who can save Santiago or any other city and I will keep dedicating myself to serve and play my role in His redemption story. 

Please, please join me in praying for the DR this week. God's placed some very specific prayer requests on my heart for this month.

-Jess Gates' Volleyball team in Jarabacoa. These girls will deal with all sorts of temptations and choices this month, and I know it won't be easy. I'm praying that God will give them the strength to turn from everything their culture is throwing at them this month.

-The kids in Hato del Yaque. Similarly, I can't imagine how crazy Carnival gets out by our Church there. The kids will no doubt be surrounded by all of it and pray that God would protect them and give them opportunities to get away.

-All of the kids involved in our Baseball/Basketball ministry in Santiago. Especially our older kids, it's hard to turn from temptation when you really don't have to leave your small street to find it. Girls wearing next to nothing will be throwing themselves at these kids and please join me in praying that God can speak to our guys and that our Coaches can be examples for them and speak wisdom/guidance into their lives!

If you made it this far thanks for taking the time to read through all this! It's been sometime that has been on my mind for a long time and it felt good to get it all out! God bless.