Rainbows

If you have been following this year's blog you know by now that our theme for the vacation bible school has been Noah's Ark. It's remarkable how this has permeated everything we have done. 

Martha wrote in the blog yesterday that it rained hard, in the morning steadily, and off and on the rest of the day. As we were waiting for the guagua (that's small bus-- into which can be crammed anywhere from six to twelve people—in Spanish), Father Hipólito mentioned that Dominicans were especially adverse to rain. “In this country,” he told us, “water, especially coming down from above is considered evil.”

That got me to thinking. In a place where there is a distinct rainy season, where floods are frequent, and an island, a place effectively separated from the rest of the world, at least until the advent of air travel, water must be daunting. And then I thought, working with the flood story, a universal mythic metaphor, stay with me now, maybe there is an inborn fear of water in all of us.

This makes the Noah story an important one for everyone. 

Yesterday afternoon, as we left a local store, there was a gorgeous rainbow in the sky, stretching from horizon to horizon, in vivid rainbow colors. There was a rainbow in Noah's story too, if you remember, and we see that today as a symbol of God's willingness to stay involved with humanity, no matter what, a metaphor of hope. In the past few days significant things have happened on a larger then usual scale for the people of the Dominican Republic. 

This is a nation of amazing resources, natural and human, and a nation that is growing up. President Obama invited President Leonel Fernandez to the White House to discuss matters of import for both countries of this island, the DR and Haiti. On a lighter note (although for a diehard Red Sox fan such as myself) David Ortiz, a Dominican and a Red Sox won the hon-ron (Dominican for home run) Derby at the All-Star Game festivities. In so many ways this appears to be a country moving into a new place, a place of prosperity and self confidence. Certainly, it faces many challenges, but this is no longer a nation staggering under post traumatic stress syndrome from the reign of the terrible dictator Trujillo. 

There was another downpour this morning, while we were working in the new school. When
I looked out the door, through the curtain of rain there were a half a dozen kids were cavorting, most stripped to their underwear, having the time of their lives. I so remember doing the same. Hope, hope in the next generation, of this country, of the world. We are finishing up a week of being with, and working for the children in a barrio in a country far from home, and yet, it seems the next village over. We have witnessed, we have been part of a hope, a joy made real in the radiant faces of those children dancing in the rain. We work for, we pray for, we hope the day when the clouds will fly away, the sun will shine and all creation will dance in gratitude, peace and harmony.