It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas...Sort Of

The Wednesday before Thanksgiving I ran out of school as soon as the last bell of the day rang knowing I had little time to make my Thanksgiving surprise happen.  I made it to the airport with a decent amount of time and boarded the plane that would take me to Forte Lauderdale where I would catch my next flight to Chicago.  I had told nobody except for my brother Nate that I was coming, and I was definitely excited to see surprised looks on the faces of my family and friends.  I got off the plane in Forte Lauderdale and immediately started shivering, I had forgotten how much cooler it is in the states even in Florida.  Thanksgiving morning I walked out to the kitchen where my mother had to do a double take to realize who was standing there.  It was  fun surprising everyone as one by one they arrived for Thanksgiving.  It was a great weekend, and I loved being able to be home and eat some good Thanksgiving food. Sunday, it was back to reality as I stood in a long line for security at Midway early in the morning going through the necessary procedures for my return to Santo Domingo.
This past week was extremely busy as I was trying to get in the rest of the new material needed to complete the semester meanwhile trying to stay somewhat healthy after catching a cold and sinus infection.  This week begins our review week in which we're not allowed to begin any new material.  It is all about reviewing and preparing for their final exams which will happen the following week and a half. 
Its weird to think that I'm completing my first semester as a real math teacher. I feel like I have been teaching math for years.  It has definitely been a good semester.  God has shown me so much his patience and some of the hearts that he is patiently waiting for.  Every day I see kids that have everything they could want, but yet they are not satisfied, are empty, and are desperately reaching out for everything and anything to fill that hunger that only God can satisfy. It makes me very grateful for my high school expxerience.
I keep saying it really doesn't feel like December.  It is definitely not cold enough for that to be true and it's hard to believe I have been here for that long.  In a couple weeks, I'll be flying back to Chicago for Christmas, and I've been hearing it's been "warm" there, and I won't be heartbroken if I don't have to see snow this year.

Brother Comes to Visit

The last two weeks have been quite eventful.  We felt the effects of Hurricane Sandy.  We were quite far from the path of the storm, but we still felt the effects.  We experienced a lot of rain and flooding.  On Thursday, we woke up to the downpour of rain that had begun at some point the night before.  I thought my alarm had to have gone off at the wrong time since it was far too dark to be morning.  We were pretty sure school would be cancelled, but the time came for us to leave and school was still on.  Our dedicated taxi driver came to get us. While we were leaving the apartment garage, one of his tires went flat (thankfully it happened before we got on the road).  He and our kind doorman made a quick tire change, and we were on the road braving the flooded streets. Our car doubled as a boat, and we had to change our route three times before we could get to school.  About half the teachers made it to school; the other half were unable to leave their homes/apartments.  Students were trickling in one by one, but less than half came to school.  About an hour after school was supposed to start, it was cancelled for the rest of the day, and we started sending our students home.  It took another two hours before we could get out of school.  We spent the rest of the day managing the leaks in our apartment and getting work done.  They let us know on Thursday night that school would be cancelled for Friday. When I woke up on Friday, I thought the weather wasn’t really school cancelling worthy; however, it did not take long before it began pouring rain. We would watch out the window as the storm clouds came in and the buildings around us disappeared.  Everything was flooded and wet for quite a while.
                This past Wednesday Nate flew into Santo Domingo for a visit.  We left school on Wednesday and picked up the rental car for the weekend.  We really enjoyed having a car for the weekend and the mobility it provided.  We let him rest on Thursday and Friday since I had to teach, and on Friday after school we took off to go visit Monte Plata (where I spend my summers).   I was able to introduce Nate to a lot of the people that I work with there and show him what life is like in Monte Plata since it is very different from life in the capitol.  On Saturday morning we woke up early by Nate’s standards, and took off for the north coast to Las Terrenas, which is on the coast and has beautiful beaches and isn’t too touristy.  It was quite a drive going up and over the mountains.  I was clinging to the door the entire time as I looked over the sides of the mountains with guardrails to prevent our car from plummeting over the side.  Despite the steep road, it was a gorgeous drive with going through the mountains and being able to see the beaches off in the distance.  We had a very relaxing day on the beach. While we were there we got a phone call that our other roommate had been taken to the hospital.  She was sick when we left, but had convinced us she was doing better.  Once we got the phone call, we decided to head back to Santo Domingo.  We arrived, left Nate at the apartment, and then went to visit her.  She was quite sick and they didn’t know what was wrong.  They had tested her for a lot of stuff including Dengue, which we were happy to hear that she didn’t have that. 
                We’ve been spending the last couple days going to and from the hospital meanwhile trying to get the other stuff done that needs to be done. We dropped Nate off at the airport on Monday after a quick trip to the colonial zone, and after a delayed flight and missed connection I’m pretty sure he’s home (I haven’t heard anything different). Our roommate is still in the hospital. They told us on Saturday that she has E. Coli, so they have her on an antibiotic treatment, and she will probably be in the hospital for at least another couple days.   After the day off yesterday, it is now back to school.  We have our normal classes, a check-up visit from the organization that accredits our school, and parent teacher conferences.  With all that, we will be daily going to and from the hospital.  Pray for the health of our roommate that she can get better soon and also for energy for myself and my other roommate as we go through the busy times of this week.

It's Fall?

Last year at this time, I was back in Sycamore, IL.  The temperatures had dropped to the chilly fall weather and the leaves were changing colors and falling.  It was Pumpkinfest time and it felt like fall.  Although the temperatures have dropped some here, there is no changing of leaves or Pumpkinfest.  No Pumpkin Spice Lattes or warm apple ciders. Don't get me wrong, I love that it is still warm and I don't have to wear a coat to go outside, but I do get a little nostalgic every once in a while. After coming across some cans of pumpkin, I decided to attempt to get some feeling of fall here by making pumpkin bars. First problem, we have no electric mixer.  Not too big of a deal, I just got a nice arm workout attempting to blend together cream cheese, butter, and powdered sugar by hand to make cream cheese frosting (yes it was messy, but delicious). You can't have pumpkin bars without cream cheese frosting.  Second problem, no cake pans. Not too big of a deal especially when it come to the third problem, which is we do not have a working oven.  We do have a Express Redi Set Go, which is like a little oven about the size of a waffle maker that comes with a pan in which you can make six little mini muffins at a time.  I decided if it could make muffins it could make cupcakes.  Like I said, it was six at a time and not only that but the cupcakes would leave a residue despite oiling the pan that I had to wash off after every round.  About two hours and fifty cupcakes later, I finally had my taste of fall, and it was good.  I classify myself as persistent.
Today was a whole new day for me with all new students.  Our math program is a dual language program, so our students switch every quarter from Spanish to English or English to Spanish, so today I got the group that was in Spanish and began teaching them in English.  The classes I had last quarter were all honors classes (supposedly the better behaved classes).  I knew I was in for a challenge, but it wasn't bad.  I was actually surprised by how much better my 10th grade geometry class was behaved in comparison to the honors geometry class.  The 11th grade was a little bit more challenging, but in comparison to the 9th grade honors class I had this past quarter they weren't nearly as difficult.  My honors kids have seemed to get a sense of superiority and kept asking me which class I liked better.  I declined responding because I really didn't think it was all that much different, and it will keep them on their toes.  I kind of like having a whole new group although it is difficult to switch after only nine weeks when I was just getting my students to where I wanted them to be.  It will definitely be a whole new adventure this quarter.
I made a trip to Monte Plata two weekends ago.  I was so happy to be back with my "family" there.  I really missed it a lot and it was really nice to be able to get out of the busy city for a couple days.  I'm hoping to be able to continue travelling back there whenever I have long weekends or free weekends.
This past weekend, I went to the olympic stadium which is right down the street to watch our high school boys play in a tournament. They are actually really good, and it was a good game.  After the soccer game we walked to another field in the olympic stadium to watch some friends of my roommate play in the dominican football league.  Its a six team (all named after teams in the states) league that plays every saturday on the saddest looking football field I have ever seen (the goal posts are just two posts on the top of soccer goals). They are pretty low scoring games and any time a pass is thrown it is incomplete or intercepted.  It never reaches the intended target.  The refs have their flags and they love to throw them, and field goals are not attempted often.  It's very different from da bears but it's still a lot of fun.
I appreciate all of your prayers.  I ask that you continue praying for the ministry here.  I see a lot of emptiness in my students and some of my colleagues, and every day I'm given the opportunity to show the love of God.  Pray for open ears and hearts.

"Retreat"

Yesterday our 11th grade students went on their retreat.  Every grade goes for a day to work on team building exercises to improve the dynamic of the class. Since I am the 11th grade advisor, I had the priviledge of going with.  Having experiences with such kinds of retreats in middle school going to timberlee, I was excited for the kids to have a chance to experience some challenging activities and grow together.  Let's just say my Timberlee expectations were not met.  The 11th grade class's behavior is challenging.  I really enjoy working with them because they like to talk and are willing to reason with you and draw conclusions.  Unfortunately the group running the program may have not been quite prepared to handle what was coming for them.  Most of the day felt like a mess, but in the end their were definitely some good things that came out of it.  It wasn't much of a retreat for us the teachers but we were able to have some really conversations with our students throughout the day.
As the students were doing various activities, I had the chance to talk with one of  the other teachers who was on the trip with us that I really had not had the chance to get to know before.  She had just gotten engaged the night before, so we got to talk about her future wedding plans.  Then we got on to the topic of our students and their behavior.  Although they attend a Christian school, the majority of them do not hold those beliefs and don't come from Christian homes.  A lot of the time, it is easy to place Christian expectations on these students because they are in a Christian school, but the reality is they have no base for good behavior.  They can control themselves to a certain extent, but they are human beings who when it comes down to it are looking to please themselves.  The other teacher and I spoke a lot about how we as teachers cannot change this; it has to be something from God.  Our responsibility is to pray for them, love them, live our lives as a testimony to them, and be open to speak when God opens the door.  It is such a huge ministry opportunity to be a teacher at this school.
The day was definitely not my favorite, and I may have a few suggestions for the powers that be, but it did allow me to build better relationships with my students.  It was also just a huge reminder of where my students are at and the spiritual needs that they have.  This job is definitely not just about teaching math.

Fights and Russians

These past two weeks have been quite eventful. Last weekend I was so tired that on Friday night I went to bed at 9:30 because I couldn't stay awake anymore. I also woke up at seven that Saturday morning which was quite a disappointment after looking forward to being able to sleep in that weekend. Unfortunately it seems my body is getting accostomed to waking up early in the morning. Something I thought would never happen.

Perhaps part of the reason I was so exhausted by Friday last week was in part to the events that came to pass in my classroom. On to the first part of the title of the blog: fights. I have to say I may have been a little naive to believe this, but since I was teaching in a private school I figured the chances of breaking up a fight were slim to none. As I said, I was naive. As I'm teaching a very important lesson on congruent segments, I see out of the corner of my eye a Dasani water bottle being picked up by a student and soon flying through the air at a very fast speed. Next thing I knew it was hitting its target in the face. Bad news. The target of the bottle was soon on his feet and although I tried to stand in his way knowing nothing good could come of him getting any closer to the thrower of the bottle, he got around me and soon his fists were making contact with the thrower. Next thing I knew I was grabbing his arms and pulling him off the other student. In some miracle of a motion I pushed the boxer in front of me while opening the door to the classroom and guiding him out of the room. I don't know if the thrower thought his actions were acceptable because I had to inform him that he also was making a trip to the dean's office. He was soon following behind and we were walking to the dean's office. The only words coming out of my mouth were "unacceptable, this is unacceptable." I was in shock. In shock that a fight broke out in my classroom especially in my normally best behaved class and that I was able to break up a fight. I even had one student calling me the fight referee not a title that I would like to continue fulfilling. It must not have hindered the students that much since the class had an average score of a 93 percent on their test the following week. Thankfully they've moved on. Hopefully there will be no more fights.

After a long week, we were invited by one of the other high school math teachers to her home for lunch on Sunday after church. We were happy to have a free meal (we never turn down a free meal). This teacher is from Armenia and is actually a robotic engineer turned math teacher. Needless to say, she is a genius. She picked us up from church and took us to her apartment where we met her mother (I didn't know she lived with her mother). It was one of the most unique experiences of my life where I found myself in the Dominican Republic eating crepes with two Russians and the only language that all four of us had in common was Spanish. It was so interesting to hear from her mother tell about her life growing up in Russia under Communism and how the system worked in Armenia and how it still is impacting the people. We felt very welcomed and very full (her mother kept putting food in front of me and saying "eat" it didn't seem like a suggestion) by the time we left.

This week hasn't been nearly eventful. For one, I haven't had any fights in the classroom this week. My roomate's husband flew into the country on Wednesday for a couple days. We all went out to dinner Wednesday and Thursday with administration and other teachers from the school and then on Friday my roomate and her husband left to go to the beach for the weekend leaving me in my very large apartment all by myself for the weekend. Everyone kept asking me what I was going to do all alone all weekend and I kept telling them "sleep." I have really enjoyed my weekend alone. If you know me well, you know that I really enjoy my alone time. I was able to get a lot of grading done and relax. I ventured out to the local bakery to get some food making sure to carry my keys between my fingers just in case an attacker was nearby, but God protected me and I didn't have to use my keys other than to get into my apartment.

Dominican Birthday

This morning I found myself feeling quite nostalgic.  I don’t know what it is about the completion of my twenty third year of life, but I found myself reflecting on how much has changed in just a year.  Last year (on my twenty third birthday), I was in Ohio sitting in my aunt and uncles basement spending time with family and enjoying a relaxing labor day weekend.  I was feeling nervous about starting student teaching that coming week, but excited about the start of the end of my final semester of college. I really had few plans for my future.  My goals were to make it through student teaching alive and with all my hair.  I had no idea of the changes that were to come.
I had no idea I would spend a month as an aide for special needs kids.  I had no idea that would be the hardest job of my life.  I had a pretty good idea I would be back in Monte Plata for the summer but nothing definite.  I had no idea I would see three very good friends who were all single at the time or in new relationships get married within the next year. I had no idea if I would have a job or if I would spend a year in limbo substituting here and there.  I definitely had no anticipation of having a job in the Dominican Republic as a math teacher.  I had no idea how much I would absolutely love this job.
Basically I was clueless what God was doing, but I am incredibly grateful that He always has His plans worked out and that they always happen.
A couple students found out about my birthday and word spread pretty fast.  Students were wishing me a happy birthday from the start of the day until the end of the day.  My classes were trying to convince me that to celebrate my birthday they shouldn’t have homework (I said their homework would be their birthday present to me). My tenth grade geometry class broke out into the “happy birthday” song in the middle of talking about line segments.  They all wanted to know what I was going to do for my birthday, and they must have been expecting that I was going to have some elaborate celebration because my response of “going to dinner with friends” didn’t seem to be good enough.
As I said earlier, I am loving this job.  The smaller class sizes allow me to meet the needs of my students and make connections with them.  I also can be relaxed while teaching and have a lot of student involvement. I am surprised daily by their eagerness to participate and learn. I began teaching my elective class of personal finance today.  We talked about global debt and the stock market and the great depression and why investing in gold is a good idea and why you should stay out of debt.  The kids were very eager to understand the system of money. I’m excited to  see where the class goes and how the school year continues.

First almost hurricane experience

This week was our first official week of school.  I was a little nervous about being a real math teacher all on my own and how the students would respond to me. One thing was for sure I didn't need to worry about what I would be wearing since everyone (including teachers) wears uniforms.
I was nervous about the students and things like being an advisor and teaching an elective on personal finance.  I had been told that the students could be really difficult and disrespectful, so although I tried to enter the school year with an open mind I was nervous nonetheless.  My fears with regards to the students were completely unfounded.  Having student taught at DHS with up to thirty five students in the classroom I think has made me prepared for anything especially a private school with no more than twenty students in a classroom.  I really like the students.  I'm sure there will be difficult moments but right now I'm feeling very blessed.
Having never been an advisor, I was terrified about having to teach/advise students about figuring out their futures.  Not to mention I had been informed that the class I have is the worst behaved in the school. They have given us a curriculum to follow and it is really good, but I wasn't sure if the students were going to buy into it.  Again I was wrong.  We did a time management session this week (I'll admit I felt a little hypocritical since I'm not the best at managing time) and I thought it was a little basic and not all that interesting but the students really got into it and scheduled their day out to incorporate more study time (they may have been just trying to suck up to the teacher, but it's better than nothing). Again I'm feeling very blessed. 
Now to get to this personal finance.  To be honest we had to sign up ti teach some elective class and out of everything on the list, personal finance seemed like the thing that I would be the least horrible at teaching (it's got to have something to do with math right?). I also had in the back of my mind that personal finance sounds like a very boring class (at least to me) so maybe no one would even sign up for it and I would get out of it.  I was wrong.  A student came up to me on Thursday and says "I'm going to be in your elective class on personal finance.  I'm very excited." To say the least I was surprised.  After five minutes of speaking with the student, I'm pretty sure he knows more about personal finance than me, but thankfully the federal reserve has developed a curriculum for teaching personal finance and they've got to know something about personal finance. They are the federal reserve after all. Again I'm feeling very blessed.
On Wednesday, we were informed that there was a hurricane heading for Santo Domingo.  On Thursday they sent the kids home at noon and cancelled school for Friday in expectation of a hurricane hitting the city.  I was excited/scared about my first soon to be hurricane experience.  I was also happy about being able to sleep in on Friday morning.  Friday morning I awoke with some excitedment about the big storm...unfortunately for my excitement, but fortunately for the safety of the Dominican Republic, the hurricane passed by to the south of us.  All we got was some pretty strong wind that rattled my door all night. Every time a strong wind would blow I would wake up to the sound of the door rattling.  Every time I awoke it sounded like someone was trying to break into my room.  Needless to say I was wide awake very fast and ready to pounce on whoever was coming into my room.  Thankfully sanity would eventually kick in and I would realize it was just the wind.
It rained pretty much all day today.  A lot of the streets were flooded and we found all the leaks in the apartment (there were quite a few). We are all safe and sound albeit a little wet, but grateful all the windows and doors are intact. Again I'm feeling very blessed.

Santo Domingo

December 2011 I finally graduated college. I was so excited to be done with being a student and ready to transition into a life as a teacher. My plans for the future were not all that detailed, in fact beyond the summer I had no plans at all. I had no clue just what God had in store for me. During the months of March and April, I was applying for jobs all over the state of Illinois as well as countries such as Panama and Bolivia. After turning down jobs in both Panama and Bolivia, I began to wonder where God was going to take me. About a week after turning down my latest job offer, I applied to a school in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic and got the job.
I spent the months of June and July working in Monte Plata, Dominican Republic (see the Monte Plata page if you want to know more about that). I had an awesome summer as a summer missionary directing the summer school program in the Kids Alive International school in Monte Plata. I flew home for four very filled days of meeting with people and a very exciting and fun wedding. I then took off again for the Domincan Republic to begin my teaching career.
I have been here just over a week, and for the most part my expectations have been much exceeded. I somehow am living in a huge penthouse apartment with a bakery just down the block that has cheesecake and donuts, two things I never saw in Monte Plata. The school is quite large with two sport courts and a pool. Each classroom is air conditioned and they like to keep it cold. I have had quite a lot of work creating curriculum maps, syllabi, and lesson plans for my three preps (Algebra II, Geometry, and Pre-Calculus). I have been forced out of my anti-social comfort zone and am making new friends and colleagues.
It's a much different experience going from being surrounded by poverty to being in a very wealthy area although its not hard to find people in need. My ministry has completely changed, but God has provided a wealth of opportunities to share his Gospel in a Christian school where many of the students and some of the staff are not Christians. I'm getting more and more accustomed to where I am and what my job is going to be. The students begin arriving on Monday for school. We have spent the past week and will spend this week preparing for the school year to come and all the fun stuff that entails. I'm ready for it all to begin.

Busy weeks

Today we started our second to last week of the summer program.  It feels like not that long ago I had just arrived and now I will be leaving soon (although not for long).  This past week has been filled with activities.  The mornings have been running pretty smoothly with quite a few kids coming. There haven’t been many kids coming to my office for discipline, which is a good thing since that means they are behaving in the classroom, but that means I don’t get to interact with the kids as much as I would like.  I try to make my way around to the classes and spend some time in there, and I also make sure to spend recess with them.  We play dodgeball, tag, tickle tag, “baseball” (we use a soccer ball for the ball and our feet for bats), and many other fun activities like hanging upside down from monkey bars.  If you were to look at recess from the outside you would probably think it is pure chaos, but if you look closer you see a lot of kids getting there energy out in fun and safe ways.  The kids will also ask us to walk home with them, which is one of my favorite parts of the summer program. I don’t know why the kids like it so much, but they ask us pretty much every day.    We will rotate them through with piggy back rides until we get to sweaty to take any more.  The kids live a pretty good distance away from the school, and it is really hot here, but it’s a great way to spend time with the kids.

We had a team here for the past week doing some construction work on the wall around the school in the mornings, and then in the afternoons they had a VBS program for kids in the surrounding neighborhood. They had asked us to help out with their program, so that dominated our afternoons.  They didn’t have very many Spanish speakers so they asked me if I could translate for them.  It is surprising how mentally taxing translating is.  Having to think in two languages and communicate it takes much more energy and focus than just speaking in Spanish.  Most days it was not too much translating just basic things and they usually had their Bible stories already translated and ready to go except for on Thursday.  They asked me to translate the story of the Prodigal Son, which turned out to be a two and a half page typed story.  Needless to say my brain was pretty much mush by the end of it and my Spanish was the quality of a six year old.  God taught me a lot of humility through that experience and reminded me that He is the one who softens hearts and it’s not about the words or eloquence that I have, it’s about what He is doing.  It was a really good experience overall.

On Friday we got on a bus and traveled across the island to meet up with the other interns from around the island in Jarabacoa.  We did a fun waterfall hike on Friday afternoon and then all had dinner together that night.  In the morning, we piled into vans and took off for Santo Domingo to do some “tourist” stuff.  On the way, one of the vans had  a tire blow out, so we had to pull over to the side of the road in front of a store that had an entire pig (head and all) roasting, so they could change the tire.  After that fun experience we started again for the capitol.  We went around to some historic locations that I have visited many times before in my previous trips.  Everyone did some shopping and I did some bartering.  We found these straw hats that looked pretty touristy and the guy was asking for 150 pesos. I said we’d give him 100 to which he accepted.  I thought it was a great deal and some pretty good bartering skills on my part only to later walk into a store and see the same hats for 80 pesos.  It was a good time being back with everyone and hearing their experiences and what is going on.  We returned home pretty tired, but the experience was definitely worth it.

The city I will soon call home (Santo Domingo).

4th of July Dominican style

Things have been going really well here.  In honor of today's holiday, I thought I would show some pictures of how we celebrated the day.

We made sure the kids and teachers knew it was our Independance day.

Make sure to get in a game of ping pong.

Eat lunch

Take pictures to show our patriotism                                                                                                        

Have the most American dinner we can find...pizza                                                                               

Make sure Nadelli enjoys our independance as well                                                                               

We also played soccer in the very hot sun and introduced kickboxing workouts to Dominicans.  It was definitely a festive and fun day.

Summer School

It has been very busy here since my last post. I spent a couple days in Jarabacoa where we welcomed the new interns and then had a couple days of training for the summer school program, which involved all the Dominican staff and American staff of the summer program.  It is a very moving experience to see people from all over the island and the United States coming together for the same purpose to serve God through helping children at risk.  I love seeing everyone come together and worship the same God.
After training was over myself and the two interns assigned to Monte Plata and the nine Monte Plata staff packed up the bus and headed back to Monte Plata.  We arrived at the school after the shortest trip I have ever made from Jarabacoa to Monte Plata and got the interns suitcases up to their rooms.  After a few minutes of settling in, the girls jumped right into life in Monte Plata with a game of basketball (in barefeet of course). The girls have been so good about learning about the culture and wanting to experience as much of it as possible.
We began the summer school program on Monday with the most kids in attendance in all the summers I have been here.  The kids seem to really be enjoying being in school, which I believe is in large part to the staff that we have working here that truly care about these kids.  Part of my job besides organizing everything for all the classes is discipline for the kids that need to be removed from the classroom for a time.  Mostly kids get sent to me for fighting.  One such kid was sent to my office, and we talked about how fighting is not allowed in the summer school program and how it is a priviledge to be in the summer school program and how much fun it is, and I thought he seemed to be understanding it pretty well.  He was nodding his head with everything I said and looked pretty sorry for what he had done. I was getting to the end of our talk and I asked him if he understood that he can't fight in school and he said, "there's a guy who sells juice and candy over on the corner over there!" He was really excited about it. I'm not certain how much he heard about not fighting but he hasn't been sent back since, so I'm taking that as a good sign.
In the afternoons, we have been going out to the orphanage to do some math practice there.  We had been given a box with different math games to use with the kids.  They focus on fractions and place value which are areas that a lot of children here struggle with.  I wasn't sure how they would respond to having to do math, but they have been getting into the games and really want to play (it probably helps that if you win you get candy).
Things are going really well here.

Summer starts when I get to the Dominican Republic

I arrived at the airport in Santo Domingo on Monday night.  I had talked to some of the people here and had made sure someone would be there to pick me up from the airport.  I got all my bags and went through customs.  I then went down a series of hallways and finally made it to the grand exit area.  I call it the grand exit area because you walk down an aisle with people on each side waiting for their guests to arrive (kind of like the red carpet or at least that’s how I feel when I start my walk down the path).  Usually this is a very over-stimulating experience since there are so many people and faces and I am just searching for a few familiar faces.  Usually I walk past whoever is picking me up because I do not see them amongst the masses and it’s not until they call out my name that I realize they are behind me.  This time I expected it to be just like the others, so I began my walk down the aisle and kept walking and kept walking and as I reached the doors to go outside I began to wonder if anyone was ever going to call my name.  No one did.  I began to worry there had been some sort of miscommunication or that I had told them the wrong date, so I pulled out my Dominican cell phone thinking I could just make a phone call and find out when they were coming that was until I tried to turn on my phone only to find it was completely dead.  I worked up the courage to ask some strangers where a pay phone could be, and they led me to one. I thought I knew how to use a payphone but apparently not because I put my pesos in and nothing happened.  I tried to get them back and nothing happened.  A kind gentleman saw my plight and let me use his phone as I was dialing the number two familiar faces came toward me and I realized that my worst fears of being left at the airport were completely unfounded.  They took my bags we loaded the car and were on the way to Monte Plata.
               It’s been a good first week here.  I’ve been working to get everything set up for the summer program and everything seems to be in order.  I’ve even been able to watch some NBA finals even though it’s not the same not being at Grandpa and Grandma Miller’s with ample cream soda and candy, but it’ll have to do.  This week they’ve been doing their Vacation Bible School at the church.  They’ve expanded the VBS from being two age groups to three age groups, which means three sessions of VBS every day pretty much all day long.  I’ve only been helping at the VBS in the evening with the oldest age group.  We start at seven and get done around nine or nine thirty.  The kids may come late but by the end of it every seat in the church is filled.  It is a really large group that comes and in the other sessions it’s even more.  They tell stories from the Bible and the Gospel is shared every night.  Tonight was the last night and there were many who accepted Christ as their Savior.  Be praying for them that they grow in their faith and have someone come alongside and disciple them.  Be praying for those that heard the message but did not respond that their hearts would be open and they would remember what they heard.
               Tomorrow I will be leaving for Jarabacoa for training for the summer program.  It’s an hour drive to the capitol to catch a bus and then a three or four hour bus ride from there. It will definitely be a long day.