the most American thing we know how to do in Monte Plata is eat pizza

Describing this past week with words seems near impossible. This past week we had EBDV, which is the Dominican form of VBS. When you think of VBS you most likely think of games, crafts, snack, etc. When I think of EBDV, my first thought is chaos, but chaos is hardly an appropriate description. EBDV covers a span of two hours of every afternoon for a week with between four to five hundred kids ages five to eleven in attendance. It starts with song time, then moves to game time, which involves a select few of the crowd actually playing the game, but includes the screaming voice of every member of the crowd cheering for their team. Then they move into a time of Bible verse memorization and after that a Bible story time and then they split up into smaller groups by age and by smaller group I mean twenty kids at the least but can mean eighty. Most of my time is spent walking around and telling kids to be quiet or sit down. It is a lot more exhausting than it sounds. I found myself wondering why so many kids would want to come to a hot church and be forced to sit quietly for two hours. I asked the Dominican girl that lives with us why she thought so many kids came and she told me they come because it's EBDV. I did not feel like that answered my question but day after day more kids came and memorized verses and heard the Gospel. In my American mindset I viewed the week as pure chaos but the kids saw it as a place they wanted to be and after thinking about it more I realized many of these kids don't have anything else to do. In addition to the EBDV in the afternoon there was also one at night for kids ages twelve and up. We decided it was best not to participate in this since were already doing the school program in the morning and EBDV in the afternoon but there were an additional two hundred kids there. Pray for these kids that heard and saw the love of God in this past week.
After a long week we were feeling pretty tired on Saturday, so we had a day of fun with our Dominican teachers at a local waterfall. We did a lot of swimming and then some relaxing in attempt to prepare us for Sunday which was the final and craziest day of EBDV.
Today we were supposed to begin our first day of volleyball week with the older kids but it's been raining all day so we waited for the kids to show up for a half hour but none came. Another half hour later we were told there were kids waiting for us. They had showed up an hour late and it was raining so we decided playing volleyball might not be the best decision so instead we played soccer in the rain. We got pretty wet and when it rains the basketball court that we play on gets really slippery so we had quite a few falls but the kids loved it. We had to take a little break in the middle because the lightening was getting too close but once it passed the kids were more than ready to start again. After they left we decided to celebrate our country's independence day we would do the most American thing possible in Monte Plata for a reasonable price and that was pizza. We decided since we were already wet we could go in the rain to the local pizza place. We did not however realize that it was only five in the evening and it was raining which meant the pizza place would most definitely not be open. We were made aware of this as we walked up to Oliver's pizza and saw all the doors were closed. We headed back to the school to wait a while longer and attempt to go again. At around six we headed back in our wet clothes because it was still raining. As we approached we saw the lights were on and the doors were open. We went in and ordered our pizza and were told it would be at least a half hour and to come back later when they would be ready. We also needed some drinks so we went to the local grocery store to get some pop. As we were about to get there it started pouring rain, so we entered the grocery store dripping wet. After almost wiping out as I entered the store we bought our pop and much to the dismay of those in the grocery store returned to the pouring rain. It was also lightning and thundering so we decided instead of walking to the school from the grocery store we should run. As we got closer and closer to the school the streets were more and more flooded with very nasty looking water. The street in front of the school had also flooded so we had to walk through the river that was now flowing in the street to get into the school. It continued to pour until the flooding in the street was above the knees of the average person. The lightning got pretty close to the school and the thunder was so loud it was natural form of fireworks for our fourth of July celebration. Since the street had flooded in front of the school there was no way for us to get our pizza until after the water had gone back down. Once the lightning and thunder had moved on we went out to watch people attempt to drive there motorcycles through the flood. There were quite a few that killed their motorcycles halfway through and had to deal with the shame of everyone watching them as they walked their motorcycles through the rest of the water and then attempt to restart them. After about an hour we were finally able to leave the school to pick up our pizzas. It was still raining and we were still in our wet clothes. It was very funny seeing the looks on the faces of the people as we passed them for the third time in our soaking wet clothes with one of the girls carrying a closed umbrella (we had brought it to protect our pizza). When we walked into the pizza place the guy that had taken our order had a shocked look on his face. He seemed quite surprised that we had actually returned. Needless to say he had not made our pizza so he asked if they could deliver it to us so we walked back to the school once again passing the same people without anything in our hands except our closed umbrella. Finally at eight o'clock our pizza finally arrived three hours after we had began our adventure. It was still raining and it continues to rain but we enjoyed our delicious pizza as we celebrated the fourth of July.