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.

Stitches and Christmas (prep)

I will admit that I am not the most graceful individual. I have taken quite a few falls in my lifetime but have always managed to end up with only a few bruises and maybe some scrapes. Such was not the case about a week ago. This fall I got a slack line (see picture). I had decided it would be fun to bring it down to Monte Plata for some of the older kids to try out. So, the first day we (my sister and I) were here we had some free time and decided we would try it out. Before long we were walking the slackline and even had some kids joining us and trying to figure it out. As I was once again walking the slack line I could feel myself about to fall, but I thought I could recover. Instead I ended up falling off and actually landing on my feet until the momentum of falling off carried me to the ground. I attempted to stop myself with my hand but instead my hand only found rocks as did my knees. I sat on the ground and had a little chuckle at myself for how ridiculous I thought I probably looked, but suddenly I became much more serious as I noticed two deep gashes on my knee and a lot of blood on my hand. I assumed the blood on my hand had come from my knees until my hand began to fill with blood. I realized at that point I needed to get to the house and stop the blood. While faith went and got some help I made it to the house and began applying pressure to the large deep gash on my hand. After cleaning it all up it was decided I needed to go to the clinic. At the clinic they cleaned the cuts up even more and as a crowd including a small child gathered the nurse began shooting anestesia into my cuts and sewing me up. I left the clinic with six stitches in my knee and four in my hand and a new story to tell. My hand and knee have healed pretty well and hopefully the stitches will be coming out today.

Aside from some minor injuries I have really been enjoying my time here. We got here during the week of finals so we spent our mornings stapling all the exams for the next day for all the grades and then our afternoons either playing sports or going to casa monte plata (the orphanage). With the stitches the use of my right hand became pretty limited so we had a lot of lefthanded basketball games. I always enjoy playing sports here because there are a lot of kids that are difficult to connect with but when the basketball comes out those same difficult kids are right there wanting to join in. Then even after the games are over they still want to hang out which opens doors for ministry to happen.

Despite it being the holiday season which sometimes means there's not much to do, we have been pretty busy. This past weekend the youth group at church did pantomimes as an outreach for three nights in a row. We could tell they really put a lot of work into it and a lot of people came out to see it. Then last night we went out to casa monte plata for a celebration dinner with lots of food, fun, laughter, and singing (including a nice solo by me that I was completely unprepared for and then had to make up half the words to the chorus of what child is this, thankfully I was singing in english so many of them had no idea). It was a sweet time to see how how the kids have grown and their appeciation for the people that have taken them in.

Tomorrow is the big Christmas celebration at the school which will be fun with all the kids in school all together and each class does its own little program like a drama or singing for the other students. They also will all get a little Christmas gift that we have spent the last couple days wrapping.

Our time here has really flown by. It is hard to believe that by Saturday we will already be getting on a plane to fly back.

Published with Blogger-droid v2.0.2

It's all coming to an end

Tomorrow is our last day of our program. In reflecting back, it seems like we just started. As we look at leaving in less than a week, it seems like we just got here and although I'm looking forward to some of the comforts of being in the US I don't really feel ready to leave.
For the five weeks that we have had our summer program we have had very few days in which it has not rained. When it rains, we get a break from the heat. It has not rained for the past two days and the humidity and heat are a strong force to be reckoned with. Nonetheless the kids still have to walk home and sometimes the kids ask us to walk them home. The past two days and then again today we have walked all over Monte Plata taking these kids to where they live. Every time I see the homes of these children and meet their families I understand them more. When I see what little they have I wonder how they can be such happy kids. Then I realize poverty does not define their lives, it is only their situation.
As we walk to the neighborhood where a lot of the kids live, we walk past our first grade teachers house so she walks with us as well. When I started the journey today of taking home the kids after school I thought it was one of our normal journeys but I had been told that Leidy (pronounced Lady) the teacher that walks with us and her mom were going to make us lasagna for lunch but for some reason it didn't click in my head that we would be eating lunch with them today until Leidy's mom was cooking lunch and I asked the intern if we were eating lunch there. I like lasagna a lot so I was excited to eat it and also blessed by these women. However, I'm not a big eater, I'm more of a snacker but today I was a big eater. As we came to the table to eat I approached with fear and trembling knowing that the amount of food that would be on my plate would be a ridiculous amount and I was right. It's a good thing I like lasagna. With much effort, I ate everything that was on my plate. After finishing, Leidy said, "I'm very happy. You know why?" I said, "why?" she responded, " Because you actually ate today!" I responded, "Yes, I ate more than I have in the last thee days combined." which was actually a pretty accurate statement. Her mom came out a couple minutes later and after seeing I had finished asked if I wanted more to which I responded no. She had quite the shocked look on her face and I'm still not sure if she actually believed that I was full. What I loved even more about being there was that we still had two of our students with us and instead of just taking them home where they would probably eat a lot less, they were invited to stay for lunch as well. I love seeing how Christians here take notice of the needs around them and meet them. I see them living out the idea of seeing Jesus hungry and in need and meeting those needs in the way of meeting the needs of the least of these (Matthew 25:31-46).
Yesterday as we were walking back to our house after walking the kids home we walked past some kids playing in the dirt. One little, shirtless boy looked up and I realized he was one of the kids from the school who hadn't been there for a while. As he realized it was us walking he came running and gave me a big hug. He was so excited to see us. We asked him where he had been the last couple days and made sure he was going to come today. He showed up today with a big smile on his face and with girls sandals on his feet. Some of the kids started laughing because his sandals were pink and my heart broke a little as I wondered if those were the only shoes he had. Even with the kids giggling he had a smile on his face and despite what his home life is like, he still had a reason to smile.

Monte Plata, Santo Domingo, Jarabacoa, Santo Domingo, Monte Plata all in two days

This past Thursday we had our teachers over for a delightful dinner of French toast, eggs, and salami. Coming from a place where most people know that syrup and sugar and fruit and other yummy sweet things accompany french toast, I made the assumption that our Dominican teachers would know as well. Imagine my horror as I watched one of the teachers grab the bottle of ketchup meant for the eggs and salami and begin pouring it onto her French toast. Thankfully I was able to stop her before the bread had been destroyed completely. It was really good to have all our teachers together outside of the classroom and just have time to hang out and talk. They all seemed to really enjoy it and we were glad to have an excuse to make French toast.
We had intended to go to bed early on Thursday night because we had to wake up early the next day to take a bus to Jarabacoa to meet up with the rest of the intern group. However, we had yet to pack anything for our weekend trip. As we began packing and getting everything in order the Dominican girl we live with Nadelly and our Dominican houseguest for the week from the orphanage Ysabel came in and started talking with the girls. I knew it was getting late but I didn't realize how late until I looked at the clock and saw it was already past midnight and we still weren't completely ready for our weekend trip. Finally sometime between one and two in the morning we went to bed.
We had a very short night's sleep as we woke up at six the next morning to leave by seven for the capital to take a bus to Jarabacoa. The night before we had been told by Juan Pablo who lives at the school that he would be taking us to the capital. We headed down to the school around seven and I was surprised to see Juan Pablo wasn't waiting for us. A couple minutes later a very tired looking Juan Pablo came out of his house and asked us what we were still doing there and why no one had come to pick us up yet. I was even more confused and starting to believe I had misunderstood something in our conversation the night before. A couple minutes later Juana called him asking him why he had yet to come to the orphanage to pick up the jeep so he could take us to our bus. He was suddenly much more awake as he got on his motorcycle and headed to the orphanage to get the jeep. At around seven thirty we left for the capital. After being on the road for twenty minutes he turned to me and asked me if I knew where the bus station was to which I responded, no, I thought you knew. To which he responded no I don't know. So I asked him if he would like to call someone to get directions. He then began laughing and told me he was just joking and that he knew where the bus station was...kind of. Once we finally made it to the capital and through the morning traffic I realized we had been driving for quite a while. Eventually he turns to me with a mildly concerned look on his face and says, we are not lost yet, which was then followed by him pulling over and asking a street vendor where we needed to go which was the followed by a u-turn (which a sign on the road said not to do) at the next intersection. Emily, one of the interns, found this entire adventure humorous and at random points we would hear her in the backseat laughing. As our bus' departure time grew closer and closer I was not having the same response. We did make it to the bus station in time to get our bus and soon were on our journey to Jarabacoa.
We had a great time in Jarabacoa getting to spend time with other interns and share experiences as well as hanging out with some of the missionary families. Probably our favorite thing was the hot water that we had to take showers after a month of cold showers. We were even able to hike to some beautiful waterfalls. They told us it would be a difficult hike but I had done the hike before a couple years ago and I didn't remember it being too difficult so I decided I could do the hike in my flip flops. I was wrong. About a quarter of the way through the hike up with the rain coming down and my feet slipping everywhere I made the decision to do the hike barefoot. I decided having hurt feet was better than falling off the path and dying. My feet and muscles were pretty sore after that but it was a good adventure.
On Saturday we went from Jarabacoa to the capital to tour the colonial zone which is their more historic part of the city with many tributes to Columbus. I have been there multiple times now so it wasn't all that exciting but it was good to spend some more time with the other interns from other sites. We then got to experience the joy of taking public transportation back to Monte Plata which included riding the metro and then a very crowded bus sitting next to an open window as rain poured in, but i was happy to have a seat and not have to be one of the many standing crammed together in the aisles. By the end of it all, we were happy to get back home and go to bed. The lack of sleep from the previous two weeks finally caught up to us and we were happy to have our first true day of rest on Sunday since we got here.
All in all, things are going really well here. We have seen a lot of behavioral improvements in students and seen them become active learners in the classroom. Even in our afternoon programs with the older kids we have very few behavior problems which is surprising at times having seen some of these kids as trouble makers during the school year and also at camp. I definitely see God clearly working. Pray for God to continue working in these kids and softening their hearts.

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.