A phrase I find myself saying all the time here - if only there was electricity, if only I had a car, if only we had more money, if only the copy machine was working... but most often, it's if only we had internet, and when we do have it, it's if only our internet was fast enough!! Fast enough to skype, fast enough to download movies - fast enough to upload my photos and write my blog! Though I know I am so truly blessed and have no room for complaint, I will use our record slow internet as our excuse for not blogging in forever and a day. Honestly I have started this blog about 100 times now, but the internet just won't open the pictures, or they take 30 minutes each, or it won't let me write anything because it's frozen, or most often right when I'm getting in started with my ideas, it all just shuts down mid-blog - and I scream at the computer and get frustrated and say I'm so done with it, and then start the process over the next week, this has been going on for about 3 months. Soo I will stop complaining now, but here is my update, if you can take it all in one reading (or viewing, cause it will mostly just be photos) from Christmas to Valentine's Day, with lots in between, as well as all our new and exciting plans for the new year 2011.... (and I know Christmas is waaay over, but since each photo took so much of my time to upload, you get to see these ones anyway :)
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| Christmas party with my class at Miss Craig's house - we made Christmas cookies and drank hot chocolate, made birthday presents for Jesus, Christmas cards, nativity scenes, and Christmas ornaments - very crazy but fun! |
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| Our Charlie Brown Christmas tree - our friends gave us a small Christmas tree for our house, and since we didn't have any ornaments Dave found all kinds of junk from around our apartment to decorate with, from tea bags to hair scrunchies... the neighbors were as confused as all get out - I tried explaining my husband did it to be funny, and though they attempted a courtesy laugh, their exchange of glances made it clear they did not think it was at all as funny as we did. :) |
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| Cristal was our "mamacita" for the school Christmas program, they were all so cute! If you don't know the song, look for Mamacita Donde Esta Santa Claus? on Youtube... the kids all came in their jammies, Mamacita sat in her rocking chair scolding them, while one my other first graders snuck around the stage dressed as a big stuffed Santa with his hopping reindeer - they were so stinking cute! |
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| Two of my first graders getting ready to sing Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer for the school program |
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| I manned the girls dressing room while Dave took on the 20 some first grade boys in the other one for the hour and a half wait til our turn - I think I got the better of the two rooms :) We had a blast! |
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| Stealing a kiss under the mistletoe after the school program - notice all the styrofoam snow for our white Caribbean Christmas! |
In addition to planning the two song/skits for our school program, I also was in charge of my class of little angels for our Christmas program at church (did I mention December was a busy month?) We did the Christmas story theme so my kids did the angels singing in the field to the shepereds part. I managed to run around and borrow most of the angel costumes, and Dave made the rest with his art class - turned out so cute!!
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| Helenyi is one of our neighbor girls who I am mentoring and absolutely adore - she made a beautiful angel! |
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| All my little angels waiting backstage for their turn to go on! |
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| Andy is a boy from Haiti who is truly an absolute angel, sweet as can be, I wish I could take him home with me! |
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| Melia is a missionary kid in town who's parents run a school for low-income children and orphans, she is a sweetie pie and so is her friend Allie on the left - they are all beautiful little angels!! I just couldn't get enough photos of them all! |
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| Acting out the Christmas story for our program - they did a great job!! |
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| After the program and taking off our costumes, all the kids from the Oansa program came back on stage for their Christmas presents - each bag had a pencil, crayons, some candies, and a small toy - they were soooo excited!! |
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| Guess who dressed up as Santa Clause this year for our school Christmas banquet? |
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| Notice the long white skirt I wore under my costume - Mrs. Clause is apparently quite sexy in the DR! |
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| Before we left for the states, our neighbor Dinelia's family from my church prepared us a very special dinner of chicken, rice, chickpeas, and soda. They were very excited to share with us and we felt so blessed to spend this Christmas meal with them! |
In addition to all this Christmas fun, we also had a big Christmas banquet at church and went Christmas caroling all around town in the back of the pastor's pick-up - going to the police station, fire station, hospital, and lots of local neighborhoods. Everything was fantastic. And here's the thing - there was no shopping, no long lines, no mounds of presents - just a celebration (or should I say lots of celebrations) of the birth of Christ with all the people here we love - and I found out that was truly enough. Except for one thing missing.....
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| Family! And Dave's family too of course though I didn't get a picture with all of them together. And all of our wonderful friends as well. We were very lucky to have been able to fly home for a white Christmas with the people we love most! |
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| Enjoying an American Christmas! |
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| We were very blessed to receive donations of toys and art supplies to use with the kids here - many of them did not get a single Christmas present, so you can't imagine the joy just a simple toy like this could bring them! |
Since we've been back things have been going good... we are back into the swing of things and have had a few visitors too...
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Our roommate Kristina from the orphanage last year (the actress from New Zealand) came up to visit with her boyfriend for our long weekend. We had lots of fun showing them around Jarabacoa... (Dave is so great at posing for pictures)
One of the great things about having visitors is seeing Jarabacoa through new eyes.. here are some great photos they shared with us of their time here |
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| Flowers in the park |
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| Santa is getting big and up to all kinds of new tricks! |
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| Dave and Mark found this friend at the top of the mountain El Mogote that Dave climbed for his 4th time now |
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| From the top of El Mogote |
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| Next we had two couchsurfers from Poland - they were so fun!! And I couldn't believe the amount of gifts they brought for us - we now own everything Polish you could ever imagine - jewelry, CD's, bookmarks, pens, magnets, you name it! This picture was after 5 hours being lost on a mountain trying to find this waterfall - the one on the right is an experienced mountain climber so I trusted her instead of my instinct when we came to a sketchy looking tube to climb across - but they were so great that we had a lot of fun being lost together anyways! |
In our community ministries, Dave's Wyldlife group and my Oansa group, we are loving life....
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| As you know Dave is one of the leaders of Wyldlife, an English speaking youth group for Dominican middle school students. Thanks to your donations Dave was able to go spend a weekend with them at camp where God did some amazing things and they were able to participate in all kinds of fun adventures! Here's all the leaders and kids - can you find Dave? |
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| Dave and two of his middle school boys from his cabin |
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| As I've shared before, my community ministry has been with Oansa at church - a Spanish speaking ministry for mostly low-income Dominican children where we have games, songs, messages, and a feeding program for the kids on Saturdays. Here they are playing beauty shop for our "Crazy Hair Day" competition. |
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Here are 3 of our church's missionary kids on crazy hair day - the two in the middle are both in my class at school and won first and second prize!
I am so happy to be back with my kids after Christmas - I know I sound like a nerd, but I even miss them just on the weekends so long breaks just always feel too long! |
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| Here's my first graders in our crowns celebrating 100 days of school! We had all kinds of fun with lots of 100 type activities! |
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Right after our 100's day celebration, we celebrated Valentine's day! The kids loved making heart crowns, valentine cards, heart baskets, exchanging cards and candies, dancing to the Cupid Shuffle, making Love books, and playing "Hot Valentine" with the class! I was very blessed this Valentine's Day with tons of gifts from students and friends, flowers, candy, and a card from Dave, and a pizza night together. I used to hate V-day but now I think it's the best! :)
Some new news... |
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| As some of you may know, Dave now has his own room - he did an awesome job painting, decorating, and making it a fun place for the kids to learn art! |
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| Here's his class full of fifth graders learning - notice he still only has a small handful of chairs that he had to find himself - please pray that he will get chairs soon as he has been without them since December now and it is difficult to teach when half the kids are standing up! |
Something else new we have been doing since we came back from Christmas is "Dinner and Discipleship nights" with the kids from church and around our neighborhood. We invite a few kids over each week to teach them how to make dinner, cook together, read Bible stories, play games, and mentor them. Here's one of our pizza nights with the neighborhood girls...
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| Dave teaching the girls how to make pizza! |
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| Helenyi serving up slices! |
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| Though my favorite part is hanging with the kids, this is Dave's favorite part of these nights, of course! |
Another ministry that I am getting involved with here is called Priceless International, which works to fight human trafficking and especially child sex trafficking, which is rampant here in the Dominican Republic (exportation of prostitutes is the fourth highest in the world here). Two weeks ago, a friend and I went on a research trip in the south of the country to interview various ministries and people in the communities involved in human trafficking. This will probably have to be whole entire blog in itself, but we are excited about the possibilities and our long-term goal is to start a refuge house for child sex workers in the DR.
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| Here you can find me with my pen flying as I interviewed Alison, an incredible lady who you can only see the backside of in this picture, but she started a dress shop, jewelry shop, school, and home for prostitutes from San Pedro and Juan Dolio who want to leave the sex trade and find a better life. If you want to learn more about her ministry, you can visit http://www.drvision.org/ |
Since I came to Jarabacoa this year, I've been getting a reoccuring question (besides the daily "Are you pregnant?" that makes me pull my hair out) - "Will you teach me English?" Though I was tempted to say yes and give lessons to make money, I decided I wanted to use this outreach to help those who are unable to afford English language school or pricey tutoring sessions (even if it means the cold showers and slow internet and lack of beach trips this year will continue, sigh...) And so, I started our church's first ESL class. January 27th was our first class and we meet every Thursday night from 6:30-8:30. I have about 30 students so far, and it is almost all Haitians, with three Dominicans (there is a HUGE racial divide here between Dominicans and Haitians but so far we all seem to be getting along). Yesterday, eight year old Helenyi was over looking at my photos as I wrote my blog and she in a surprised tone,
"Kristin, you give classes to the Haitians?!?"
"Yes," I responded, "They are wonderful and beautiful, I love teaching them, just like I love teaching the Dominicans the same way".
She thought about this for a minute, and said "You know, we're really all just the same - God made us the same and loves us all right, no matter if our skin is light or dark right? He thinks we're all beautiful and equal right?"
I didn't know whether to smile or cry, so I did a bit of both - "Exactly right Helenyi." :)
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| Here's our first night of English class! I love them all! |
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| I don't know if I've ever had such dedicated students who are so enthusiastic about learning - they ALWAYS study and are actively participating - I can't imagine a more perfect class. I even overheard one girl my age talking to a friend saying "I love English class, I just LOVE it!" Who actually loves going to class that much? Even though it makes Thursday a long day, it's so cool to teach people who are so eager to learn! |
One last piece of exciting news - I get to be a bridesmaid this summer for my beautiful friend Melissa (the angel from Panama who came to help in my classroom in Owosso three years ago and has been a huge part of my life ever since). They got engaged on Christmas Eve, the same as Dave and I, and are getting married August 13th, two days after our anniversary. I can't wait and am so excited for them!!
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| The happy couple! |
A few other new pieces of news... (without photos)
I started my tutoring club back up and now have four students I am tutoring every Monday in math and reading after-school.
I started another dance class this semester but am teaching dance to 6-8 year old girls instead, while Johanna continues dance classes with the older ones... so we have lots of Jonas brothers, Disney, and fun girly dances planned - let me know if you have any ideas!
I am still teaching Spanish to the Haitian parent of one of my students - this has helped us to develop a special relationship with her and helps me to keep up my Spanish!
I am almost finished with my online graduate class - one more paper, my final project, and I'm done! I can't wait to be done and able to renew my teaching certificate!
Dave started a cycling club with the kids in town to bike together two nights a week but no one has signed up yet - hopefully the kids will soon (Dominicans are late with everything!)
Yes, I know what you're thinking and yes, I already know I'm nuts, but please pray that I don't lose my head with this crazy lifestyle, and that I stay sane and healthy. I usually love everything I do but sometimes it makes me a little crazy. I'm trying to remember how to use that word "no" too, but it's really hard for me - it just doesn't come easy. Please pray for our marriage, our students, our church, our activities, and especially the new refuge house we are trying to start here in Jarabacoa. Oh and for Santa - I splurged and finally bought new shoes after losing 4 of my favorite pairs, if she doesn't break these habits I might just break her! :)
Anyways, sorry again for being away so long, and for writing such a long blog too, but love and prayers to all of you back home, miss you all, please come visit us soon!! Oh and shout out to my best friend Lauren of (almost) 29 years, she may be the only one who finishes these blogs and her birthday is tomorrow - I love you Laur!!!
Love, peace, and prayers to all of you,
Kristin xoxoxo
