11 Weeks

In Barahona at the Christian Reformed World Missions Retreat

Our baby is the size of a fig!

What's been happening this week:

Fall Festival and Thanksgiving Party at school - We put on a show at school singing a song called "Tanto Tanto" which meant so much to give thanks for, and one of my super cute 6 year olds Natanael did a solo rap, all dressed up gangsta style, the whole school went nuts, it was hilarious, then we played lots of turkey games and did turkey crafts, fun fun (I have it on video if I can get it to post).

CRWM Retreat - Thanksgiving vacation we went down to Barahona about 6 hours from here to the beach for the Christian Reformed World Missions retreat... we found out last minute that we were in charge of childcare which meant less rest and more wiping runny noses and playing with play-doh, but I got to work with the babies and toddlers which was a fun switch and good prep for me, but I did have to take Monday off work after vacation because I was sooo tired and had a killer sinus infection by the time I got back, so not exactly a retreat but a good experience anyways and always fun seeing new places.
 

Two Angels Have Arrived....

This is Lexie Luedtke.  And if that isn't a cute enough name for you, my first graders like to call her "Miss Lucky". (though I think I'm the lucky one to have her with me in my class) She is my very first student teacher and I loooooove her already.  She is beautiful and amazing, and having a student teacher is the best thing EVER, I think I would be happy to have one for every semester for the rest of my teaching career.  She is a natural teacher (like my Aunt Chris always said "teachers are born dear, not made).... and I am so grateful that she came at the most perfect time ever because .......

My other little angel gives me fatigue, nausea, headaches, the works, but none of that keeps me from being entirely in love already.  I would put a photo up but I don't have a scanner here to scan in my ultra-sound.  Yup, this little angel is still in my belly and you get to meet him/her in June if you're on the island with us, otherwise it could be a little later before we get a passport for him/her.  But I couldn't be more blissfully happy. 

As most of you know, this is my third pregnancy and it's a high-risk one, but I have hope and faith that this little guy, or gal, is going to make it.  But I will also take all the prayers I can get too. :)  Yes, I know what you're all thinking.... but what about the safe house?  Your teaching job?  What's going on with all that?  Are you still going to......

While I've been asking the same thing - like WHAT GOD, really, I just made peace with not having a baby this year and doing this whole safehouse, mom for trafficking victims thing instead, so we stop trying to get pregnant, throw out all the charts, and BAM then I'm pregnant.  But this is one bendicion I'm welcoming with open arms, and definitely not turning down.  SO, I don't have any answers for you yet on all the "what ifs", but I'll keep you posted.  For now, I am completely content with just being ecstatic about the baby, almost just as ecstatic about having my student teacher, and my bed has been my new best friend (but at least it's not the toilet).  I sleep like it's my job (and I guess it kinda is my job since rest is imperative in a high-risk pregnancy and I'm tired ALL. THE. TIME.) 

So that's my update from this end, pretty good one right?  Oh and one more awesome thing to share.... these incredibly generous missionaries offered AGAIN to pay for us to attend the Christian Reformed World Missions Retreat with everything included.... and this is where it's going to be:



I know you're rolling your eyes right now, like I can't believe I ever felt sorry for this girl who wrote these pitful blog entries about life in a third world country.  Dave probably just lost his "poor Dave" nickname for quite a while too. :)

Okay well I know (many of) you don't like long emails, sooo write me soon with all of your updates from the other corners of the world and please keep me and our growing baby in your prayers. :)

Love, peace, and prayers,
Kristin, Dave, Santa, and Baby :)  

Kilsi update

Hi,

Just another update for those who have been praying and asking about Kilsi.  After Kilsi ran away on Wednesday, she called Thursday night and said she was going to come back on Sunday with two teenage friends (also from the sex trade) to live in the house again.  We spent the weekend preparing the house for the 3 of them, and talked to Kilsi Sunday morning around 10 a.m. when she said she was leaving Santo Domingo (about 3 hours from our house) and said she would be there soon.  We waited all day until 9pm and checked every bus that came in and she was not on any othem.  We talked to her and she said she was in La Vega, a city about 45 minutes away from us.  Two of the guys from our team went down to get her and looked for around 2 hours for her.  When they called and told her they were in La Vega to pick her up, they heard loud music in the background (like she was maybe in a bar) and she hung up on them.  They tried calling back several times and she never answered (though the phone did ring, so the battery was not dead).  We waited up last night for a while longer for her and she never came home at all during the night.  It was a tough weekend, and we´re not sure what is going on with Kilsi and her friends - if she is messing with us or if there is something bigger going on.  A parent of one of my students said the other day (when I returned to school bawling after Kilsi first ran away) - this is why God gives us babies, so we start out easy and have over a decade to train them up - you´re starting at the hardest phase Mrs. DeYoung!  So I feel for all of you out there who are also trying to mother teenagers, especially teenage girls, it´s not an easy task at all.  Please keep Kilsi and her two friends in your prayers, as well as the other 3 girls, Jessie, Katerin, and Yaguira, who also ran away.  Dave and I and the rest of the Priceless team can use your prayers too. :)  Keep in touch, and thank you for all of your prayers and encouraging emails, sorry I don´t have time to respond to each one individually, but I do love you all and appreciate you.

Love and prayers,
Kristin

Hi again,
Just want to let you all know that Kilsi, the girl who has been living with us the past two weeks ran away today and went back to the streets.  We really feel like it came out of nowhere cause she has been making so much progress and are totally devastated.  If you can please pray for her safety and that she would return if it is in God's will.  We are really having a hard time with this and are super bummed out.  Sorry also to all the personal emails I have not had time to write back to - I promise it's on my to-do list - we have been short-staffed at work since last week so it has been really nuts at school so I never get online to check my email and we don't have internet at home so I'm really sorry for the excuses but please keep in touch and keep Kilsi in your prayers.  Thanks!
Love,
Kristin

Hi everybody,

I haven´t had a chance to update the blog and I know I´ve seriously like fallen off the face of the earth lately and not returned anyone´s emails and I´m sorry, life has been CRAZY...but CRAZY in a good way.  I´m at an internet cafe right now so I don´t have enough time to update the blog, but just wanted to give a quick update to everyone who has been asking.  Since my last pity party of an email, God has been answering prayers in big ways... and no I don´t mean by any pink lines or plus signs on a pee stick, sigh... BUT there have been some crazy BIG changes. So I´ll try to keep this as short as possible.

We moved the first week of September from our tiny apartment that had been destroyed after we got evicted to an American boarding school up on the mountain in this HUGE palace of a house with an amazing view and hot showers and even an American washer and dryer - we were super spoiled.  And the best part of all of it were the staff there, the most amazing people who just blessed us constantly and prayed for us.  It was like a total refuge, vacation home.

While we were living there and teaching at Jarabacoa Christian School, I went on a weekend mission trip to the south of the island to work with the anti-trafficking organization I volunteer with and some different teams who were working to rescue victims from sex trafficking.  I never realized at the time how much that trip would change my life.  It was an incredible trip and weekend, and 12 girls were rescued (both underage and above 18).  I can´t even explain the inspiration I got from these women who would walk right up to the brothels with me side by side and risk so much to give their testimonies.

After the women were rescued and brought to various safe houses and such, it was realized that the home for underage girls here in country was not ready and could not take some of the girls so we needed to start a safe house of our own in Jarabacoa, and fast.  The leaders of the organization asked if Dave and I could be the house parents, all in a matter of a few days. 

We prayed about it a LOT and decided to move out of our beautiful mountain home, yes that was hard after being there for 3 weeks of luxury American living, and have now become the house parents of the safe house.  It has been busy and challenging, but also a blessing.  We had 4 girls but 3 of them ran away in the first week after being rescued before we had even moved in with them.  It´s hard to imagine that that they would rather be on the street than with us but maybe someday they will be back.  We are asking them to make radical changes in their lives which is not easy.  The one who did stay is a beautiful, strong, funny, smart, AMAZING woman of God.  It is unbelievable to see how she has tranformed her life so quickly and I adore her already. 

So that´s the big news.  I will be resigning from my teaching job but I don´t know when yet.  I am supposed to have a student teacher coming in a couple of weeks, who looks awesome, a girl from Switzerland who has traveled all over Africa and speaks a bunch of languages so I´m sure we will get along great.  So that could be a huge help if I do decide to stay til Christmas I will have her there with me for 6 weeks.

So that´s the update - CRAZY huh?  Some MAJOR changes happening here, but I know God is working behind all of it.  Right now we are in Puerta Plata visiting a childhood friend, Aryn Bloodworth, and supposed to be getting some R and R but so far it´s been just crazy hot traveling cause our bus broke down yesterday and it was like 110 degrees inside, no joke..... I have a million and one other things I could write but since we haven´t had internet at home now for over a month I just don´t have the time to get online at work since I´m trying to roll two jobs into one between teaching and the safehouse.  Speaking of which, being that it is a SAFE house, it is a secret down in this area and no one is to know about it.  There is always a risk that pimps could come around looking for their girls and we want to protect the girls´ identity and image so please NOTHING on facebook (Mom I know you want to tell the world you´re proud of me and to pray for us, but not on a public forum por favor).

Okay, that´s all for now, until we get internet and I can start updating the blog again... by the way, did anyone notice that Santa and Dave somehow both got a hold of my blog password?!? :) 

Lots of love, peace, prayers,and sunshine sent to all of you,
Kristin xoxo

- Show quoted text -



Kilsi and I going to Escuela Caribe retreat week!



BBQ, and Snakes

So we are slowly getting back on track, school's in full swing, we have a place to live for now... and life is good and rainy. There has been amazingly beautiful mornings, a bit cold and hard to get out of bed, to super hot by mid afternoon and then pouring rain. The rain usually starts right before we are about to head home, and driving on a motorcycle in the rain is not one of my favorite activities, Kristin's either.
Well we had our Wyldlife kickoff party last Thursday night which went great, about 35 kids showed up, most of which were first timers. Wyldlife is kind of like youth group in the states. It consists of 3 parts- club, campaigners, and camp. Club is a lot of fun and games and the kids hear about who Jesus is. Campaigners is for those kids that want to dig in a little deeper into the word. And a big part of Wyldlife is Camp which will be coming up in Febuary.
This week at club we played a couple games, and had a barbeque for the kids it was mostly just a time to meet and greet the kids and a way to hang out and talk. We had a great turn out, and it was exciting to see the kids excited about it. Here are some pics:

Watermelon seed shooting contest

A relay to see which team could dig out all the skittles from the jello first without using their hands

School has been crazy. I've been working with limited supplies, and a ton of classes. Since there are more students this year than ever in the school they had to open a number of new classes. There are now 2 first grades, 2 second grades, 2 fourth grades, and a ton of Prek2-3-4 and Kindergardeners. I teach a total of 16 different classes through out the week so I have had my hands full. Some are more fun than others. Below are pictures of snakes we did in Mrs. DeYoung's 1st grade class working with patterns, some got it, some were out to lunch.

Snake patterns

In my defense (Santa)

I am truly sorry of all the pain and suffering my owners had to go through, but while they were up in Michigan enjoying their summers, I was here with some idiot of a dog sitter having to suffer.

Do you have any idea what it is like to be locked in a bedroom that is only about four times the size of my crate for days  unend with little food or water? Talk about horrible! So when there wasn’t much to do, these were a few of my favorite things I liked to do to pass my time:

First of all, after not eating or drinking for a few days, the saltiness of butt sweat on a seat cushion begins to sound and smell quite appetizing. The straps, well they were okay, but they got caught in my teeth, however later on they worked as great dental floss. For dessert, I liked to top it all off with the wood arm rests on the chair, they gave my palate the earthy sensation of being outside playing in the woods (which I rarely had the chance to do this entire summer).

Also, have you had the pleasure of bouncing up and down on a giant inflatable toy? It makes me jump an entire 6 inches higher at the very least! Not only that, but it does break my fall when I do slip. It was okay to sleep on it too I guess. I slept there for, oh about a week I think, it was nice. I think that’s what my owners used it for, they called it something like an “air mattress”?? However the real pleasure came when I sunk my teeth into it for the first time. It was a bit scary at first, it sounded like a cat, which really made me jump to my feet and fight back with all my fury.  But once it stopped making the hissing sound it gave me hours and hours of chewing pleasure. It was by far the biggest, mouth watering chew toy I have ever sank my teeth into.

Well being left alone for hours unend things got extremely boring, so I would try to stay as active as possible. Since my dad wasn’t around, playing Frisbee was out of the question. The next best things accessible were these little plastic miniature Frisbees. Though at first I must admit they didn’t look that appealing, once I figured out how to open up the small plastic cases there was a world of fun to be had. These miniature flying discs provided hours of fun. Tossing them up in the air and catching them and sliding them around on the tile like a hockey puck was so amusing I would get caught up for hours playing with the little silverfish reflective discs. Not to mention in the sun they would make all sorts of rainbow colors, my Frisbees don’t do that. I was able to find an entire box of these discs to play with before my “dog sitter” came home. He took away the fun and hid them from me in a closet…. but does he really think I’m that dumb? I found them again the next day when he was out, and proceeded to tear into six complete box sets of them, what a blast!!! He must not have known my dad trains me by hiding my toys and making me find them, this dog sitter what a joke…..

One night I was left alone at the apartment and the doofus who was supposed to be taking care of me forgot to close the door. Since we live in the mountains, an underfed inactive dog will get cold very quickly on a tile floor. So I really had to go back to my basic survival instincts and since my mother isn’t around to cuddle with the next best thing in my arsenal was these bright yellow curtains. I really didn’t want to do it, and yellow really isn’t my color, but I figured if I tore off just the bottom foot and half, my owners wouldn’t notice it was missing….. I was wrong. It did work though for all you dogs out there who need some ideas for keeping warm.

All that being said, again I’m so very sorry I had to put my owners through this, but the guy they had watching me was a real jerk. Since Dave and Kristin have been back my life has been sooooo much better though. I think I am really starting to warm back up to them and they to me. Who can stay mad at me Santa dog? I mean seriously, who would bring there smelly dirty shoes to their owner if he asks me for them? Me Santa.

Who will get my own leash for me if I need to go out and potty? Me Santa….

Who will tell there master they’re hungry, not by barking and begging, but simply bringing him my dish and waiting patiently for him to fill it? Me Santa…..

And when I’m thirsty I don’t whine like other dogs, I get my water dish and wait patiently with it.

Not to mention when my owner needs to blow off some steam and throw around a ball or Frisbee, who is the fastest, baddest Frisbee catching dog besides my mother on this entire Island….. You guessed it….

I just wanted to clear a few things up, I think you might have gotten the wrong impression of me on the prior post. And really Kristin does sound mad at me, but I think in time she will hopefully get over it????.