Another new beginning

Today we welcomed our first summer team. So here forth begins 12 weeks of non-stop teams and team activities. Josh and I are very excited... as this has been what we were brought here for. Unfortunately today I woke up at about 2am to find that I am sick. Bhooo! So today I stayed home almost all day and just laid in bed, and eventually moved to the couch. During this time a very thing happened :) A thunder storm loomed about for about an hour or so today and Snickers is terrified of thunder. So as I was laying in bed he came over and put his head right next to me and I pet him to try and calm him while the storm persisted. But it kept getting louder and louder and suddenly there was a huge KA-BOOM! With that huge ka-boom, Snickers jumped right on the bed with me! NEVER before has he ever been allowed on the bed because he is so big! So when he jumped on there, he dropped on all fours and gave me this look like, "is this okay? what are you going to do?" I pondered for a moment what I wanted to do about this situation and decided that for the present this was okay. However, when I decided that it was time for him to return to his own bed on the floor, he flat out refused to get off. It was actually quite humorous... but I have learned my lesson that if he's allowed on once, he thinks it's his territory now.

This weekend we have been busy with our new summer interns who arrived here on Thursday. We did orientation type activities with them Friday and Saturday and a little on Sunday. They are a great group with lots of energy. They were a huge help to Josh today in my absence.

Other news...

We have been loving our new lives here. Each day gets easier as we get more involved in our hobbies, work, and making new friends. I had been telling Josh about 2-3 weeks ago that for about a week straight I thought about Poulsbo constantly: the downtown area, the cafes, the water front, family, games, etc. I was beginning to really feel home sick and long for the things that we can't get here. A great idea happened upon me one day as I was working, and that was that I needed to get into my hobbies more. So I told Josh that I really wanted to get into cooking, piano playing, and exercising regularly. He happily agreed that that was a good idea, so we took a trip down to Santiago to do a little grocery shopping where I found many needed and hard to get items. Since then I have hosted 3 parties (and made food and or desert for all of them), played the piano nearly everyday (I brought the base's keyboard home), and I have exercised very consistently. It's amazing how just doing those few things have really made me feel at home here.

There are still many days when I wake up and look outside, and say to God, "I can't believe you called us here". We are so happy with our co-workers, with our jobs, with how our lives are adapting, that it still shocks me when I think this is where I call home now.

Prayer requests:

• for energy for the summer
• for wisdom
• for guidance
• for flexibility
• for health - more immediately, that I would get better. If I still have Diarrhea tomorrow then I have to go to the doctor so they can find out what I have and treat it. But if I have something, then that means it could still be a few days until I am better.
• Raul's wife moves back to the D.R. on Wednesday and moves in with us on Thursday. Please pray that this living arrangement will continue to be a blessing to all 4 of us, and that as little kinks come up that we will be able to handle everything with peace and grace.

Praises:

• That in my absence today, Josh and the interns were able to get all of the last minute prep done and still get to their own tasks
• Our safety
• that we are working with a great team who loves God
• that one of our summer volunteers was able to fix a broken button on my laptop!!! Praise God because otherwise I would have had to mail it into dell and paid probably a lot of money
• that (for the most part) we have been very healthy
• Lastly - for all of the continued prays and financial support from all of you! Thank you all for being so faithful!

Finished Kitchen

I posted pictures some time ago of the new house we moved into. The kitchen was very unimpressive but the land lord said she would fix it up with no cost to us!!! So here are the before and after pictures.

Before...

After...

We are so happy with the new kitchen... it is so beautiful!

More of life

İHola familia y amigos! (Hello family and friends!)

I type to you today from my laptop which happens to be crawling with teeny-tiny ants and spiders. I guess they thought it was a great place to lay eggs… and now call their home as thousands (I’m not even exaggerating) have recently hatched. It’s quite gross really and I’m using it now because I think I killed about a couple thousand of them… finally. So as I sit here and type, every minute or so I grab the napkin sitting next to me and squish a few more ants or spiders that spastically crawl about.

So far in our time here “routine” has not been a word we could use to describe our lives. Developing a schedule is pointless as we rarely ever accomplish even half of what we were expecting to get finished. If someone planned to live here my word of advice would be “flexibility”. If you can’t be flexible you would never survive. We thought we were flexible until we moved here, only to find we still have a lot to learn. The culture is so laid back. The Dominican number one priority are relationships. When I drop off a vehicle at the mechanics, I don’t just explain the problem, hand the guy the keys and walk off. I sit down, chat for about 30-45minutes (usually this time is me getting a language lesson).

Another change for us is that we must always have cash on hand. We never know what the day-to-day is going to bring and we must have cash. Debit card, credit card… yeah right! No one has the machine to run cards.

Last Thursday Josh and I needed some groceries and needed to pay rent but someone was at the house working on it. So I offered to go so Josh could stay home with the worker. It was the first time it really struck me that one-stop-shopping is not available to us up here in Jarabacoa. So, I first had to go to one supermarket which didn’t have what I needed. So I walked around the corner to the other supermarket where I did find my needed items. Then I walked the few blocks to go to the fruit market. From there I made my final stop at the meat market to buy the meat I needed for the next few days. Another reality I have learned (thanks to disgusting smells) is that food does not last long here… even in the fridge. So frequent shopping has also become a regular part of our lives.

We just wrapped up several weeks of Spanish lessons, and now have to rely on our own determination and motivation to continue learning. We do really enjoy the language and like learning about it however, so that is a great start. We just recently purchased a bi-lingual Bible, and a children’s Bible… which had been suggested as a great way to learn Spanish. I have been reading it, and really enjoying it to!

Okay, well off to work again… this is just the beginning of several more longish blogs to come!

Quick update

We are so sorry that it has been a while since our last blog posting. We have been so busy!


On April 17th we did an outreach for the "bomberos" (firemen) here. In the Dominican Republic, firemen are not respected. The whole idea came about because one day Nate was talking with a fireman who said he wished he could move to the United States to be a fireman, because he knew that there firemen get respect and are appreciated; where here, no one respects them or appreciates them. So Nate thought it would be a great idea to have a evening for the bomberos. We put on a beautiful dinner for them (at our base), and then showed them the movie "Fireproof" (if you haven't seen it yet, you should, it was really good). After the movie Raul gave a little message and then he handed them certificates of appreciate. Raul is in the military (not on active duty) and he wore his uniform for the evening which made it more special for the firemen. The evening was really fun and a great way to show the firemen that we care about them and respect them.





From April 21-23 we went on a staff retreat that was geared toward spiritual growth and edification. The guest speaker was amazing. He lives in the US and has for the last 10 years (I think), but he is originally from Colombia. He has the gift of prophecy and prophesied over many people, Josh and I included. It was an amazing experience. We have never seen people prophesied over let alone had it done over us. It was incredible.





The following day, April 24, my grandparents came to Samana (on the eastern side of the D.R.) by cruise boat. We drove over there to meet them and spent the day with them. It was so fun and we got to see a beautiful waterfall called "Salto El Limon". Here is a picture.

Yesterday we worked all day on our house. I painted for awhile... the inside is nearly finished! And Josh worked a lot on the outside of the house. And when Raul got home from work he helped chop down a lot of branches that were threatening our power lines. Once he did that Josh and Raul chopped up the branches. I worked in our 3 flower beds and cleaned them up a bit.

Today we are working at the base, getting some more planning done, and checking our e-mails and typing some much needed blogging!

So I suppose I should get back to work, but hopefully this will satisfy you blogger hungry readers for a short time until I can write some more.

We made the move

Josh mentioned in his last note that our final spring team is gone. We are now in a transition stage from one season to another. The spring and summer schedules are quite different from each other, the summer is more routine, but longer and more tiring. We are excited for our break to rest and prepare.

So you may know that Josh and I have moved. It is interesting what we have noticed in this new house as a comparison to our old house... here are a few observations.
~ We don't have to lean against the wall in the shower to catch the few drops that leak from the shower head, we have full water pressure now!
~ There aren't swarms of bugs flying around at all hours of the day and night
~ There isn't dirt, leaves, dead bugs/lizards, other misc items falling from the ceiling panels
~ Once I sweep the floor, it stays clean for the day instead of 30 minutes... maybe
~ When we turn the lights on, they light up the room
~ When someone flushes the toilet or turns the faucet on while someone is in the shower, the water continues to flow into the shower while accommodating the other action that has taken place

We are grateful that we had the experience in the other house because we are now thankful for these things in our new house.

Other noteworthy items:
For my devotional times in the morning I have been reading from the book of Ezekiel. I am not very far along yet, but it has been an interesting read. Reading about Ezekiel's obedience to God when God instructs him to lay in the fetal position for 390 days in public! CRAZY! I really don't think I would have said "yes" to God if He asked me to do that.

Easter was an interesting experience here. It's not celebrated at all like we celebrate it in the States. Good Friday is a big deal here. Large groups of people gather together and walk long distances while carrying life sized crosses. While they do this, they are reading through the events in the Bible up to Jesus' Crucifixion. When they walk they sing, pray, or recite phrases. It's quite interesting to see. Saturday then is a day of fiestas and parties. Family and friends get together and BBQ and have games. Almost every business in town is closed for the whole weekend. There are town festivities too like races for people, bikers, and horses. On Easter Sunday, our big day in the States, nothing special happens. No more events, no more celebrating, in fact, in church, most pastors do not even talk about Jesus' crucifixion or resurrection. It is so interesting to me how all cultures have their own unique and different way of recognizing (or not) different events.

My final note.... some of you may know that Josh and I had been praying for a way to use our house for some kind of ministry. We asked others for advice and prayer and received all kinds of suggestions and words of wisdom. One day Josh came home and said to me, I think we should ask Raul, the guy who runs the sport ministry site, if he would be interested in living with us. Raul has begun to build a home up here in Jarabacoa, but right now he commutes on his moto from another town further down the mountain, and it takes him about 40 minutes to get here. We thought if we could offer him a place to stay, free of rent, he would maybe be able to save up the money from no rent and less gas to finish his home by the end of the summer.

We prayed about this idea and asked for some advice from others here, and it was received very warmly as a great idea. We prayed about it some more and felt like God was leading us to ask Raul if he would be interested. It just so happened that he was very interested and was planning on moving to another apartment the same day we were moving in. So he moved in the same day we did. He helped a lot with lifting heavy furniture items, and cleaning up the yard which needed a lot of help. He is so grateful and doesn't take anything for granted. He offers to pay for his own food or to pay me for cooking for him. He takes Snickers on walks, and offers to help us with our Spanish, as we help him with his English. So far (all 2 days) everything is working out very well. We are really excited about this opportunity to help him in this way.

Raul is lately married and his wife just found out that she is pregnant. The down side to this story is that she made a commitment to her parents that she would finish studying in the states. So, on Friday she flew back to New Jersey to finish studying. Raul says it is likely he wont see her until after she has the baby, which will be born in the states.

During this time of change, transition, and new a house mate, Josh and I would like to add this to our growing list of prayer requests. We don't foresee any problems, but I'm sure some will arise as our "home-sharing" days continue. Please pray that God's hand will be upon this partnership and that the three of us will only grow more in our knowledge and understanding of God and in our language.

God Bless You and thank you for being a part of our lives!

Preparation for Summer

We have a month before our next outreach which then follows 12 weeks of back-to-back outreaches. You may ask what we do now? Well, for the next couple of days we are hopefully going to be doing nothing and trying to take it easy and get rejuvenated. When teams are here we pour a lot of energy into the outreach, so now we need the rest. But after a few days of restoration we have to start planning for the summer. Summer is our busiest season and we need to get everything planned out so when people start arriving we are ready for them.

This "in-between-time" is where we prepare for the next year. We get a whole new schedule planned with the Bible studies, praise and worship, evening activities we want to do, and where we are going to take people to church. Now is the time that we have to do a lot of coordinating with staff and with the different communities we hope to be working in. Additionally we are taking Spanish lessons just about everyday M-F from 2-4pm. To really practice what we are learning we hope to spend time in the community (Josh at Sports, Vicki at Social Work) to practice our Spanish as well. So, our next month is going to be busy, but well worth the effort we put into our Spanish and preparing for the summer outreaches.

This is off topic...but I wanted to encourage those who read this that we appreciate any comments that you would like to make. I know some of you do already and we appreciate hearing from you! For those that don't and are not sure how, just click on the comments link at the bottom of the current posting and then you just type a message and put in your name and then submit the comment. We are always checking for new comments and will always read them! Again we thank you all for reading our blog and supporting us in this way by being interested in what we are doing.

Another team gone...and God teaching me a lesson about who He is!

The last spring team left yesterday. During this outreach we saw a lot of spiritual growth in the team. There were 38 participants from a church in California and most of them were in high school. They arrived last Saturday and the leaders mentioned to us that a goal was to get their students to sing during worship time. From Monday night until they left, they were up every night, at least until 11pm, doing praise and worship, and many of the students sang. With every outreach we schedule the teams to go to bed at 10pm because they have to wake up early to get the day started at 6:50am. This group however never wanted to go to bed and they just wanted to be outside singing. One night they were even singing in the rain!

There were many students that re-committed there lives to Christ and there was even one student who came to know Jesus. One of the leaders was talking with Vicki and said that usually on mission trips the last night of the outreach is when they students really seem to connect with God. That's when they open up to the group and share their hearts. However this happened on the second day of the team arriving! It was truly amazing and very cool to hear.

This last outreach taught me a very valuable lesson about who God is. Let me explain...as you know it is Easter today and here in the DR the week before Easter is called Holy Week (Semana Santa) and things are completely different. In the D.R., Semana Santa is a vacation time. Schools are closed, some businesses close and most people take the week off. Because of the Holy Week traditions, we knew that our ministry sites would not look the same primarily because many people take the week for vacation. For example, at the Special Education site and Developmental Therapy site there were only 8 kids and usually there are at least 30 kids.

The reason that this church team was here was because they were supposed to go to Mexico but the trip got canceled because of the events happening there. So, 3 weeks ago we were asked if we could host them. We said we could but we were not sure how things were going to go.

This is where God started working because as Vicki and I made the schedule I was thinking to myself that the outreach is too short, I mean they are only going to have 4 work days at their ministry sites. And with their ministry sites having less people to work with I did not think they would be impacted and I felt that the students might have a negative experience. But was I ever wrong. I was completely limiting God and His awesome power. God was teaching me and re-emphasizing to me that it is not I that changes people but God. I really learned that Vicki and I are just here to help create the best atmosphere we can for people to encounter Christ and serve others but that God is what changes people, God is who saves people; Vicki and I are servants trying to do our best to serve God and His purposes. Sometimes we do well at our service, other times we learn through our failures and we continue to serve God.