no elvis sightings here

My time in Memphis is quickly coming to a close. I made it here safe and sound - thanks, those of you who were praying! My mother was concerned about me arriving in the dark. If that worries her, we won't tell her what kinds of things go on in the DR!

Things went well at the church this evening. I gave a twenty minute presentation after a church dinner and the people were very friendly and receptive. I continue to sell Dominican coffee as a fundraiser, and I'm quickly running out. I emailed Brian today asking him to sent more. It's good stuff. I don't even like coffee and I like this stuff! Of course I drink it Dominican style with lots of milk and sugar.

I'm leaving in the morning for Cedarville, Ohio, home of the best Christian university in the nation. I'll be stopping on the way at one of the finest Gap outlets (located in KY) where all jeans and khakis are $10! Well, they used to be ten years ago. Who knows what they are now.

Please post comments letting me know the best ways to pass the time whilst driving. I was quite bored on the way here, despite my books on cd.

Please continue to pray for my safety and the general well being of the mighty Prelude.

all packed up

I've packed the car full of everything I'll need for the next two months. I have books on cd and an exciting new cooler that I found on clearance thanks to my roommate, Julie. I've said goodbye to my summer clothes as I am heading to the north just in time for it to get cold. It's not cold in the DR or Texas, so I am a bit of a cold weather wimp. Yes, I grew up in it, but that doesn't mean I like it.

I leave for Memphis tomorrow morning, where I'll be speaking at the church of our board member, Kim Heuer. Please pray for my safety and for my time with the church family.

Beginning the activities

This is the big week. On Monday the after school activities start in Negro Melo, and on Thursday they start at Severe school. The kids and I will be making counting books and doing some other educational game and the older kids will be playing math games and using manipulatives to learn math. These programs are completely new to these students because the schools are so underfunded and overcrowded. School usually consist of just copying note form the board. Our goal is to create some excitement about learning and hopefully this will transfer to success and oppurtunity in these students lives.
I took a break today to help a custodian at Santiago Christian School put a roof on his house. This man, Vicente, and his family are very poor and yet they epitomize hospitality and hardwork. It was a pleasure helping them with this new tin roof. Now when it rains they will stay dry in the house.
Please continue praying for Makarios.

Road Trip

Many of you know that I leave for a two month road trip on Tuesday, the 28th. I'll be representing Makarios in churches, colleges, and high schools. Please pray for safety on the road in my 14 year-old car (pop-up headlights!), the development of good contacts and relationships along the way, and the growth of the ministries of Makarios as a result of this trip. I hate to make finances an issue, but it is certainly a consideration in all of this. Please pray that we will soon have the monthly commitments necessary to meet our budget, and that in all these things, God will be glorified. It's easy to let my focus shift off of Him in all the day to day minutiae, but He's the reason we're doing this!

I will be posting updates of my road trip extravaganza as I go, so stay tuned for more info! Of course, Brian has the exciting "in the trenches" work to report, but I'll try to keep my posts as captivating as possible.

Week in the D.R.

I feel like it was a very successful week for Makarios. Plans are being made to start some after school programs in Negro Melo and Severe. I want to incorporate some learning games and fun activities for each of these sites. These activities will probably be one day a week for each grade in each site and they will last 30 minutes to an hour. For example 1st and 2nd grade will do the activities on Monday, then 3rd and 4th the following days. It will be a good opportunity for the kids to get some hands on education because of finances most schools have no other for of teaching than lecture. I believe these programs will encourage children to have fun and see the connect with their education.
Also a tropical storm hit the area for late Thursday night into Friday morning. The winds were strong and did cause some damage. Schools are canceled until Monday, and possibly later as some of the school roads have been washed out.

Schools

Well, I spent my first week in my new home. On Wednesday, with the help of some batey residents, I cleaned the apartment. Mauris, a Haitian pastor as well as all around huge help to Makarios, and 3 students from the village helped. I spent time riding around to all the Bateys and establishing contacts. The schools are beginning this Monday. I feel we have been able to help so far by giving pencils and notebooks. Also I was talking to some teachers and they said they will let students attended class without uniforms if they at least have supplies. Hopefully this promise is followed through.
It is sugar cane cutting season here and the smell in the air is so sweet. The men are working all day. The women and the children in the bateys prepare food or look for some small jobs to do. One job that kids do is to get water for the day. This often requires long walks with a few gallons of dirty water. The water comes from a river and it is very unsantiary. The men after working all day cutting sugar cane, come away with 60 peso a ton. An entire days work usually yeilds less than 2 ton. A great day at work could land 120 peso about 3 us dollars.
Continue to pray for the situation here and for the ministry. It is such a blessing to be able to be doing this work.

D.R.

Some really good things are happening for Makarios. First, we have a temporary home in Cangrejo, D.R. It is about 5 minutes from the Bateys in Monte Llano, where our work is focused. After much prayer and looking the Lord provided a place that was much better and much more affordable the we expected.
Also 4 Haitian children who live in Santiago will be starting school as I write this. These kids live in a makeshift block house with their mother. I know the boys because they shine shoes in my neighborhood and are always willing to help me with any chores. They will attend school in Licey al Medio which is a few minutes outside Santiago. They are from ages 5 to 14. They are very excited about the uniform and notebooks that Makarios was able to help them afford.
Things are going really well. I am currently finishing moving into the apartment and tomorrow I will be visiting the Bateys and looking to start some programs there.

An Internship Full of Surprises

Now it’s my turn! I’m a graduate student at the UT, and I spent my summer interning with Makarios – what a treat! My days were filled with research, writing, and networking, and I enjoyed it all. Before becoming a grad student, I spent almost a year teaching in a batey near Santo Domingo (along the DR’s south coast), and it was so great to join Makarios and be surrounded by Dominicans and Haitians again.

At the very beginning of the summer, I accompanied Sharla on the Makarios June trip to the DR. Sharla and I spent just over a week together on the north coast, and I got to meet Brian and visit several of the bateyes where our initial projects will begin. Although I had spent lots of time in bateyes before the June trip, I’m always amazed by batey life. Bateyes are such a fascinating mix of Haiti and the Dominican Republic, and while batey residents often lack sufficient access to important resources – electricity, water, education – they are fighting to improve their lives. The bateyes are a fabulous display of survival and determination. I especially love the time we spend with the kids during our visits. They never stop surprising me. For example, Victoria, a teenager in one of the bateyes, will make a terrific teacher one day. As we entered her batey with a missions team, Victoria lined the little children up and led them in several songs. And even better – the little ones listened when she asked them to sit silently for a story. Hopefully, Makarios will be able to take advantage of Victoria’s kindness and her leadership skills as we begin to work with the children in the batey. Victoria is just one example of the little treasures that Makarios while working in the bateyes. Each batey is full of its own surprises, and I know Sharla, Brian, and everyone who travels to the DR with Makarios will have a great adventure exploring them all!

While the June trip was certainly a highlight of the summer, my time in Austin was productive as well. Post-trip internship activities included investigation into the educational needs of Jimani and the surrounding towns, the creation of a brochure and Web site material, and research on the tensions that exist between Haiti and the Dominican Republic. All in all, the summer was a great introduction to the world of nonprofits, and I learned many fantastic things. Even better – it was fun!

Pictures from the August trip

You can check out some pictures from our August trip at
http://www.dotphoto.com/go.asp?l=smegilligan&p=8BB1&AID=1763403&Pres=Y

If you scroll down a bit under each photo, you'll find the descriptions.

Speaking as a friend to Makarios...

I have never blogged before. This is certainly the highlight of my day. I'll give a personal highlight from each of the 3 parts of our August 18-27 trip to the D.R.

Part 1. We were in Santiago for about 3 days. We did some work around a local church/preschool just around the corner from Santiago Christian School, and each morning we helped with a "vacation Bible school" (VBS) affiliated with that church/preschool. On the second day of VBS, the group game was a relay race of sorts, where 2 kids at a time went through a course involving activities such as bouncing a ball and a piggy-back run, that included the following pratfalls: (1) Brian and I having to demonstrate to the group just how exactly two people can jump in the air together 10 times while holding hands, and thank goodness Kate captured it on camera. (2) After watching all the kids go through the course, I realized that there are in fact many variations of a jumping jack. In the VBS universe, it's the effort that counts, not style. (3) Learning that, in a wheelbarrow race, an overzealous runner plus a low-arm-strength wheelbarrower often equals a faceplant. And often numerous faceplants.

Part 2. We went down south for a couple days so that we could visit Jimaní, which was hard hit by a flood back in May. This was a highlight for me because I got a good picture of the hospitality and helpfulness of the Dominicans and Haitians that we met as we were trying to find the right people on that Sunday afternoon. Anyone we spoke to (I say "we" loosely, as my Spanish is muy rusty), whether sitting in the shade on the sidewalk, passing by on a motorbike, or watching Olympics on a small TV at home, dropped whatever they were doing to answer our questions in a very welcoming manner.

Part 3. We spent 3 nights on the north shore in Caberete, so that Sharla and Brian could search for a place to house Brian, his soon-to-be wife, and teams that come down from the States. Personally, this was a trying time of growth and opportunity, as I focused my ministerial gifts on sitting in a beach chair, snorkeling, and reading the theological tome "Holes." Ok, heh heh, so this part of the trip was more of a vacation for me, but I will say that a highlight was visiting the Haitian village (a "bateye") called Rancho Mateo. I had heard Sharla talk about the bateyes and knew that Brian would be working with them, so it was good to see one and to have not only a clear picture of the destitute conditions, but also an encouragement that good work can be done, as I got to see the church building and tiny classroom run by a local pastor and also Brian's rapport with the kids at the village.

My first blog! You might want to hold on to this one, it will probably be worth something someday...

vacation Bible school...not for the faint of heart

On August 18, four of us met in Santiago, Dominican Republic for part one of our three part adventure. We spent the first three days helping with a Bible club for 6-14 year olds in the mornings and doing some work projects on a church/preschool that Makarios helps support. The group consisted of Brian Rea, full-time Makarios staff extraordinaire, Kate Clemensen, fearless Makarios board member, Ryan Greene, helpful Austinite "friend of Makarios," and me, Sharla. More details of the trip to come, and hopefully from those I just mentioned. Please feel free to harass them into posting their accounts of our trip if you happen to see them on the street. Pictures will be available shortly.

Kidney stones and the will of God

Last January I was in the Dominican Republic with a group of seven doing some missions work. Our plan was to work in a village on the north coast and then visit a Young Life program in Santiago over the weekend. There wouldn't be any time for a visit to Santiago Christian School, where I taught for four years. As it turns out, things didn't go according to plan. Missions trips can be tricky like that. One of the guys in our group got kidney stones and we had to leave the north coast early for Santiago to be near good medical care. While he was healing up, the rest of us decided to volunteer at SCS for the day.

I was sitting in the teacher's lounge at lunch time and someone asked me what I was going to do when I finished grad school that spring (may 2004). I described the nonprofit that I was hoping to start - one in which we would work to provide better educational opportunities for impoverished Haitians and Dominicans. From across the room, Brian Rea spoke up. What was I doing? We talked for a bit and he told me that he had been praying about finding a job in which he could do that very type of work.

In February, Makarios became official, and Brian and I prayed about his potential involvement. By April, it was clear to both of us that he was the perfect fit for the job, and God was opening all the doors.

In case you don't know Brian, or his job description, let me just explain something. What he is now doing with Makarios in the DR is what he had already been doing in his spare time. He loves these kids and they love him. Just last week, one little two year old was crying like mad because Brian was leaving the village for the day. And Brian couldn't stand leaving. He has teaching experience, speaks Spanish and Haitian Creole, and loves building relationships. He is perfect for this job. Praise the Lord!

So there you have it. God used kidney stones to bring Brian to Makarios.