La Escuelita in Pancho Mateo

posted by Bethany
Things here in the DR have been going well despite a slight setback due to an amoeba. I've been enjoying working with the kids and seeing them grow and learn so much. Its especially fun to see the pre-schoolers in Pancho Mateo in class. They're are learning so much and some of them can actually count! One of my favorite things is walking around the village in the morning and looking for the kids to come to school. They get so excited. The kids are a little antsy in class but they still enjoy being there. Last week we taught them about Dinosaurs (something they've never heard about) and also told them the story of David and Goliath. They loved it. By the end of the week the older kids were able to tell the story back to us. Brian wrote about some of the challenges to teaching here. Please keep us in your prayers as we do this. Please also keep praying for the kids. They need your prayers.

D.R. Update

Posted by Brian

Well another week has passed in the D.R. Our new center of activities in Pancho Mateo is awesome. We are in the process of decorating and making it look like a little school. It has become the center of attention when we are there. But along with that some problems have arisen, many children want to come and stay for all the classes, regardless of whether they are 4 or 14 years old. The problem is when the 10,11 and 12 years olds give all the answers in the younger classes. We have an no entrance policy and a barbed wire fence but that still doesn't deter some. Another attraction is the guyaba tree in our yard. This can be distracting to a child who doesn't know what his next meal will be.

We have some prayer requests this week.
1. Children in the villages specifically Francis,12, and Joldi, 13.
2. Our vehicle situation, we need a reliable vehicle. We have a 87 Suzuki samurai if it has been very faithful, but we need something with more room and more reliability, our jeep is reliable but we sometimes have to park on a hill in case we have to coast start it. Car shopping is a nightmare here, so we would appreciate your prayers.
3. Our health.

Raise your hand if you miss Will

posted by Sharla

We were so blessed to have Will down in the DR. He built some awesome stuff for our ministry and did a great job with the kids and with the groups that came down. THANK YOU WILL! I hope he keeps blogging! (although I also hope he starts using paragraphs...)

Home again, home again, jiggidy jig

posted by tall white boy in a foreign land

Well, this is it. I can't believe that I just took my last dominican shower. It was a dousie too, when there isn't any sun shining on the cistern on the roof the water stays really cold. It was freezing. On Brian's advice, I went to the young life camp last weekend out on the very tip of the Samana Peninsula. We hiked out to a pretty much deserted beach that was surrounded by really high cliffs. There were coconut trees everywhere. I pigged on coconuts. The only problem is that white boys don't climb straight trees, so I had to knock the coconuts out of the trees with sticks and bamboo, which was really hard. The snorkeling was amazing too. I found a really nice big conch shell while snorkeling but I discovered later that it had a hermit crab living in it, and I couldn't get him out. And thursday I took the bus to the colonial city down in Santo Domingo. It is where columbus landed. It was really neat and I took a lot of pictures. www.msnusers.com/willspictures The coolest thing was the big fort that they built right near the ozama river mouth and the carribean sea. My dumb tourist manuver for the day was that I paid to get into this little kiddy museum that I thought was where Trujillo's weapon collection was. The people kept giving me funny looks but it wasn't untill after the cartoon movie when the guide asked me if I would like to ride the little yellow earthquake simulator that I realized that something was very wrong. When I started asking about weapons and things for killing he started getting confused too. He finally took me back out and I had to explain to the people what I had done and that I wanted a refund while they stood around and laughed. It was one of those "wow, I'm glad I will never have to see those people again in my life" moments. Dumb gringo.

Of all the bad spanish that I have learned down here, here are my 2 favorite words
Chupy chupy: straw Guacala: disgusting
I still can barely understand these people. They're crazy.

Well, it's been a good trip, thankyou Sharla for making it possible and to The Rea's for your hospitality and everything you do. To any prospective interns, the guinea pig intern made it through, so it must be safe. The hardest is probably yet to come though, my dad tells me that they have me lined up to preach the revival this week. Gosh, I hope I don't have to do a whole service by myself. Pray hard...

So it's back to hillbillyville for me, thanks for a really cool semester of high school,

Will

A Rainy Week in the DR

posted by Brian

Rain stops thing here like snow in the states. It has rained everyday for the past week. It is a little more difficult to deal with rain here because no one has driers and everyone depends on the sun to dry their clothes. It is also difficult to deal with the sound of rain hitting a tin roof when you are trying to teach.
The classes in Pancho Mateo are great. We are discovering that there are some really inteligent children in these areas. It is our hope to nurish this and give them a chance to do something in life other than cut sugar cane.
There are some problems that go along with the extreme poverty these children are brought up in. Bethany and I witness fights daily. Some of these kids even resort to throwing rocks. Just today i watched two children ages 8 and 10 fighting outside our center in Pancho Mateo. the adults in the village watch them go at it and did not stop them. I had to run from the class and pull the 2 kids off of each other. We have developed strict rules about fighting. We even have had to punish one of our best students. It is very important to set a good example because the parents use the same violence to punish the children, Bethany and I are trying to combat this problem with some positive reinforcement. we love these children and we hate to see them continue in these behavior patterns but we know it will take a lot of work to change the attitudes of the children.
Please continue to pray for the children of the villages. Especially a brother and sister named Franki and Mary Magdalena Feliz. They are 2 of the hardest children I have ever seen.

This Week in the DR

Posted by Brian

It has been a great week for Makarios here. We were able to get into the new little house that is going to be our education center in Pancho Mateo. Because we have the new place we have been able to expand our activities and now we are providing educational services for ages 3 to 15. We are working on making the house look like a real classroom. The students were amazed at the sticker charts that we have to keep attendance and behavior records. The only problem is that we are the most exciting thing going on in the village so the children tend to just hang out and wait for time for their classes. This can get noisy.
On Wednesday night, Beth had 16 girls between the ages of 11 and 16 over to our house to celebrate the Birthdays of 2 girls in the village. It was fun and the girls loved hanging out and seeing our house as well as looking at our wedding pictures. There were hot dogs, doritos and cake for the party. It was great to see the girls enjoying themselves becasue they have probably never celebrated a birthday before. It was also the first test for our new truck. It performed admirably with 4 in the front and 14 in the bed. There are no regulations about riding in the back here.
Please continue to remember the Dominican Republic and Bethany and I in your prayers.

Pictures

posted by Sharla

Here are some pictures from our March trip:

www.dotphoto.com/go.asp?l=smegilligan&p=8BB1&AID=2302439

Life in the DR

Posted by Brian and Bethany

Well we were so encouraged by the group from texas. they were awesome. being in the villages can be hard especially coming from the states. they were not afraid of some really dirty stinky conditions. our hope and prayer is that they will continue to serve the way they served here. there are many opportunities to be an example of Christ's love everywhere.
well we are settling into our regular routine. we have started some new programs in the villages and they seem to be going well. we are doing age specific classes in pancho mateo and started having activities in chi chi qua two times a week.
we would like to thank everyone who is praying for and supporting makarios and especially sharla for all the work she is doing. last but not least we want to thank will for all the great stuff he has built. continue praying for us and the children.

March Trip

Our group trip last month was awesome! The kids were great - we could not have asked for anything more from a work team. The Austin stone group was able to get a good idea of how they can get involved long term and what they can do on their June trip. The PBU group helped us make great strides with the coffee business. I'm so grateful for all of them!

There are a lot of stories from the trip. Jessica held a little boy that went to bathroom on her two days in a row (they can't afford diapers), there was a cow's head sighting, and many other adventures. I'll leave it to everyone else to blog their stories.

Thanks for your prayers!

will's everyotherweekly or wheneverIcangettoit update

posted by will

It's finally raining here in Santiago! It hasn't rained for over a month and it was getting very dry and dusty. This should cool things down too. For the last 2 weeks I have been back to the regular routine of building stuff on tues. and thurs. and working at the preschool on the other days. Tommorrow and wed. Shelly isn't going to be at the preschool though, so that will be interesting. Noone else there speaks english. I just got back from Puerto Plata on the bus. I was just sitting there listening to the radio when the lady next to me's purse started clucking and all of the sudden a big chicken stuck it's head out. She just shoved it back in and it was ok for while, but towards the end of the trip I think it had an accident and it was pretty bad. Brian and Bethany took me to a special service this morning at a village called Maimon. I'm just guessing at the spelling, but that's what it sounded like. There were 5 baptisms, 1 baby dedication, and a wedding all in the same service. For the baptisms we walked up a path into a ravine with a little creek. Someone had dammed the stream up to make a little pool. I got some pictures and I am putting them up right now. www.msnusers.com/willspictures People from all the villages came out for the service. A lot of the people from Maimon live off the Puerto Plata dump, which is right over the hill. The Rea's are still trying to get phone service at the villa so that's why they haven't put any updates up on this page. Well it looks like the Pirates are gearing up for another loosing season. What will this be, 15 straight years under .500? It's starting to get out of control. When will we finally get a salary cap to solve this mess. I think the pirates team salary cap last year was like 30 million. A-Rod alone earned 30 million last year. It rediculous to expect a competitive league with that kind of imbalance. I can't believe I only have 3 weeks left down here. The time has been flying by. It just started raining really hard. I haven't had a hair cut since I 've been down here. I walked about 3/4 of a mile down the road to a little salon(they're everywhere) last wednesday and sat there for about 45 min. waiting for some girl to get her hair combed and dried. When the lady finally finished, the girl got up and I went to sit down in the only chair. By the time I had sat down the power was out. Great...maybe God doesn't want me to get a hair cut.

Shaggy Will