el amor

posted by alexia...with much coercion from sharla...

here is an example of the boldness of domincan men with american women. this young man went to a lot of effort to get help from one of the girls in the village who has taken english classes in a nearby town. i have reproduced it without alterning wording, spelling or punctuation.

To: Alexia

*Hello Alexia, how are you, i wait that you are good.

For this way I wanna xpress you my simpathy about you, I'm fall in love you, and at the same time I wanna know why you don't love, if I am Dominican? This is not a distance to the love that I feel.

Don't be so proud because I do really love you, you are my living razon, I wanna tell you I would like if you want, can to get out with me to the movie, to the park whatever you want with me. Don't be ashame with me I'm a person like you. give an asnwer.

I would like to live a dream with you.

At.t: Fernando your love

baby girl Promise

sorrow and joy

posted by sharla

thank you for your prayers for salvador's family and for camille. it's been a sad time. at the same time, there has been joy over the birth of baby girl promise (pictures to come) and the joy of playing with the twins, isaac and jacob. he gives and he takes away. blessed be the name of the Lord!

He gives and takes away

The exciting news of Carrie and Agape's baby arriving just days ago brings much joy. However, death is just as much present as is life. Yesterday in Pancho Mateo, a little boy in one of my classes named Salvador died. He and his brother were playing around a few days before and he was accidentially stabbed in the throat with a machete and the proper care was not sought out after. The family members were wailing and a lot of the Haitian community was gathered around the family's home. I sat on the ground with a handful of Haitian children that are in my class for a few hours and held Jeffery (Salvador's brother) in my arms during all of that time. It was a very emotional and long day for many of us. Classes were cancelled today as they buried him this morning and as well as a strike in the country that caused everything to close down.

a pointy-headed baby

promise was born today around 7:30pm. carrie was in labor since about 10pm midnight, so that sounds like fun. it took her a while to arrive, so we have been told that her head was pointy. I will take pictures and post them soon!

now that is some good timing

posted by sharla

i arrived in the DR today. i'm here to do many things, but one of them, and the one that motivated the timing of this trip, is to take care of the twins when Carrie has her baby. Carrie and Agape have partnered with us to form a foster care ministry and have been taking care of the twins since the summer. Carrie is pregnant and was due on november 4th. so i was coming down to take care of the twins for a month while Carrie takes care of her newborn. the baby has been taking her time making her entrance, but it appears she will be coming very soon. carrie is in labor right now (it's 3am)! so now i've got the twins and the baby is on her way. it was convenient of her to wait until i got here! more updates to come...

my students

for some reason, dominicans and haitians don't seem to like to smile for the camera. so please don't mistake their expression for boredom!

back row: Jose, Inez, Kati, Vilila; front row: Dania, Judy, Fernando

Widline, Vanessa, Avelina, Yuberki

Angelina, Maria, Miguel, Ana, Paola

trip to the north

i had a great trip up to indiana and ohio last month. i'm very excited to be working with groups of students at cedarville and taylor ft wayne on various makarios projects. it's such a huge blessing for us (particularly because it's free!).

the pic was taken at youngs near cedarville. for those of you who went to cedarvegas, you know the joy of youngs. that's me with darren and becky's daughter jenna. who doesn't love a pumpkin patch?

food program

Last week we started a food program in the two villages. We don't have much to offer (so we thought) because it gets expensive trying to feed around 75 kids two times a week. After each class we pass out one hard boiled egg to each student and a glass of milk. We now have the kids bring a cup to each class. Milk is pretty pricey, so kids do not get it that often (if at all I'm guessing). It was pretty funny, whenever we first started doing this, one of the kids asked if we had a cow! Because, of course, how else would we have so much milk?!

It now makes our nights and weekends a little bit more eventful (if our days weren't enough already) by extra grocery shopping and boiling all the eggs. More students have also started coming to class (so we expected), which is good and bad. A lot of kids equals a lot of chaos.

However, things have really improved so much. There is now a new fence that goes around the school house and a lock on the gate, which eliminates SO MANY problems. No more leaving the classroom, no kids right outside the door being noisy and disruptive. However, recently there has been a few kids at random hours during the day standing by the gate once a class is finished with empty cups in hand. It has been great trying to teach the kids responsibility of coming to the right class and on time.

Cristina is also wonderful. She is my teacher's aid in the classroom. We now have enough funds which allows her to come to every class with me. It is so wonderful and she is great! It would be difficult trying to manage the classes on my own, not to mention now trying to do this food program!