a weekend well spent

I spent the last weekend at one of our ministry sites in a different city in the country. This school, placed right in the middle of acres of sugarcane fields, caters mostly to Hatian immigrants that are smuggled across the border to work in the fields chopping down the sugarcane. This area is an example poverty to the extreme. I'm still chewing on what I witnessed there, more will come from me later, but I have attached some pictures below to show some of the kids.

two boys walking

tired baby

beautiful girls

Feeding the hungry

my last few weeks

In the past few weeks, the Kids Alive DR team has mostly reconveined. I now have some other english speakers living with me at the Ark, which is really nice. I spent the past weekend in Santo Domingo attending a Dominican culture workshop. I learned a lot about how a Dominican thinks and the reason those thoughts are there. We had a session discussing the driving rules, both written and unwritten. Also, I gained a better understanding of how the Dominican family structure works, this is really beneficial as I work with kids who are in these families. We capped off the weekend with a merengue dancing session. My entrancing dance moves were making the girls come after me in record numbers (that's a joke).

Let's see, what else has happened recently?
-I had my first mini-accident on the motorcycle, but thankfully no harm was done. Shortly thereafter, however, my brake pad broke, not just broke, it actually split in half. Thankfully I was on a flat road when this happened, so again, no harm done, just 11 bucks for some new brakes.
-I visited the coolest waterfall on the planet, if anyone comes to visit, I'll be sure to take them there.
-I found the biggest spider in history in my room. It actually looked more like a crab.

As school has started again, I am enjoying building closer relationships with the children. About 200 christmas cards came in that have needed to be recorded and translated, so that's been keeping me busy. It's super fun when I get to give the cards to the kids and then have them write thankyou cards to their sponsors. It's my favorite part of the job.

I'm headed tomorrow to Caraballo, our newest ministry site, to work on getting the sponsorship program up and running. Things with sponsorship there are sort of a mess right now, so I've got my work cut out for me.

Life here is good, the work going on here is good, God's grace is good.

Jon

mi casa y motor

This is my living quarters with my motorcycle in front. My room is on the right side. The motorcycle is really nothing more than an oversized vespa, but it gets me where I need to go and is alot better than what most people drive around here. It's super fun when the weather is nice, but a trip in a rain shower is one of those things in life that I would rather do without. I don't really have that option, so I when it's raining I just buck up and get wet.

This is my good friend Darwin in front of his house at the Ark

Bored in paradise

Yes, it is possible to be bored in paradise. With nearly everyone from the ministry out of town and not many Dominican friends because I can't communicate very well with them, I am sufficiently bored, despite the fact that I'm spending the winter months the land of eternal springtime. Fortunately for me, my good friends Layne and Caitlin are on their way to see me as I am typing this. This is their honeymoon and they're taking time out to make a long trip on public transportation to come visit, it will be a short visit (understandable under the circumstances), but I'm looking forward to it. It's been a long process getting them here today. They have managed to miss not 1, not 2, but 3 busses in trying to get here. Ah, the glories of traveling in a country where you don't know the language. They are finally on their way here, although they won't arrive in my town as planned, they missed that bus, so I have to drive about 30 minutes to pick them up. It's no problem for me, I don't have anything better to do anyway and I'm just happy they're coming. Throughout the day Layne has been calling telling me another report of something that went wrong. It's funny for me, but I'm not so sure how they feel about it. I only hope they look at the trip as an enjoyable adventure in truly experiencing the Dominican culture, instead of a stress-filled, worthless day of travel that would have been better spent at the beach. I guess I'll just see what kind of mood they're in when I see them in an hour or so.

Back to the topic of boredom, once the happy honeymooners head out of town, my good friends Dustin and Anna will arive from the US to begin their 2-year term here. They're living at the Ark as well, so I'll finally have some english speakers to talk to. Also, the kids at the Ark are back from vacation today and school starts back on Monday. So yes, I think I have survived the slightly lonely Christmas holiday.

Wow, I have to go pick up my friends now, if I'm late they'll hate me for sure.

Until next time...