Caving with 7th Graders???

My recent adventure with seventh grade was perhaps my greatest challenge and triumph of the year. I recovered from the amoeba and started gaining weight back, just in time to take my seventh graders caving. Teaching five different grades (6-10) does have its benefits; when one class is struggling, another class is usually doing well. Seventh grade has been my devotionals class and consistently my most troubled class; there are more students in danger of failing out of seventh grade than any other grade in the school, these students have the greatest behavior problems, and are the most exhausting for me to teach. I have grown to love them as individuals, but as a class they aren’t even nice to each other. In seventh grade science, we are currently in the midst of our expedition on caves. In the hopes of creating a bonding and challenging experience, I decided to take the seventh grade class on an adventurous caving trip. I hired the adventure leader from the local Young Life Camp (Laura) to guide us through the caves. We headed out from the school at 6:45AM and drove 3 hours to a relatively unknown and unexplored cave. Unfortunately, the caves on the island are in danger of destruction due to the massive amounts of mining for limestone. The mining actually prevented our van from driving up the mountainside. We were forced to pile out and hike up in the midday sun. A local police truck took pity on our straggling group and allowed us to pile into the back for a ride. The cave entrance was amazingly beautiful; complete with ancient Taino Indian Paintings, a wide-open chamber with sun pouring in from the roof, and moss covered walls. The descent into the cave was two 30-40 foot rappels. The open area of the cave was scattered with piles of limestone, bat bones, snake-skins, and fallen crystals. As we traveled deeper into the cave, we entered into a treasure chest of crystal formations, moon ponds, stalactites, stalagmites, exotic cave spiders, and small flying bats. I was just as excited and awed as my students and was delighted that they were finally looking after each other and making sure their partner didn’t fall down or get lost. I suppose necessity is the best teacher. The ascent was challenging and I ended up having to pull several students up the last bit of the climb. At the end of the day, we had all learned something about caves, ourselves, and what it means to overcome an obstacle or fear. Check out my web album for some awesome caving pictures!

Fighting Tropical Diseases

It has been a big month. One of my seventh graders returned to New York and several students in the grades I teach (6-10) are in danger of failing for the year. Please pray for my students that are struggling. I would miss them greatly if they couldn’t stay next year and would be heartbroken to know that they had lost, perhaps, their only opportunity to have a better education. My parents came to visit, I attended my first bilingual wedding (American Teacher at Doulos to a Dominican Man), and the neighboring town was hit by a tornado for the first time ever and is struggling to recover. Tin roofs do not do well in tornadoes and the poorest communities near the river were severely damaged. Did I mention that I moved again? Needless to say it has been a challenging month and a blessed month.

My biggest prayer request at the moment is for better health. I have encountered my first tropical amoeba and bacterial infection in my gut and have been struggling against it for the past week and a half. Both of my roommates and several other teachers have fallen ill with similar ailments. I am pretty sure that we all ate some suspicious lettuce at the wedding dinner. Stomach problems are so common here and most of it is due to dirty water. My roommates and I have been struggling to retain food and liquids in our bodies and have enough energy to teach. We have been fortunate to locate Gatorade in a variety of flavors and after a trip to the local clinic and pharmacy we are certainly on the mend. Medicine is unregulated and inconsistent here, but at least it is available. I was fortunate enough to get to know the mother of one of the students that plays soccer at our school, who happens to be an excellent pediatrician. Everything here is based on relationships. That means that things take longer many times……but it also means that once you have a relationship with a member of a family, then you know that you will be well taken care of. I sometimes wonder what has been lost in our super efficient and business-like North American Society. I like knowing that since I am on good terms with my landlord, his cousin’s, son’s friend is held accountable to fix my water pump! Please pray for protection for our school and this community against sickness.

Living without water.....a blessing in disguise?

I hope you are all well and blessed. I have moved once again (Lord willing for the last time!) to the second floor of a house close to the school. I am now living with two other teachers instead of just one. The new place is slightly bigger, cheaper, and has fairly consistent hot water. I have traded in my solid cement ceilings and broken water pipes for a slightly rickety tin roof that allows occasional bats and mice into the house. Both of the latest apartments do however have a remarkable view of the mountains and a fresh breeze. The latest mouse provided no end of stories for my students. They all wanted to come over and show us how to kill one. Time will tell if this move was a wise decision. Unfortunately, the water supply has become much more variable since our landlord moved out from underneath us to a quieter neighborhood across town (the endless crowing of the roosters and bachata music from the neighboring vegetable stands now seems like a natural background). Their moving has led to a series of water problems…….. I am grateful to be living in a house that has well water instead of city water. The city water supply is pumped directly out of the nearby river with no filtration whatsoever. I prefer not to think about all of the things that you can find in the river water. The pump that supplies our water tank is probably the oldest, rustiest piece of machinery that I have ever seen in my life. The first time we called the landlord to find the on/off switch we could not locate it since it was described as green. In the pump’s rusted state it looks more like a dull red piece of junk. It must be handled with great care and ghetto rigging. Unfortunately, the landlord was the only person that truly understood how to fix the pump, and we have been without water at least 2- days a week since his departure. The water supply is currently becoming more consistent. As far as local landlords go, our landlord is very contentious with a multitude of sons and employees that he has promptly sent to our rescue. I think they even started to recognize our phone number……….. In the past month, we have run out of gas for the stove, water, and periodically been without electricity. Water truly is vital to life. It is by far the most frustrating resource to live without. We have adapted and now keep more jugs of water around the house and in bins outside. Despite the annoyance of running out of water mid-shower, I have been truly blessed by the graciousness of my neighbors. Several of my students live in the surrounding houses and when one father saw me struggling to drag an extra bucket of water up the stairs he offered me his house. I enjoyed an afternoon of laundry and sweet tea across the street with two of my students and their mother. The next time we ran out of water I had just returned from a long run. Out of consideration for my roommates, I felt the need to find a way to shower. The school secretary that lives next door immediately offered me the shower in her house. If I was living in a wealthier country, or just in a wealthier area of town I might never have the opportunity to be so blessed by my neighbors. It is humbling to be so in need of life’s basic resources, but it has allowed for huge blessings and new friendships.

A forming family?

As my homeroom class of seventh graders continually changes, we are still struggling to become a family. We have lost our German student and gained a new girl. I am still struggling to change this energetic and slightly wild group of middle schoolers into a family. There have been definite improvements in behavior, but there is still no sense of family. I still frequently have to talk to them about using kind words and taking care of each other. Despite my efforts to have times of sharing, prayer and games, there is still nothing like the solidarity in the 7th grade class that I see in the 6th and 10th grade classes. If nothing else, I have finally realized that I can do nothing on my own. I can plan as many team building activities as will fit into our schedule, but I need to spend more time praying for my 7th grade class. God is the only thing that is going to change these kids. I think about the college group I had and the small group I have at New Covenant and what an amazing blessing it is to be part of a group of Christians that are earnestly seeking God and fellowship with each other. I want them to experience a piece of God's family, but I need His help to teach them how to be a family. We did have a class lunch together this past Friday. About half of my 16 students crowded around one little picnic table. I am so busy here teaching 7 classes that I don't always have enough time to just enjoy my students outside of class. This was the first lunch where I could just enjoy them and I didn't have to talk to any of them about saying mean things to each other. I am convinced that the change I have started to see is due to prayer and my giving up the idea that I could think of the perfect activities and classroom management to create a family out of the 7th grade class. This past Tuesday we had an all school Independence Day Celebration. Each class sang a song, performed a dance or read stories to celebrate the history of the Dominican Republic. I was so proud of my seventh graders for their performance. It was well rehearsed and quite entertaining. Please pray that God continues to work in my seventh grade classroom. There are certainly the wildest class in the school at the moment, but they have great potential.

Women's Retreat

One of the biggest blessings I have found in the DR is an awesome women's bible study. I have thoroughly enjoyed our Tuesday afternoon bible studies. The four other women in the study are also from the US, but opposite ends of the country. From right to left the women are Kim from Maryland, Melanie from Tennesse, April from California, and Micky from Colorado. We have some how all ended up in the small mountain town of Jarabacoa, DR. At the end of January, we all traveled to the outskirts of the town for a weekend women´s retreat through our church La Vid. The retreat was held in a Catholic retreat center in the mountains right next to the river. It was a wonderful weekend. The retreat center was one of the quietest places I have found in this country. I thought I was a social person, but this culture is on a new scale. It is hard to find time alone and a quiet space to think. The weekend was a huge blessing. It was also my first women´s retreat. I never would have thought my first women´s retreat would be bilingual in another country! I was hugely thankful for a quiet garden where I could sit, read, and pray about the teachings for the day. I also met lots of amazing women.....a few of which are working in other ministries near by. The retreat center was beautiful and I spent Saturday hiking up to one of the local waterfalls I hadn´t had the chance to see yet. Hopefully I will have more of a chance to travel out of the town into the mountains this semester. I posted a few pictures on my web album.

Back in the DR

I have safely returned to the wonderfully DRY and refreshingly warm Jarabacoa. It was 45˚F Monday morning in my bedroom, but it has warmed up to a toasty 85˚F in the afternoons. All of my students wanted to know what snow feels like. Hurricane season should be over and I am delighted to find the pipes in my apartment fully functional and the power hasn’t even gone out for 4 days straight! Now I just need to get used to cold showers again. Christmas break sped by so quickly that I still feel like I’m catching my breath. I recovered enough from an episode of bronchitis and sinus infections to jump on the plane without major ear trouble. I hit the ground running Monday morning at 7AM after having returned to my apartment at 10:30PM Sunday night. I am definitely in need of some rest and relaxation after the busy week. It has been wonderful to see my fellow teachers and friends in the DR, but it was difficult to leave my family and friends in Champaign-Urbana. My students have not seemed to calm down or miraculously become less rowdy over break, but we were happy to see each other. I seem to have quickly slipped back into the routine of life here. My teaching load has not improved, but I think I am learning how to handle it better. I am still working on funding for the year, but am very excited and thankful to have some donated art and science supplies to use this semester. I may be even more excited than my students to simulate a volcanic eruption with our new volcano kit! Returning to the states was a reminder of what an amazing family, small group, church, boyfriend, friends and support network I have in the US. It was hard to leave all of you, but I am blessed to have such wonderful support. It is wonderful and incredibly difficult to be here and I know that I would never be able to continue with this work without everyone’s support. I do feel a sense of peace and assurance that I am supposed to be teaching at Doulos even if I don’t feel like a superstar teacher every day. That’s it for now. I hope you are all starting off the year well and filled with joy in the Lord!

DR night

I hope you are all enjoying a blessed New Year and had a restful holiday season. After a delay in San Juan Puerto Rico, I finally made it home and spent some quality time with the many relatives staying in my parent's house in Champaign, IL. Unfortunately, I caught a bad cold and developed a low grade sinus infection and a touch of bronchitis just before New Years Eve. I am slowly recovering and am very thankful that I took some personal days to stay in the US until this coming weekend and attend a friend's wedding . It has been a huge blessing to rest, eat my mother's cooking, take hot showers, and visit with friends and family. However, I do miss my new friends and students in the DR. I think that you end up leading two lives once you have learned to love a new country.

You are all invited to hear about my experiences during the past 5 months while teaching in the Dominican Republic. I will be showing a slide show and talking about what life is like living in Jarabacoa and teaching at Doulos Discovery School. There will be coffee and juices from the DR afterwards. I look forward to being able to reconnect with many of you and hopefully provide you with a glimpse of what my life is like in the DR. I also want to be able to say thank you to all of the people who have been supporting me in so many ways. Please feel free to bring friends and family who might be interested in hearing more about what I’m doing.

Date: Wednesday, January 9th 2008
Time: 7:30-8:30 PM
Location: New Covenant Fellowship
Directions: corner of Randolph and White St. in Champaign, IL