summer is over and the dirt is swept away...

I am continually shocked by how quickly time seems to fly while I am here. When we woke up this morning, my roommate remarked, "Well, your summer is over." What she meant is that the last intern that spent part of the summer with me in Jaibon left this morning. (And I miss her sooo much already!) It's weird for me to think that there isn't anyone else here who experienced the orphanage in Jaibon like I did... who was a part of that amazing spiritual community... who knew those boys so well and watched them change and grow... who experienced a true since of the Lord's divine planning in each person that set foot in that place. Summer is over. That chapter is finished. And while those in the States have the approaching fall season- the cool weather... the changing of the leaves- to remind them of that, I see it in the ending of an internship program insanely blessed by the Lord. His hands were all over it and I saw Him moving so intricately and personally in His children. However, though that summer in Jaibon holds a very special place in my heart, I smile knowing that God's purposes for me here are only just beginning.

And as the seasons of OO change, I am excited for this next one. This morning Christine, my roommate, and I cleaned out our room. And by cleaned out, I mean literally cleaned junk OUT of our room. Living here, things get dirty real fast. Though we are blessed to have a room with concrete walls, a concrete roof, and screens over our windows, dust and dirt still manages to make its way in. So every couple weeks we pick up everything off the floor, sweep, and then "throw water." In the Dominican, you "throw water" to mop. They literally fill up huge buckets of soapy water and then throw it all over the floor. Then you grab a broom, starts scrubbing, and then sweep all the water out at the end. You usually end up throwing water several times before all the dirt is gone. It's sooo much fun! You end up slipping and sliding all around the room with water and bubbles floating everywhere! We also took of our window screens and cleaned out the windows today which we are pretty sure hasn't been done since the building was built a year and a half ago. We were scrubbing those windows forever. Half the time I was standing on a chair, just scratching off caked-on dirt with my rag and finger nail. It looked pretty gross, but it felt so good to be finally removing all that dirt off of our windows. And as I stood there picking the dirt out of the window frames, I couldn't help being reminded of my heart. So many times I forget the need of that clean up. Instead of continually begging God to purify my heart and make me new, I let my dirt and selfishness build up. My business became my dirt. Everything that I had to get done became something that built up dirt on my heart where God was given my pockets of time instead of my all. I was drained and longing for rest in my Love. The past few days I have felt God stripping me of myself and reminding me once again of my purpose in Him. His grace and love for me astound me. I cannot fathom the grace of my Father on a child so weak as me. That when I mess up, He still pursues me. That when He is not my first focus, He still loves me the same. That when I am blinded by my selfishness, He still continually blesses me. So this morning as I chipped the dirt off the windows, I begged God to do the same in my heart. That I would have a clean heart before Him that looks more like Jesus' every day. So I pray that even if it hurts, God continues to chip all the dirt out of my life.

As far as what's been going on here, we have been teaching for two weeks at the English Institute. I have loved getting to know the kids there! They are wonderful. I continue to love the kids here at the orphanage more each day. They have become family to me and hold a very special place in my heart. This week we have a group of 30 high schoolers coming in and we will be launching the first week of the literacy program at a local school. Heck yes! It should be a lot of fun! I love life here. When we drive through town to the Institute, I can't help but think that this feels like home. I don't feel like I'm on a trip or doing an internship somewhere for a few months... this is life. And I love it.

And for fun... You know you live in the D.R. if...
-there is chinola (passionfruit) growing on your laundry lines outside.
-you find turantulas, cockroaches, lizards and many other creatures in your room (or in your backpack!) on a daily basis.
-you find your English getting worse every day as you speak in Spanish or really simplified English.
-sometimes your students at the Institute let out some cuss words... but it's only because they are mispronouncing words in English.
-you get really excited about going to the Italian pizza place in town... and make bets as to who can eat the most pizza.
-you are considered on "team woops" if the OO tshirt you chose isn't the same color as someone else's that day.
-if you relate every weird thing you see back to the earthquake that happened a couple weeks ago.

Love and miss ya'll!

ahora...

And once again, I have failed to update my blog in while. So sorry!

So one question that I have been getting a lot lately is "What exactly are you doing now that summer is over?!" So I figured, why not answer that on my blog :)

This week is kind of the transition week between the summer and fall program with OO. Almost all of the kids have started school (some kids in the Dominican decide they just don't want to go to school the first week or so... and that is deemed acceptable) so we are no longer doing summer camps. At the beginning of the week we took suitcases full of school supplies out to all of the local schools. I loved those days. It was extremely humbling to give these schools the only school supplies they will receive. Orphanage Outreach also started an English Institute in town several years ago where we offer free English classes to 5th, 6th, 7th, and 8th graders. Tomorrow is the beginning of registration for the Institute so we will be there all day Thursday, Friday, and Saturday registering both new and old students. Starting Monday, I will be teaching all day Monday-Friday... God has a sense of humor I guess :) Haha, but I am so excited! I will be teaching Level 2 kids so they have already had one year of English at the Institute. Today we spent the whole day cleaning out the Institute and setting up our classrooms. I had a ton of fun! It's neat seeing that I am now using my four years of college education in my very own classroom. But I must say, I will never again take laminators, copiers, printers, paper cutters, cork boards, or any other school supply for granted! So from now on I will be teaching 6th graders English!

I am still living at the orphanage, so some evenings we have activities for the kids and other evenings we have some free time to just hang out with them or plan our lessons for the Institute. However, this week we also are starting a program for the five oldest kids at the orphanage to help prepare them for college. Leonel and Carolina will be graduating at the end of this school year and Kelvin, Cristofer, and Nicol have two years left. By the time they are ready to go to college, they have to pass a GED-type test. We are working with them 4 nights a week so we are also pouring a lot of time into that. Each of the leaders have a night where we specifically are in charge of teaching a lesson on a specific subject area. My subject is math, so on Tuesday nights, I teach math in Spanish :) Ha, that's definitely a bit of a challenge! But I love it!

In addition, I am also starting a literacy program this year for OO! The rate of illiteracy in the Dominican Republic is extremely high, so my long term focus for this year is starting a literacy program where we promote reading, teach reading, and provide a place where people can have access to books. We will also be involving groups and teams in this program in the spring where we will put on reading weeks (at an unknown location at this point :) ). Yeah literacy!

So... English teacher to kids that speak only Spanish, Math teacher in Spanish, and Literacy Program Director... it's gonna be a busy and fun year :)

Adios from the island full of beautiful sunsets, priceless smiles, dirts roads, loud roosters, palm trees, tons of ants, and an orphanage full of kids who have stolen my heart :)