Volunteering

Because I have time on my hands and I want to invest my time in profitable ways, I am currently volunteering on Fridays at 24-7 Prayer Room Charlotte. This place is beautiful, aesthetically and missionally. There is a diversity of visitors that makes my heart smile and the peaceful quietness of being here refocuses my heart and desires. This is a great place to intercede and seek guidance. I am thankful that for this season I have the opportunity to be here and that by doing so I know that each week will have quiet and focused time to re-center.

returning to time away at home

it was a long year away, of that i am sure. in hindsight, i see that it is true that a person can endure almost anything for a year; and despite the unbelievable frustrations, i don't feel that i just survived - i feel i learned.

a lesson is only as good as the length of time that its knowledge is retained. if it took 10 months for me to begin to hold the information God was heaping upon me, how horrible will it be to forget it as soon as the familiar again becomes comfortable.

life comes at you so quickly, especially stateside. media images are everywhere -- i had to ask my parents (who run the t.v. most of the time - watching FOX News) if i could please turn the t.v. off -- music is fine; but the visual images become noise in my brain.
sometimes people and places can become the same kind of noise. sometimes my thoughts alone crowd my head to the point that i am over stimulated (which might answer why i am up writing this blog after midnight.) the t.v. i can turn off - people and my thoughts...that is a bit harder. where is the balance between accepting too much input and holing yourself away and experiencing none.

this is a critical thing to ponder when i put it in real context - that of my quiet time and my prayer life. when there are so many people and so much stimulation it is hard to get away and consider prayer. friends are so much 'easier' to talk to than God. o.k. - i get it, that is a funny thing to say...but my external processing mechanism seems to work with people, where it seems to just be additional internal processing when i pray UNLESS i can stop the other input and focus on the Father. but will i take the time to do so?

one thing is certain to me about the lessons i learned in the D.R. - i will only retain them as long as God remains my focus and my anchor. input and images become idols as soon as they de-seat the Father from the throne He deserves. one of the ways that happens in my life is through over-socialization. being busy socially fills my felt need for quality time with the Father. i recognize that not everyone is built the same way i am; some folks do not replace God with other folks. maybe it is the particular burden of external processors to seek advice from others when they should be spending time with the Father. *shrug* i dunno, but i do know that people, in some form or other, often become my idols.

it is an amazing testimony to my sinfulness that i can known this, and still choose to do what i know is not good for me, nor best, nor most pleasing to God. even as I type this i can think of half a dozen things that i would rather do than quiet my heart and go before the Father. it is really all about instant gratification - talking to others makes whatever issue or topic i am discussing seem more manageable and meaningful. i think this is a valuable tool but i also think it can keep me from what 'feels' like a less prompt pay-off, namely prayer.

God has not shown Himself to be on my schedule so far in my life. usually when i bring something to Him he does not provide an apparent(ly positive) answer to my inquiry in anything that would look to me like a timely fashion. God works according to His own schedule, and that makes me want to dig in my heels and chat with folks who (if from no other reason than politeness) have to respond to me in some way immediately. in fairness, however, were God to write on my wall the answer to whatever inquiry i have brought before Him undoubtedly i would have rationalized it away or argued its interpretation to the point that it was no longer divine at all -- but just as mundane and unknowable as the future always feels from the present.

time management is the beast i have yet to slay. the land i have yet to conquer. (more on the 'land' idea later.) perhaps, how i handle my time is the thing i need to be spending the most time handling -- especially in prayer. so here i go - with less than worthy excitement but more than priceless need to take my concerns (from lesson retention to time management) before the Father to ask Him to bless me though I am undeserving and teach me though I am slow to change.

Drama at school & magnanimity

This school week has been full of drama. I write about it for two reasons:
1. so that those of you who read this can offer a prayer for the JCS staff and students that God will come and intersect our lives with His refocusing power so that the problems that distract us from eternity will fade away.
2. so that when I have left this place and am no longer burdened by these issues, that I will remember that 'this too shall pass' and that the entirely different problems I face then are just a reminder of the fact that God renews and changes both us and our circumstances.

The thing about drama is that it always seems to be about things blown way out of proportion to their real significance or severity in the course of our lives. I had a friend say to me the other week, and I think she was entirely correct, that even though I might not always 'cause' the drama, I am by nature a dramatic person. That I am sure feeds into things. Also, I realize that when I get passionate about something (which is almost always) I tend to use imperative language which offends or at the very least makes defensive those with whom I am disagreeing. Which brings me to my college-level word - magnanimity.

There are many words I have and can use to describe myself: intense, passionate, determined, opinionated, insightful, perseverant, adventurous, committed, responsible, inteligent, etc. I do not think that these are bad quailities...but I do think that while most of you read them you will agree that they are not the 'gentler' or quieter qualities. I have long since given up on being a 'quiet' person. Even when I speak very little I feel that my words are loud. So, I am praying for a new quality to be added to these: magnanimity. I want people to say, "yes, Magnanimous should be added to that list of attributes."

Dictionary.com defines magnanimous as:

1.
generous in forgiving an insult or injury; free from petty resentfulness or vindictiveness: to be magnanimous toward one's enemies.
2.
high-minded; noble: a just and magnanimous ruler.
3.
proceeding from or revealing generosity or nobility of mind, character, etc.: a magnanimous gesture of forgiveness.

I think, in my search for what is loving, that I can strive to embrace this word. I am going to write it on several sheets of paper and staple or tape it on my gradebook, my notebook, my bedroom wall, my 6th grade classroom. I want to be reminded to let my perceived injuries roll off my back, to not take people personally, to not feel the need for revenge. I want to be high-minded and noble. I want to be generous and forgiving. I want my students to look back and say, "Wow, Ms. Rich sure changed. She WAS magnanimous and fair in all her dealings." I know this might not happen in this year. I know that change is a slow process and we are all subject to set backs. having received a rather sharp reminder that my striving has yet produced perfection or even understanding I have to return again to a more simplistic attempt to pursue and convey love so today, for this week, for the month of March I want to work on magnanimity in the face of all the drama and conflict at school. I want to keep my mouth shut, my ears open, my mind willing to see another's perspective and most of all I want to be generous, kind and forgiving; selfless because I do not take things personally.

May God find my efforts humble and an offering to Him in His mighty greatness and may He be pleased to lift me up and support my ineptitude and inabilities so that HIS love might shine through me, and I might decrease.

The Unbearable Awfulness of Being

Instead of pondering how short life is and how inconsequential (because we all know that on my darker days I can certainly go to that place) I instead offer you the truth of how easily we lose those things we value.

Friday I was on a field trip with the highschoolers in Santo Domingo. Although the day was quite nice, the museum was horrendously hot. I was carrying my bookbag, my camera and a bulletin I was using to fan myself with hopes of overcoming the nausea of stagnant air and second-rate displays. We were not allowed to tour the museum independently (though all we could have done was look since the Dominican distaste for reading extended to their displays so one probably would not have known what one was looking at anyway...except that the tour guide didn't really help answer that question either, but I digress) and the tourguide has gone down in my mind as the museum-nazi trying to enforce from her 5'4" 115 lbs stature the silence of 50 tremendously uncomfortable students who had just been cooped up on mini-vans for 3 hours. Museum-Nazi was rude if anyone even looked like they were going to make noise or move a step away (for a breath of air) from the person they were crammed next to. One of my students asked me to hold her notebook while she shifted some stuff around and in an effort to take her notebook and not drop what I was holding without awakening the dragon; I dropped my digital camera. The cord slipped right through my fingers and it his the floor with an obviously fatal smack - so far I have not been able to get it to turn on again.

Woe is me!!! I need a camera and my heart is broken into pieces inside because I can no longer send you picture and crappy videos via my blog. Please address all letters of sympathy and appropriate floral bouquets to my Dominican abode where I will be in deep mourning for at least a week (which will begin promptly as soon as Holly has taken her leave of me, for a hostess should not neglect her guest due to a loss; even one of such magnitude!)

Adios mi amor, mi cámara digital! I shall miss you!

'the most excellent way'

It cannot be by mistake that Paul wrote the passage about the necessity of love in the middle of his explanation of spiritual gifts and their place in the body. I like the way that my NIV has the chapters sub-divided in 1 Corinthians; the passage on love starts with 1 Cor. 12:31b, "And now I will show you the most excellent way." It is a good reminder that the passage on love comes imbedded in a passage about the unity of the body of Christ and the importance of the variety of spiritual gifts. In the NASB 1 Corinthians 12:31 reads, "But earestly desire the greater gifts. And I show you still a more excellent way." The NLT says 'So you should earnestly desire the most helpful gifts. But now let me show you a way of life that is best of all."

There must be a reason that Paul sandwiched this passage about love into a larger conversation about diversity in the body of Christ and the necessity for the variety of gifts. He had just finished explaining that different gifts and roles in the church are like different parts of our physical bodies - all interconnected and necessary with those parts that look less exciting really deserving the greater praise. Paul seems to be appealing to the church in Corinth not to try to judge value or significance based upon the roles served in the church, and that regardless of the impressiveness or sacrifice of the gift, that without the perfection of love the sum total is nothing. Any gift plus love equals righteousness but any gift, no matter how great, without love is nothing.

When we start talking about love it is easy to be shallow, as ironic as that sounds. Sometimes I think it reads like a list and if we don't boast and we are appropriately compassionate when we see others hurting, then somehow we have passed the 'love' test. Obviously love is not a list of does and don'ts. I don't think that the list that Paul gives is exhaustive. I think he was trying to show that love is all encompassing and completely empty of man's sinful nature. Love is perfect. Anywhere that perfection exists, love is there. Love has no sin.

A call to live a life of love is nothing less than a call to live a life of perfection. But specifically Paul seems to speak of this most important quality in the companionship of the spiritual gifts. Some spiritual gifts seems to 'channel' love more easily. A gift of healing, for example, might seem to be imbedded with love - unseparable. But then I think of one of the most popular T.V. shows on television today about an irrascible doctor who seems concerned with everything but loving his patients, his staff members, his family. Other gifts seem to be more disposed to devalue the importance of love - gifts of discernment or wisdom or prophecy without love are fruitless. Perhaps that is why Paul gives the examples that he does,
Though I speak with the tongue of men and of angels and have not love then I am just making noise. And if I have the gift of prophecy, and understand mysteries and have inconceivable faith but I have no love then I am nothing. And if I give everything I have, every act of selflessness even to the point of death, but have no love I have gained nothing." The church at Corinth was arguing over spiritual gifts and it was like Paul was saying to them, "Stop, your arguing is pointless because you are all part of the body, and besides who cares if you are amazingly generous or think you have tremendous insight to the scriptures, if you are behaving unlovingly toward each other then your gifts are all wasted and don't matter at all!!!"

Furthermore, I would suggest that Paul is specifically speaking to the church in Corinth about how they were treating each other. It would hardly seem to matter to non-believers what spiritual gifts a member of the body of Christ claimed as their own. Those issues only matter inside the body. I can imagine Paul's letter being read and the addressees listening to his list about love and thinking of exactly the specific instances in which they were not acting lovingly toward each other. "Love is patient" (so we shouldn't fuss at each other when we don't 'get' some truth immediately?) love is kind (not vindictive), it doesn't envy (or covet another's gift), it is not proud (assuming my gift is greater than another's), it is not self-seeking (looking to have my accomplishments recognized), it keeps no record of wrongs (you mean, everytime someone else fails I am not supposed to hold it against them or justify my own poor behavior by theirs?) - instead love believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things and never runs out.

Sometimes in Christian communities we seem to be concerned about living the Christian life for the approval of others. Maybe it is a martyr complex or a desire to be found blameless in the eyes of a superior or a friend. Maybe a need for self-remonstration; an assuaging of guilt. But these all all inwardly focused and concerned with the effect of the action, not with the betterment of the object of the 'love' itself. In this line of reasoning I would separate 'acts of kindness' from true love. As mentioned before, there are things that we know we should do and so we do them - to satisfy the should; not because we are genuinely concerned with what is best for the object of the act. I think this is a very dangerous bandage because it looks so much like the real thing - like bandaids that are the color of skin so they are less noticeable to others. My acts of kindness can cover over the broken-ness in my soul and maybe then, from teh outside others cannot see how damaged I am inside. I am not in any way implying that acts of kindness are 'wrong' or that God cannot use them to genuinely benefit the receiver, but that according to Paul even if we were to give away everything we owned - including our bodies but did it outside of love then the result for us is empty and meaningless. I think these acts of kindness bottom out or souls. They cheapen our intentions and make worthless all our efforts and eventually we become discouraged and bitter that all the acts we have so 'sacrificially' done are leaving us unfulfilled and unsatisfied. We are unsatisfied because without love they profit us nothing.

I am in no way implying that all this soul searching guarantees immediate results - far from it. Our sinful flesh is by very nature self-seeking. And I think that even trying to be 'loving' can become an 'act of kindess'. (Again, I am not negating the ability God has to use these acts, but simply stating that we don't find genuine lasting satisfaction in such acts.) In really considering and praying over 1 Cor. 13 and what it needs to mean to my life, I am not even praying that God will make me loving as though I will lay aside 31 years of selfishness in one grand gesture and be pure in motive ever after. What I am praying this week, this month, this semester is that God will teach me to see my actions and motives for what they really are and to consider with heart-breaking honesty whether I am weilding my spiritual gift pointlessly for lack of love and whether the moments that i label 'love' are in fact genuinely concerned with the best for someone besides myself. When I hug that problem student in the morning am I really open for God to call me further into service to someone that grates on me? When I correct a student am I genuinely concerned for their well-being and maturity or am I trying to produce the end result of control? It shreds my gut to think of the number of times I have carried out the right action for the wrong reason (and of course the number of times I have committed the WRONG action for lack of thought!)

Anyway, I am still thinking through all of this. It is baffling, this concept of love. And, as my mother pointed out - you cannot imagine what all-forgiving love is until you have experienced it, and sometimes that experience does not preceed our call to perfection - and love is perfect. I don't know if I am getting any better at it. I can only pray that in seeking love I will find it. I think it is what God wants for me.

Sundays are the hardest days

Instead of waking me up in a way that will get her in trouble, Pila just bounces on the bed - scratches herself, lays down, gets up, turns a few times, tries to lay down again, licks her paws, etc. for about 45 minutes before I finally can take no more and get up and get her some breakfast. Rachel made pancakes and eggs this morning and they were fantastic. We are both getting quite adept in the kitchen and learning time-saving tricks. I made pancakes yesterday and put the remainder of the batter in the fridge so today she made breakfast in the less than 10 minutes I was outside reading: I just started "The Pursuit of Holiness" by Jerry Bridges. I am going to try to read a chapter a day for the next two weeks. I am not sure I will agree with all of his interpretations, but he does discuss several questions I have about what holiness (as seperateness) entails and the feasiblity of it in our Christian walk.

Rachel just left for church. I am staying in. I need to do laundry (which did not get completed yesterday for various and assundry reasons) and organize some things...but mostly I need to have some quiet time and mourn the fact that I am away from my church home and community for almost 6 months. Sundays are the hardest days because I know that my friends are all together at church, hearing the same messages, sharing lunch and laughs and conversing about the things they are learning in and out of church. Sunday was my favorite day when I was stateside. Here it holds the least encouragement or joy of any day of the week. When I do attend services here I cannot understand the message. The hymns (when they are familiar) are nice, but largely they are not familiar. I don't go to lunch and fellowship with others. Stores here are only open Sunday morning instead of sunday afternoon, so if you do need something you have to go during the protestant church services. All in all Sunday is just my least favorite day.

I was chatting with Steph this morning before church and she asked how she could pray for me today. Truly, there are so many things that I feel I need help with that I don't know where to start, but the number one thing is that I just need to be able to put aside myself and focus on the Father. But, myself seems the most tangible and familiar thing here sometimes, and it is hard to set that comfort (no matter how vain) aside and accept that there is a reason that God has me here and not there. I know it is for my own good. I know that He is faithful - I know that every good and perfect gift comes from the Father who does not change like shifting shadows...I know this, but here, it feels...forgotten.

Soon I will burry myself in work, in grading papers and doing lesson plans. In cooking and housework. Walking. The things I do to keep me from remembering how far I am from home, and all this will start to seem familiar and normal again instead of foreign and unnatural. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday & Friday will pass in whirlwinds of Medieval history, WWII and the geography of Africa. I will see friends on Saturdays. Occassionally go to Santiago or to a waterfall or some other distraction. But on Sundays - Sundays I will always remember that my body is somewhere in the Caribbean, but my heart is at home with my community even when they don't remember it is there. And I will sigh whistfully and pray for sundown when my day of rest is over and God doesn't seem so far away and busy other places.

the bike

well, we were able to purchase our bike. it is used, it is a yamaha, and thankfully it was less than we expected. thank you, thank you, thank you to those of you who helped us with this purchase. i have driven it twice (just around the neighborhood) and realized a very important thing: we don't really have 'roads' here...i mean, there are roads, but they are almost all dirt. i learned to ride on concrete or asphalt and it is not nearly so slippery as the roads here. so, i dropped the bike tonight. no biggy, just embarrassing. i was going about 5 miles an hour and hit the hand brake instead of the foot break and slid out the back tire. live and learn. (for those of you concerned i have been faithfully wearing a helmet on both of my expeditions unlike this pic where i drove it down to the end of the drive and back.)

because the bike was less than anticipated, Rachel and I out of gratitude want to put some of the balance between expectation and reality toward purchasing a moto for Clarissa (ser previous posts). We are working on raising money towards this end among our friends here. please pray that God will direct us and that we will best know how to help Clarissa and her family.

again, THANK YOU!

Give me reason to believe You'll never leave me incomplete

Even though the outside of my world has changed alot and I am learning to adapt to the different circumstances I find here; it is the inside which concerns me the most. Every flaw in my personality, every negative aspect of my built in response system is highlighted under these circumstances. I try to be objective; to recognize that the first year of teaching is always stressful, or moving to a new house with new roommates is eye opening, or adjusting to a new culture is fatiguing...but still I am inclined to beat myself up about ever small example of selfishness I find during introspection. And, believe me, there are plenty. Things that seemed so simple 6 months ago are completely confounding now - like not knowing when it is ok to express a need for time alone, or how to manage my need to rest when everywhere around me the need for service is so obvious. An example that regularly occurs: how often should I volunteer to help care for the sick?
Here in the DR it is expected that all patients in the hospital should have a family member present 24-7. Of course, most of us do not have family here, so that means that the teachers are called upon to care for the other teachers. Staying over night in the hospital usually means that the 'helper' gets very little sleep and doesn't get alot of other work done other. Hospitals here, as you can imagine, are not the huge, clean, organized places they are in the States. This past Friday I spent the night with my roommate Jessica, who was in the clinic here in Jarabacoa because she has Dengue. The 'clinic/hospital' didn't have running water to the bathrooms in the patient rooms. You had to ask them to 'turn it on' and then they would immediately turn it back off again. Nothing is electronic, so you have to go downstairs and wake the nurse when the IV bottle is empty. When I would visit the downstairs bathroom during the night (since the upstairs had no water) it was reminiscent of a U.S. gas station bathroom (you know, the kind Britney is famous for visiting barefoot.) There was toilet paper on the floor, and no toilet paper on the roll. The toilet was not flushed and it reaked of urine. Everything was dingy and it looked as though it was cleaned about never. The mirror was in a macrame frame that some grandmother probably knotted in the 70's with orange twine and it was hanging on a nail. The handle on the toilet was broken...and I suppose you could say there was running water from the sink...though I think I could have produced more moisture by spitting. Jessica's room had air conditioning (of a musty and mildewy sort!) Though it at least decreased the number of misquitos (though not the number of large lizards, though, of those I have grown quite fond.) Her bed was horrific and the sheets were 'clean' but really rather awful. I slept on a bench seat that ended at my knees when I layed down. All in all, though, it wasn't too bad for me. For poor Jess though, it has been a nightmare. The nurse on duty the night I was there was a horrid old hag with a NewYork attitude to say the least. Everything seemed to be done with a sigh and the rolling of eyes. At one point the IV bag wasn't draining properly, so she unceremoniously poked it with a syringe and stalked from the room. When I had to go downstairs to wake her at 3ish to replace the IV bag she did promptly come upstairs, changed the bag, and left the old one on the rolling bed table and shuffled from the room. Now I can attest it is no fun to be at a hospital in the wee hours of the morning, but she was being paid to be there, and I would hope had the option to sleep during the day - which, I might add in my best martyr voice, I had not! I left the hospital at 7.30 (had been awoken at 6.45) to walk back from town to school because I had 'Saturday school' (where students with late homework come and work off their debt to humanity) as well as some rowdy (though quite loveable) 10th graders who had accumulated to work on their bulletin board project for my class. So much for half of my weekend, though I was happy to help care for Jessica as it is HORRID to be sick here.
Another common question is whether it is acceptable to go on about household chores, or schoolwork, when company shows up to use the phone or the internet...or students arrive at my door to confer on projects they should have been preparing a week ago - bless their little highschool hearts! I love it when the kids drop by, but it does keep teachers from getting anything else done (like lesson plans, or dinner, or cleaning.) So basically, I have been struggling with a bad attitude for the past week. Rachel keeps reminding me that we are called to serve, and that call is not definitive in time or energy, but on-going and constant...but at what point do you say, "I really cannot serve and be prepared to teach with any sense of integrity or accomplishment." If any of you have any brilliant wisdom on this, please advise.

The title of this post is from a Jars of Clay song called, "Something Beautiful" and the verse goes:
What I get from my reflection
Isn't what I thought I'd see
Give me reason to believe
You'll never leave me incomplete
Will you untie this loss of mine
It so easily defines me
Do you see it on my face?
And all I can think about
Is how long
I've been waiting to feel you move me.

Well, I am moved physically...but what will the eternal consequence of this location reorientation bring? Like my first post, I think "In time will I be what You're thinking of?" Daily I have to remember the promise found in Philippians 1:6 "Being confident in this, that He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus." God, how much work there is still left to do on my soul! Don't You grow weary of chastising me and reshaping me, for I must be the most stubborn clump of clay ever to enter the Potter's hands? Please forgive me for my rebellion and self-righteous stupidity. My errors are endless!!! Please make this epitome of normalcy into something exquisite and beautiful, for certainly You are the only One who can!

Rachel and I have two specific prayer requests. The first is for Emily. She is Clarissa's (who cleans our house) youngest daughter. We have decided to enroll her at JCS. She is only 3 and we pray that she still has time to learn English and establish a fluency that will allow her to complete JCS. Rachel and I have only committed to this year. We will see how she does and where God takes her mother and sisters. Her yearly tuition is several hundred dollars but it includes school supplies, and we will purchase her uniforms. This will also allow her to be closer to where her mother works and hopefully to see her mother more. The older girls won't be able to keep up the fluency standards of the school since they are 8 or above and know no English. Please pray for Emily, and if God moves you to help us support her, please let me know. Here is a picture of Emily:

The second prayer request is for a vehicle. If Rachel and I split the cost of a small motorbike -- we should each only have to contribute about $300-400. This will allow us to get to and from church, shopping, the dr. etc. Additionally, if either or both of us decide to return next year, we would have the vehicle and could find a place a little further from school and ALOT less expensive to live in. The need for a vehicle is pretty intense. We are house-bound after dark and have to beg rides to get to church or any place else. We can walk but on weekends like this past with Rachel at the hospital Thurs and Saturday nights and me there Friday, we just don't have time to get to and from town for shopping, etc. So, we will have to shop some evening this week which most likely will mean taking a taxi back from town on Monday or Tuesday night as it will be too late to walk back by the time we finish running errands. I know it seems a simple thing to those of you not here, but when everything takes so much time, having to walk a few miles can really take a hunk out of your day, and your time to plan for school or hang out with the students, and really, those are the things I am here for.
Speaking of running errands, here is one of the 4 supermercados we regularly visit:


On to some happier things -- here are some praises to bring before the Lord:
I have not been sick yet. I think I fight off most things in a lesser manner. I might feel run down or need extra sleep, but I have not yet missed school. We just completed our 6th week so we are ALMOST through the first quarter, can you believe it? We counted the other day and there are only 4 American teachers who have not missed school! I made the cut...how special am I? *wink*
I really really really love teaching and am sooo fond of my students. I had one this past week who I was worried was really unhappy with me. I had assigned him to Saturday school and he was not excited about it. He had kept 'warning' me that he would fail the test he had to take Thursday and sure enough he did...so, he had saturday school and will have homework club. There is no excuse really, other than his 16 year old belief that he can ride around in his jeep blaring music and goofing off and failing school without it really affecting the rest of his life. His father is determined that he will go to University in the States, so he really cannot afford to continue this lazy and apathetic attitude. In any case, while he still claims I am a mean teacher, I think his dislike of me is circumstantial and not personal. Saturday he managed to pass the test with an A after only two hours of studying. Friday night he sat and chatted with me and another teacher for an hour before driving me to the hospital to be with Jess. Mrs. Fluth says that he and I have a love/hate relationship...I should be irritated with him, but he is so likeable I cannot be...and he LOVES to argue and probably wishes he could be mad at me, but I am such a great teacher he cannot. *Laughing* (Or so I'd like to think!) One of the really great things about teaching here is that I get to know each of my students individually and have a chance to establish communication with them that extends beyond passing out detension and threatening to beat them around the head and shoulders! I wish each of you could spend a day with me here and see how much fun I have with these kids. They are fun and witty and I have completely lost my heart to them!
I think I am getting adjusted to the chaos which is life here. I realized today that I was not irritated because I am HERE, I am just irritated the same way I would be anywhere...it was good to feel like I am moving past the culture shock and back into my normal irritable self - funny praise, I know, but my 'normal' self is something I feel I can prayerfully learn to discipline...the irrational self that found life down here an insurmountable trauma was more than I could handle. I guess that is why we look to the Father for all comfort and support.
There is so much more to be thankful for! The wonderful Dominican believers I have met down here. Teachers at JCS who really love their students. A director who shares my excitement everytime a trouble child excels. The beauty of the watercolor sunsets...or the dramatic tropical rain storms.
And this:

Pila is a growing and insane puppy who manages to entertain herself by dragging various household objects into my room and either burying them under my bed or depositing them on the mat beside my bed. Things like shoes and the brush to clean the toilet. She also enjoys begging for food and harrassing visitors. I consider how relatively peaceful life in the house was prior to her taking up residence in my flowerbed, and I can honestly say that I wouldn't trade this pestering obnoxious puppy for all the previous quite and peace. So, I am thankful for my obnoxious puppy.


There is so much more I want to add, but school work and Spanish calls, so hopefully I will get another update posted in the near future.

I really miss you all! Please don't forget us in our tropical, dengue & leptospirosis-filled microcosm down here. We NEED every prayer you can spare. Keep in touch and let me know how I can pray for all of you at home! Only 3 months til Christmas!!!! Less than that til I am home to catch up for two weeks! Can hardly wait! Much love...

Urgent Prayer Requests

Nancy Fluth, who teachers K-3, is in the hospital with Dengue Fever.
Derrick, who teaches 5th grade, has Typhoid.
That is 2 outa 15 American teachers out of commission. Every third day or so it seems someone else gets sick. Please pray for us. This is becoming quite overwhelming!
Also, the new building (which was to house the administration offices, so the 8th and 10th grade rooms could be moved inside instead of in the storage rooms) is not complete. It was supposed to be done by the 20th. This has caused complications.
Please pray that there will be no more illness and that those who are sick will recover quickly, and pray that the building will be completed and we will move in pronto with no more drama.