Site Tour

Yesterday Ryan and I went around to all 12 of the different SI ministry sites here in the DR. It was really cool to see all of the different ministries and how each one fits into SI's vision. Each one has a unique and affective way to connect with the community. Enjoy below some of the pictures we took of a few of the sites!

P.S. We signed the contract and paid the deposit on the apartment, so we will start shopping for furniture, painting, and moving in this week! Prayers for this process are greatly appreciated!



The agriculture site


The Sports site




The Preschool in Mata Gorda




The Preschool in El Callejon




The Social Work site (where Caroline will be working!)




This is a street in El Callejon where students from the Art Site came and painted the walls.





The Special Education and Developmental Theorapy site.

Making Progress

So...we're about half way through day 3 here in the DR, and I would say that we've had a good amount of success so far. We came in Wednesday night and basically just ate some dinner, talked to some people, then crashed. Thursday we began the pursuit of a vehicle. Our director, Lowell took us around to some car places in La Vega, which is a bigger city close to Jarabacoa. A few things we learned:

1. Cars are more expensive here.
2. Because of the unpaved, mountainous roads, and just general "rough" driving, cars typically get beat up a lot quicker here.
3. An SUV with 4 wheel drive is essential.

So we looked for a while and didn't seem to find anything good within our budget. But then later that night, Lowell happened upon a green 1999 Honda CRV in good condition and within our budget. So we tested it out, had a mechanic look at it, checked out the paperwork, and today we bought it!

We've also been looking for apartments and I think we found the one we're going to get. It's the second floor of a house, but its made to be an apartment, so it would be totally our own place. It has 3 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms, which is more than we need, but it's hard to find one smaller and we're getting it for really cheap. We also figured that if the opportunity comes about, we could rent out the extra room. But anyways, it has an awesome balcony, a good size kitchen, dining room, and living room.

OK I think this post is getting too long. Oh, one more thing, we got cell phones and probably no one will want to make an international call, but just in case here are our numbers:

Caroline: (809) 769-6581
Ryan: (809) 769-6582

That's all for now, I promise we will post pictures soon!

Caroline

Miami International Airport

So here we are. On our way to the Dominican Republic. After 3 years of dreaming, 1 year of fundraising, and 3 months of training....we are actually on our way. It's quite surreal, and I don't know if it's actually hit me yet.

Our airport experience has actually been very successful so far. Every one of our bags was between 0.6-0.0 pounds under the maximum weight. We were very proud of our ability to "max out" each bag, and very lucky that the scale we used beforehand wasn't 0.5 lbs off. And I was able to sneak on an extra carry-on bag with no one saying anything. God looks out for us even at the airport!

So we've been sitting in the Miami Airport for about 5 hours now and have only one more to go. Luckily, we've been able to keep ourselves busy enough with our new laptop fully equipped with Skype and Slingbox. ***By the way, if you have Skype our name is Holloways623....add us because we want to keep up with as many people as we can!

Well...thats about all for now. Hopefully our next post will have some exciting pictures of where we'll be living!

OH...one more thing. Here's a link to a 13 minute video my dad found of a guy recording the downtown area of Jarabacoa. It's the one on the left called "Jarabacoa Tour." It might give you a good idea of the area if you're interested!

Colorado Springs

Hello everyone,

We're back in Virginia now after 3 weeks of missionary training in Colorado Springs. It was a great 3 weeks. We had training everyday from 9-4 which consisted of a mixture of seminars, various group activities, small group time, worship, and personal coaching. Basically the training focused on different issues that missionaries have to deal with such as conflict resolution, cultural differences, adversity, stress, etc. The program is called SPLICE, which is an acronym for Spirituality, Personal Growth, Lifestyle, Interpersonal, Cultural, and Enjoy/Endure. It was really good to discuss issues that we maybe hadn't thought about before. It was also really great to meet missionaries going all over the world, that were all in about the same place as us. After only 3 weeks we got really close with many of the people, so it was really hard to say goodbye.

Another great thing about the trip is Colorado is BEAUTIFUL!! I would definitely recommend it for a vacation spot. A few of the fun things we did included Garden of the Gods (an area with giant red rock formations), Pike's Peak (the highest point in Colorado), and the zoo.

So now we're back in Virginia until we leave for the Dominican next Wednesday the 15th. It's hard to believe that after all this time, it's actually here. So until we leave we'll just be getting ready to go and saying our goodbyes. Once we get there we will be staying in a guest room at our director's house until we find our own place. So first few weeks we will be looking for a place to live, a car, working on getting citizenship, and others odd and ends things.

Prayer Requests:
1. Saying goodbye to our friends and family has already proved to be very difficult. Please pray that God will be our strength and comforter through this process.
2. Guidance on where to live once we get to the DR.
3. Transition. Moving to a new country and culture will no doubt be difficult. Please pray for us during this process.

Here are just a few of the pictures from Colorado:


Some of the girls after Hip-Hop Abs video.


Ryan getting a haircut by our friend Allyson....it wasn't quite as scary as it looks.


Worship.


Climbing around on rocks at the top of Pike's Peak.


A couple times we saw a rainbow...so beautiful!


A red rock at Garden of the Gods.


Ryan and I with a bunch of the kids. We hung out with them just as much (or more) than we did with the adults.


A view part of the way up Pike's Peak. It was incredible with some of the leaves changing to yellow.


Same place...different view.


Some of the guys on top of Pike's Peak.


Some of the girls on top of Pike's Peak.


Ryan being pensive.