Faces

First of all, Caroline's birthday is on Sunday so give her a call (# is on the right) and wish her a Happy Birthday!

Second, we're going to start posting at least every two weeks. We don't want to start losing are huge fanbase.

Third, to give you a better idea of the people we work with and who we minister to we're going to start posting pictures and captions that tell more about who they are.


Lowell Troyer, his wife Cheryl and their daughter Alicia. The Troyers founded the SI ministry in the Dominican Republic almost 10 years ago. He is the director and Cheryl heads the kitchen, handles SI's finances, and many other behind the scenes things. Lowell is a visionary and always has a new ideas/projects that he's working on. To date he has not beaten me in Settlers (only a matter of time). Cheryl is the oil in the SI engine. When she leaves for the states this summer for 2 months I think we're adding 3 women to take her place. Alicia is 17 and will soon be leaving for college. She's really involved in our church and speaks nearly perfect Spanish.


Nate Slabach is the Pastoral Care leader and has been here almost as long as the Troyers. He and his wife Maggie have 5 kids but only the youngest still lives with them. We spend lots of time at the Slabach house playing games, eating Maggie's delicious cooking and showing off Booper's new tricks.


Mercedita, Araseli, and Muñeca are all attendees at the social work site. Mercedita comes pretty inconsistently and often keeps to herself. Araseli is 15 and is currently separated from her 29 year old husband. She has had a lot of health problems lately and comes to the site regularly for guidance with that. Muñeca is very, very quiet. She lives with a man who treats her poorly and she eats very little to ensure food for her daughter Yeni, who also hangs out a lot at the site.


Erika is part of an unusual, and sad, family tree. Her mom passed away and she was left to her father and his new wife, Negra. Things didn't work out with them, so they moved in with another woman named Negra (in case it wasn't confusing enough), who also lives in El Callejon. The father has 2 other children with each of the women. The 2 families live close to each other and often eat and do other things together. Sadly, stories like this are not uncommon in El Callejon.


Tule lives next store to the site and is also always around. Sometimes he comes over and I have ninja fights with him...he's tough. He also likes to help us with cleaning and maintenance around the site...but not for free, he normally charges at least 1 peso.


I posted this picture because there are a lot of things that I think are really funny about it

1. Lisauri's (the boy on the far right) half smile and full bowl cut
2. His bling watch (but it doesn't work)
3. Shorts that say "computer" across the leg
4. Lili's (far left) looking very skeptical of the camera
5. The little boy (I can't remember his name) always says "Goo bi" every time he sees me. In this picture he looks like someone just told him a hilarious joke.
   

Things lately...

Hello everyone,

So, clearly we are way overdue for an update. I wanted to wait and update when I had some cool story or something to share, but nothing has come to me so I will just catch you up on what's new. We've now been back to work for 2 weeks. Caroline continues to go to El Callejon everyday. Last week we just worked on organizing, cleaning, and planning, and this week we started back with the same schedule of Bible studies and crafts. A new big project that we'll be doing with the women this year is they will be making souvenir items (like tablecloths, purses, blankets) and selling them to American students that come down on outreaches. Everyone is really excited about this idea. But a large part of the last few weeks have been spent trying to figure out exactly what it will look like. Meaning what items would the students want to by, what items can the women make well, what is affordable to make and sell, and so on. So if this works I think this will be a really awesome thing for the women, but prayers during these beginning stages would be greatly appreciated :).

Ryan started working 3 days a weeks in Santiago with Esperanza (the already established microfinance organization that we talked about in earlier posts). Things have gone really well so far for him. He's been able to get an inside look on how the organization works and go to several meetings with women that Esperanza is working with. He plans to work with them for a few months in order to get a better idea of what works and what doesn't, and what an SI microfinance site in Jarabacoa will look like. One thing that he has discovered is that he really needs a Dominican to work with him on this. Because of the language and cultural barriers, and some of the stereotypes there are of Americans here, many people have advised him to find a Dominican to co-lead with him. So prayers for this as well are needed.

So that's short and sweet update on us. Our Spanish has improved, but continues to be a daily struggle, so this is always a prayer request. The first outreach team of 2009 comes on Saturday, and though there won't be any students at either of our sites, we are going to be able to work with them on a few other activities, which is really exciting for us. God Bless!

Enjoy some pictures....




A group of women that Esperanza gave loans to.



Ryan and Johana dancing during siesta. Not surprisingly, Ryan gets along pretty well with the 9 year olds.

Caroline and Vanesa. One of the site's "regulars"...if you will. She comes to the site to hang out as much as she can.

Another group of women at the store they have because of a loan from Esperanza.

A Dominican Christmas

This Christmas was the very first time both Ryan and I were away from our families for Christmas. Though it was hard, we still had a great time. On Christmas Eve, one of our Dominican friends, Cristian, was nice enough to invite us over to his family's house for dinner. It's a little different here than in the States in that Christmas Eve is the day when everyone gets together for a big meal, and then Christmas day is pretty uneventful. So all in all, we felt pretty honored to be invited to celebrate with his family. The dinner consisted of an entire roasted pig on a stick that they had bought off the side of the road, chicken, rice, beans, apple salad, and another Dominican food that I don't know the name of. Everything was really good. It didn't feel too different from an American family meal...everyone ate a lot and then sat around and talked.

Then Christmas day we has a "Virtual Christmas" via Skype with both of our families. It was about the closest thing to being together without actually being together.

Our Christmas tree. The Troyer family was nice enough to let us borrow their Christmas decorations since they were going to the States for the holidays. And our families were nice enough to send us lots of beautiful gifts to put under our Christmas tree.

Skype! On the top is Ryan's mom. On the bottom is a close up of Booper, but if you look closely at the computer screen you can see my sister making a ridiculous face.

Ryan's mom bought us these Frog Toggs, which are completely waterproof clothing. Which is awesome, but at the same time a little goofy looking haha. Especially Ryan's because not only is it hot pink, but the sleeves are about 5 inches too short. We had fun taking pictures in them, and scaring Booper.


OK, so I don't want to be one of those people who is obsessed with their dog and takes pictures of them all the time, but we took Booper to a park the other day and some of the pictures are so cute I just couldn't resist posting some of them!

Booper

Exciting new everyone...we got a puppy! Her name is Booper and she is a 9 week old Chihuahua. She is so sweet and cuddly! We're still working on potty training, but she's learning very quickly. Enjoy some photos!

Her first bath!


Snuggling with daddy


Snuggling with mommy


She's so tiny!


So cute...