Las Fiestas de Navidad

First of all...I want to post a public thank you to both the Bonzek and Holloway families for all of the Christmas gifts! We received 5 boxes packed to the brim with Christmas gifts, none of them weighing less than 20 pounds. I know it was a hassle for everyone involved in this, so THANK YOU again for your generosity! Now we just have stare at them sitting under our tree for 3 weeks until Christmas. My mom told me that this is a maturity test for me to see if I can withhold "sneaking peaks" at my gifts. We'll see what happens....

There have been some great things going on at the Social Work site lately. Each year, SI recieves several donations of Christmas gifts to give to people in the community. With this, each site is able to have a Christmas party for the people they minister to, and each guest is able to walk away with a gift bag. This was a very exciting time for the women and girls in El Callejon.


The girls' party. They are singing Padre Abraham.



Charades!


We paid a woman in the community to make brownies for the party. Of course, the girls loved them!


The girls with their gifts. So precious!


The women's party. This is a game where the women hold a spoon in their mouth with a marble in it and carry it across the room and have to get it into the bottle. I think we used to play this on field day in elementary school :).


La ganadora! (The winner). This was the women's favorite part of the whole thing. Each woman had to bring something small and that they use frequently in the house (like an onion, bag of sugar, oil, etc). We put everything together in a bag and drew a name to determine the winner. This woman, Liliana, won. She was super excited, even though we made her wear a goofy crown :).


We also raffled off this iron. As you can see, Milagros was THRILLED to have won!


And Rosemary was excited to win this shiny new fan! (On the right is my co-leader, Daisy).


So as you can see, the parties were a success! Another quick note, Ryan asked in the last post if you would pray for me as I lead the site alone for 2 weeks. Well, I think God heard your prayers, because this past week went very well! There's been a good turnout everyday. The women had a great study on the parable of the talents and very much enjoyed making hot chocolate! And Ryan has done an excellent job helping me teach the teenagers English (he definitely has a gift for teaching). I think after the first day the girls must have told their friends that it was good because there were twice as many girls the second day and they were all excited and eager to learn. Praise God!

I know this is getting long but just a couple short prayer requests. I know that you all have been praying because we've definitely seen God answering your prayers. So thank you for them! We couldn't do this without you!

1. Continued prayer for Caroline as she leads the Social Work site by herself again this coming week.
2. Ryan is in Santiago today to meet with Esperanza (an established Microfinance organization in the DR) for a 2nd time. They are discussing the possibility of Ryan volunteering with them for a couple months to get a better understanding and vision for what the SI Microfinance site should look like. Please pray for clarity in this situation.

Thank you again and God Bless!

A few reflections

So I just finished my delicious lunch (ham, cheese, and egg quesadilla, an avocado, and hot sauce) and am watching the rain on our front porch. Today is the 6th straight day of rain and it's pretty cool outside, maybe 68. I heard it's been unseasobably cold in VA so 68 probably sounds pretty nice. I thought I'd share a few random reflections I've had in our first 5 weeks here.

"It's stange to..."

1. ...live in a place with a climate totally different from everything I've ever known. My body is really confused...my brain cells tell the rest of my body that today's date is November 24th, while my eyes are seeing nothing but thriving, green vegetation, and my skin is content in shorts and a tshirt most of the time. My stomach is thinking thanksgiving but my nose is confused as to why there hasn't been even a hint of pumpkin, or anything orange and brown for that matter. Hopefully I don't have a revolt on my hands...wait is that a pun, I don't even know.
2. ...be a minority (or more maybe accurately...an immigrant). It's one of those things I've always thought about as probably being tough...and it really is. Either people really are staring at me, or I'm just paranoid that they are because I know I stick out. It sort of feels like my privacy is being invaded while I'm in public because I don't blend in. I was thinking...is part of the reason that races in the US often settle together because they don't want to feel like that all the time?
3. ...be assumed to be rich because I'm white. First, White and American are the same thing, and second American means rich. The funny thing is that we're probably average middle class here. Now they don't have a big middle class, but that's where we'd fit. My thought is this...It feels uncomfortable and even a little hurtful when people assume we're rich, I bet it's way worse to be assumed to be poor.

Prayer Requests

1. Spanish. We've been searching for a tutor we can afford for Caroline and have come up empty. Pray that the right person comes along.
2. Dec 8th-19th. Caroline's co-leader will be gone and Caroline will be leading the site on her own. Pray that attendance is still good and that this can be a time for Caroline to really connect with the women.
3. Adjustments. There's tons of little things with life here and being confronted with them all at once can be stressful if we let it. We need to be able to take these in stride and not let them affect our ministry or our marriage.
4. Microfinance Site. I've been praying to meet a Dominican to join me in my efforts. Also, Pray that God would show me how to connect with the community in little ways over the next several weeks as I try to build their trust. I need boldness to do this.
   

I miss Wal-Mart

Like Ryan said in the last post, many of you have asked if there is anything we need/want from the States. So I came up with a list of things that are either ridiculously expensive or just don't even exist here. So here it goes:

-cooking spray
-chocolate chips (or really anything chocolate)
-tampons
-lotion
-spices (any of the basic ones that we use- dry basil, ginger, nutmeg, cumin, etc)
-plackers (for flossing)
-any sort of packaged food (snacks, cookies, nuts, almonds, canned things-broth, diced tomatoes, etc, sauces, dressings, marinades)
-things for our walls (world map, bulletin board, anything decorative)
-peanut butter
-Splenda
-tissues
-shampoo, conditioner, body wash
-Glade plug-ins
-Multi-Vitamins

God Bless!

Settlers of Jarabacoa

3 weeks in and we're totally "settled in" at this point. By "settled in" I mean that we have a car, an apartment, furniture, phones, food, etc. The staff here keeps telling us how quickly and smoothly it's gone for us. Our current schedule is to study Spanish in the morning and work in El Callejon in the afternoon.

Funny Cultural Differences:

1. Have you ever been at the store and thought that they were starting to sell things for an upcoming Holiday way to early? Well when we went to Santiago on October 18th the stores were totally decked out for Christmas and playing Christmas music all day.
   
2. Electricity is really expensive here and we live in a pretty modest part of town but yet every other house already has Christmas lights up. Most of them would be considered hideous and tacky in the US.
3. The country only has 1 hit song at a time on the radio. We probably here it 7 times a day on our street, in the car, or blaring in El Callejon. It's a love ballad in Spanish.
4. Instead of a traditional church service this pass Sunday a Christian Rap Artist from Santo Domingo played a show. If anyone from MTI is reading this you'll LOVE his name: Aaron Kelly...I promise.
5. Motorcycle drivers have a complex hand signal system that explains what they're about to do...including: left turn, right turn, stop, pass, slow down...and several others that I haven't figured out yet.
6. There's no door-to-door mail service here, but there are bills. We received our cell phone bill when someone got out of there car and threw it on our balcony.
7. Car washes are also bars. When Dominicans get their car washed there's always a bar on site and they sit and drink beer until their car is ready. This starts at 8am!
8. I talk best in Spanish when I'm trying to be a Spanish Radio DJ (not really a cultural difference). Caroline and I also really enjoy talking in Spanish like we're on Rosetta Stone.
   

We can receive mail now, so note our new address on the blog homepage. Several people have asked us if there's anything we need/want from the states. Caroline is in charge of posting that list so look for it soon.

Prayer Requests:

1. Spanish. That we would learn quickly! The Spanish where we're working is pretty rough and hard to understand. Also for boldness in communication
2. Microfinance site. We're in the process of creating the system from the moment we meet a possible client to the day they make their last payment. Pray for wisdom as we plan.
3. Relationships. Pray for our relationship with each other and that we would make close friends with other US missionaries and nationals

Here's some pictures of the Aaron Kelly Concert and our place. We tried to make them more exciting then just pictures of rooms.


At one point he rapped to the beat from "Jesus Walk" by Kanye West.


It was pretty crowded...probably 300 people....in a small room...with no AC.


Our front porch on Laundry day. We live above an 80-year-old couple whose daughter is our Land Lady.


Our dining room.


Second story apartment means SWEET view.


Caroline is in timeout.
The 3 bedroom apartments were the same price as the 2 bedroom ones, so we have an empty room. Hopefully, we'll be renting it out by the first of the year.


The office/guest room. The couch Caroline is relaxing on is also a bed.


Our living room. The couches are way less comfortable than they look.


Just for fun.