Cabinets and Boys

Well, here we are in mid-July already. We've been here 9 months and have only 2 more summer outreaches left. Caroline's family will be here in less than a month, and we will be back in the States for a short trip at the end of August. Hence, we have a lot going on and a lot to look forward to.

The past 2 weeks we had teams here from New York, California, and Nebraska. I (Caroline) had 3 girls at my site. We had a great 2 weeks, and on the last day, we gave them the project to paint the cabinets in the Social Work site. It was a great activity for them, because not only did it make the site much more aesthetically pleasing, but they also were able to make a visible and tangible change to the community that will be around for several years. Fortunately for us, all 3 of the students have artistic talents that they used writing encouraging words and making designs.

Before


After

I was also able to sneak into one of the boys' Microfinance club meetings. Everything with the club has been going great so far. The mothers are commenting that they've never seen their sons work so hard. The community is slowly but surely becoming cleaner. None of them have cashed in their Ryan dollars yet (though most of them have saved enough to buy a ball). They are trying to hold out for the bicycle. But most importantly, the boys finally have a positive Christian male role model to look up to. Enjoy some of these pictures I took...

Some of the boys writing down the Bible verse for the week...John 3:16


Francis and Nickaury. Francis is the oldest of the group so Ryan selected him to be his assistant.


Mikael is known in the community as one who does not like to work. But amazingly enough, he's the one who is the most excited and is working the hardest out of anyone in the group! We're so excited to see what is to come of this new ministry.

Ryan Dollars

In our last newsletter I said that I was starting a new site with the boys in El Callejon. It's a microfinance site with the boys that got it's start about 13 years ago when I was 11. My dad wouldn't give me money to go to the pool, instead he gave me cucumbers to sell and buy my own way in. I hated it, a lot, and the last doorstep I darkened was when I unknowingly knocked on the door of an older girl from my school. I'm still haunted by the memory of imagining her laughing at me later with her friends.

Here's the overview:

I'm amassing various prizes (basketball, baseball glove, bat, soccer ball, bicycle, whatever people will send) that the boys can buy with Ryan Dollars. They earn Ryan Dollars in 3 ways:

1. Weekly meetings: They get $20 Ryan Dollars for being on time for the meeting and $100 for memorizing a Bible verse
2. Community Improvement Projects: They get anywhere from $250-$400 Ryan Dollars each week if they complete the project I give them. Some projects are: fill 1 bag with trash from the street, clean murals on the wall by their house, or cut the grass where they play.
   
3. Microbusinesses: I pay $10 Ryan Dollars for every peso they earn through the microbusinesses I set up. Right now the only business is washing Motorcycles but we're working on 2 or 3 others.

I'm very excited about how everything has gone so far. Adults in the community have come to me and said they thought they'd never see the day with all the boys working so hard. The purpose is not just to keep them busy, though that is important. The purpose is to teach them about how to work, how to handle money, save, and to connect with them and teach the Gospel. It's gotten off to a great start on all fronts.

I still need tons of prizes so if any of you would like to send balls of any type, hats, baseball cards, etc...we could really use them. Also, the biggest prize of all is a bicycle. I know there's a significant shipping cost associated with shipping a small bike (for 8-12 y/o) but it would still cost way less than a bike here. If your interested in any of these let me know!

I'll leave with with the $10, $50, and $100 Ryan Dollars.

Photo Randomness

So I was looking through our camera and realized there are a bunch of pictures still on there from the past few months. And I decided to post them to help give you all an idea of some of the recent events have been in our life. Enjoy!


We took all of the women from the Social Work site on a trip to Puerto Plata on the north coast. The women were so excited they sang almost the whole way there.


We stopped at this skyline thing, but it was broken. But we still got to hang out a minute and enjoy the great view.


Here are some of the women at one of Christopher Columbus' forts.


Then we arrived at the beach where most of the women just collected seashells the whole time. They all brought them home and made home decorations, jewelry, and other crafts.


The last stop was a monument in Santiago. It was over a month ago that we went and the women had so much fun they are still talking about it!


This picture is from a cookout we had with some of our neighbors. It was an "American dinner" with hot dogs, hamburgers, potato salad, veggies, and brownies. It was a lot of fun and everyone was really grateful.


This is from a birthday party we had for Jess (right). And Katie (left) made this amazing and beautiful chocolate cake!


Last night we celebrated out anniversary by going out to a nice restaurant on the top of a mountain. It was delicious and had an amazing view. It's hard to believe we've already been married 2 years!


The view from the restaurant. If you look closely you might be able to see our house on the left.

Microfinance...GO

I've prepared, shadowed, studied and wrote for the past several months and it's been worth it. I feel ready. We have a good vision and good help. We had our first interest meeting about 3 weeks ago. We were expecting around 30 women and over 60 showed up! We're starting with just 1 group of 8 women and are in the process of selecting them now. We're also working on an official update that will have more details. If you would like to read the program for the site send me an email and I'll send it to you.

Below are a few pictures from the meeting (which I led in Spanish by the way!).


Miriam and I explaining the process to the women. I'm not too afraid of public speaking in
English but public speaking in Spanish was a bit new for me.



Miriam is working with me (up front with the blue shirt by the chair) and we started of with a game. She put numbers 1-4 in each of the corners and then rolled a dice, if you corners number came up you were out. It was funny because one side of the dice said 2+4 and she rolled it twice in a row. So on the third roll all the women went to 1+3 but of course what happened? 1+3 was rolled and they were all out!