Happy Halloween!

I got so caught up in things I didn't realize that I had been forgetting to blog! Opps! I'll try to catch you up on life real quick.

Last Saturday morning I woke up and jumped on a motorcycle at 5:15 am to get to the school bus to meet the volleyball team where we made the 2 hour drive to the capital (Santa Domingo). We played at the most prestigious English Academic School in the DR (we are runner up to this school). It was an all day tournament and our girl’s team received second place and our boy’s team took home first place. This tournament is the highlight of the season; it's the only thing that really "counts" all year. I was stretched a lot as I had to try to communicate with the referees in Spanish. Most of the time my players translated for me , a little embarrassing, but it got the job done. It was a great day, but unfortunately I got a bit sick toward the end of the day and missed the guy’s championship game :( We made the long bus ride home and I made it back to my apartment at 9:30pm and zonked out.



Tuesday night I finally had the chance to experience my first Dominican baseball game. One of my Dominican friends has season tickets and took me to the Aguila’s game. I was impressed by the size and quality of the stadium. Baseball is a huge thing here - they even have cheerleaders!! It was fun and entertaining to watch and we won the game. Now that the World Series is done all the pro's will be coming over to play so I will get to watch them at the future games! I didn't get back to my apartment until 12:30 am, but it was well worth it.



Wednesday after school I went to volunteer and help at a girl’s shelter/orphanage. This was an incredible experience! We took some nail polish, make-up and string to make bracelets and had quite the party. The girls LOVED it! Every girl had a make-over and a manicure. They all started making bracelets (I got stuck finishing them). Then, they decided to give us makeovers..this was the scary part..but so much fun. I had a 9 year old girl named Caroline who gave me a makeover and she is bound to become a makeup artist someday. I learned a lot of new Spanish vocabulary during our visit because they don't speak ANY English. Caroline was teaching me all the words for each makeup item. When I was done being made over I looked like a clown, but she loved it. I did too :) It was difficult to leave Caroline after making a connection with her, but I plan to go back every other week to hang out with the girls at the orphanage. It was a great opportunity to love and witness to these girls.

Tomorrow is Halloween, it's not a holiday celebrated here in the DR. I think a bunch of the Americans are going to try to do something fall festive to celebrate the season.

This week my students had to do their final bible project. They were assigned to do a TV show or talk show of their assigned bible story. They presented this week and the results were AWESOME. I wish you all could have seen them. I taped one - but it's difficult to hear. I am going to post it and if you want to watch it you can. It's the Oprah show with Adam and Eve. At the end Adam keeps telling Eve he wants his rib back (the kids have a great sense of humor).

Pray for our health here, a large amount of the teachers and staff at the school have been sick. In fact, they took my roommate to the hospital tonight because she's been sick all week and not getting any better. Pray for God’s healing and protection among all of us!

Have a great weekend!