Give Thanks

What a thankful week I’ve had!

Our students had a half day at school on Wednesday, it was busy but good. The two sixth grade classes combined to have a tradition Thanksgiving feast, or at least as close as we can get in the Dominican Republic.

I assigned each student to bring in a different item and hoped we would have food to eat! There was an abundance of food and rice and beans has been added to the Thanksgiving menu!

The meal was a huge success and the students were all stuffed afterwards. After the mean I had my students go around and share what they were thankful for. My favorite part of the school day was having the opportunity to let the whole staff come to my room to eat because we had extra food. The faces of the staff filling a plate with corn, mashed potatoes, turkey, and other delicious dishes warmed my heart. Some of the school maids and janitors live off a VERY low income so this was quite the treat. Then, once everyone was done, I still had an abundance of food and the students didn’t want to carry it home, so I started putting it on plates and giving it away to the workers. They were ecstatic to receive this food. It is unbelievable to recognize and remember how blessed we are. To me it was only a plate of leftover food I was simply trying to get rid of, but to them it was so much more.

Glad to let the crazy kiddos out of school after our half day I went back to my apartment and got my bags packed then took a taxi to the airport to pick up mom and dad! Another reason to be thankful is that I have a loving and supportive family. It was awesome to be able to run and give them a hug after five months! I’m excited to have them here!

When my parents got here we went straight to the beach and have shared some fun adventures. It was odd spending Thanksgiving in a country where they do not celebrate, we had rice and beans for lunch and pasta for dinner – but it’s not the food, instead the people that count!!

Yesterday we went horseback riding in the mountains, through rivers and to the waterfalls where we could go swimming. It was a cool experience with beautiful views – we used a waterproof camera, so no pictures yet.

Well – I time to get back to the sun  I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving! I’m thankful for all your love, support, and encouragement!

Family Day

The food drive field trip with my class went well on Friday. Although I had several students not come to school and a handful leave early, for those who did attend it was a good experience. It pushed the students outside of their comfort zones and gave them a chance to serve. We took 23 bags of food and passed out bibles to the Haitian families. I look forward to being able to reflect over this experience with the students at school on Monday.

I think I should have spent the remainder of my weekend building an ark because it has rained, rained, and rained. The parent club of the school had planned Family Day on Saturday. This is a huge school fundraising event, but unfortunately the rain scared some people off. I went for a short while and the set-up was neat. They had a dunk tank and some moon walks. There were all different types of activities. There was a big dodge ball tournament and several raffles. The scariest station was the jail. Students could pay a certain amount of pesos to put someone in jail for a designated amount of time. Let me paint you a picture of the jail. It was an empty classroom that was filled with newspapers, old food containers, trash, and a few stink bombs. Before students put someone in jail they could choose to torture that person by smothering them with their food/object of choice. If the victim did not want to stay in jail then he had to pay to get out. This raised lots of money, but it was NASTY!! Luckily I did a good job of hiding from the students that desired to put me in jail and I didn’t get tortured. 


The rest of my weekend was spent inside trying to stay away from the rain! We have a short week then I’m off to the airport to meet mom and dad and final destination = the beach!

Cinco Dias!

Last weekend we ended our girl’s volleyball season with a game in La Vega Friday night. When I got back Friday evening I had plans to go hang out with some friends, but I sat down on the couch and woke up at 11:30pm. Opps - I guess sleeping took priority over friends. Then on Saturday morning I left with two of my friends to take a bus to the capital, Santa Domingo. When we got there a teacher we'd met at the beach from the US Embassy School picked us up and took us around town. We watched some football games and then went to a pool party with all their American teachers. It was a nice opportunity to get to meet some new people. Sunday morning Ryan, the Embassy teacher took us to sightsee some other places around the capital and to go to the fashion mall. Afterwards we got back on a bus to come back to the little city of Santiago. Unfortunately I didn't take my camera with me during our adventure so I don't have pictures of it :(

Today was an amazing day here in the Dominican Republic because something rare happened. The temperature was in the upper 60's all day – no higher. It was incredible. My students were going crazy. They were wearing sweatshirts and I saw some of the kindergartner’s who had winter hats on. I heard complaints all day about how "freezing" it was. It was nice a refreshing! We have had a few days of rain and cooler temps, something we don't see often!

Tomorrow is Jean day at school, but it's also the day where our class will hand deliver all the food we have collected for our food drive. My class will be going to a homeless shelter where Haitians live. We have collected 20 bags of rice, beans and oil to feed these families. I'm excited for this experience the children will be able to interact with these people. I'm a little shocked by the response my students have given me to our field trip, but apparently it is normal. When I announced it many students said they could not go. I later learned that some of these students do not like to interact with those of lower class because they feel like they are dirty. I have some parent notes and I know a few students are not going to come to school, so pray to soften the hearts of the children and for a good experience.

Well, I'm off to grade some more papers! My mom and dad will be here in 6 days!! Then we are going to the beach to celebrate Thanksgiving! YAHOO! I cannot wait. I hope you are all enjoying the snow and getting ready for the holiday festivities!
Be blessed,
Ash

P.S. I thought I would leave you with a picture of the little creature that I met the other day :)

Young Life Camp

I survived a week at Young Life camp in the mountains with 68 high school students!! AHHHH. Camp went well – right after school last Friday we left in three Dominican style busses and went to the mountains. When we got to camp and had delicious camp food (here camp food is Rice, Beans, and Plantains)! During camp we had several “sessions” these are full of singing, silly games, and then a speaker. From our sessions we would break out into small groups. I lead a group of junior girls. They were fun and it was nice to get a chance to connect with them because before camp I’d never met any of them! We were able to bond through the weekend and be wild and crazy.


The first night at camp we wore all black and we were covered with the gel from glow sticks (side note to all moms and nurses, I KNOW this is not safe, but it looks cool) then we had to complete an obstacle course in the dark. The obstacles included jumping into this muck/quick sand and climbing out, swim a floatable animal across a pond, and other crazy things. While all this happened we were being attacked by water guns. It was a long night – plus when you put tons of girls in a room they don’t sleep anyway. On Saturday we had water balloon fights, shaving cream wars, flour bomb fight, and a time to make forts for your leaders out of cardboard. We also got to climb what they call their “climbing wall”, which is really the generator tower that they put pegs into!

It was a messy and sleepless weekend, but it was worth it. It’s great to see the kids have an opportunity to hear the gospel for the first time or for others to take another step and grow in their faith. I’m glad I could be a part of this. It made me miss Camp Adventure tons – the director here is nowhere near as dynamic as the one who leads Adventure (props to you dad!) and the experience is completely different, but I’m glad to have had it. I came home Sunday evening exhausted and thrilled to know I didn’t have power again!! Yahoo…OK – I didn’t take it that joyfully – but I’m made it work until I it was restored Wednesday.

I’m about ready to start my count down until my parents come to visit! It’s coming up and I cannot wait…yahoo! Love you all.

Off to Camp!

Although it's not as exciting as the presidential election, here is a little update about my life!

Early this week my roommate got out of the hospital and she has been resting a lot. She is getting her strength back and tomorrow hopefully will be her first full day back at school. Parasites can really wipe you out!

While I'm on the topic of health, please pray for the health of many here. Four of my students are out sick and two are in the hospital. One of my students has Dengue (a virus that is transmitted by infected mosquitoes) so pray that he can make a full recovery.

In addition, this week, our School Director who has also been sick with a parasite was sent to the states after some test results came back alarming. He is going to get some more testing in the states; they are concerned he may have cancer.

We had a really hot week this week, the temperatures gone way up. It's made it difficult to sleep at night. I spent Sunday at the waterfalls trying to cool off for a few hours and it was a nice excuse to get away! Hopefully we can get some cooler temperatures again.
Wednesday night Young Life was a “Bigger and Better” Club. Each team started with a Peso (penny) and had to walk around to houses or people and find someone who would trade it for something bigger or better. What a night. I’ve played this with Youth for Christ in the states since I was in 6th grade and it’s much different playing it here! First, safety becomes a huge issue. Second, the language barrier is difficult because I don’t know the language well enough to explain this to anyone in detail, so I have to trust the students are doing a good job. Finally, NOTHING is “junk” to anyone here – it is all their most prized possession regardless if it is broken or not. You know it’s going to be a comical night when the first thing someone offers you is an empty beer bottle for a peso!




School is going well, my students still continue to be rascal's some days, but I love each and every one of them.

Tomorrow right after school I leave to go to the mountains to be a counselor at Young Life camp for the weekend. We have 65 high school students going. I'm excited, it's going to be a fun, messy, and amazing weekend. It will be a great opportunity for some of these kids to hear the gospel for the first time. Pray for the students that they come with open hearts and pray for me that I come with as a bundle of energy not dragged down from a week of teaching. We get back Sunday afternoon and luckily I have Monday off because it's a Dominican holiday.

Hope everyone is doing well and enjoying basketball season in Indiana (those of you that live there of course) – it sure isn’t the same here – it’s PATHETIC!
Much love!!!

P.S. I have now discovered what they do with all the leftover American Halloween candy…they ship it to the DR! Ha- we didn’t see a single piece of Halloween until about three or four days after Halloween, now the shelves are loaded with candy corn! Ha – and it’s not even celebrated here!