Jose O'Shay's and Philly Cheesesteaks

I went camping this weekend on a beach on the north coast of the Dominican Republic. For supper we ate a restaurant called Jose O'Shay's. I had to show you the sign as proof that a place called Jose O'Shay's really does exist. Everytime I think of the name, I laugh to myself. It never gets old. Supposedly, O'Shay's has the best Philly Cheesesteak's around. The cheesesteak wasn't bad but I imagine it's claim to cheesesteak supremacy in this country is safe considering the competition is lacking.

The picture in the middle is next to the beach where I went camping. You can't tell from the picture but it is actually a golf course that overlooks the Atlantic Ocean. This begins my search to find golf courses to keep my father-in-law entertained when he comes to visit.

What's Been Going On?

Alright, I know that I am far overdue for a new entry in our blog. Well, I had wanted to write an entry two days ago, but when we got home from school on Tuesday we came home to no internet and no phone. We were completely disconnected. We thought that maybe it was because we hadn't paid our bill. The Dominican Republic is really bad and slow about getting you your bill on time, but really quick to cut your line. The next day we talked to someone at the school, who called the phone/internet company to find out what in the world was going on. Come to find out...we didn't owe any money, but they had accidentally cut off our line. So, today we were able to come home to a communication hot zone. Jon was going crazy without internet. The good thing though is that we got a lot of grading done!

So that tells you one thing that has been going on lately, but I have a couple more quick stories to tell you all.

First of all, we finally got to go to the beach for the first time. We took the equivalent of a Greyhound. It was so nice and very cool. I actually had to put on a sweater. It felt heavenly. When we got their, we were bombarded with vendors of all sorts. We quickly learned that the magic words to get them to leave you alone was, "We might shop later!" Either that or you could just completely ignore them. I was really good at that! Anyways, the beach was so beautiful. The sand was like walking on cotton. It was so soft and clean. It felt so wonderful. It was such a nice day. The sun was shining bright. The waves were gentle and calming, but also lots of fun as you will see from the video I posted of Jon getting much amusement from those very waves. It was a much needed day of relaxation. (Oh by the way...we got to go to the beach because school was canceled last Friday. School was canceled because of strikes in the area. We get snow days in Indiana, but strike days in the DR. We can't complain!)

Now, here is our God moment from last week. For starters, in the DR, you don't buy phone plans...you just buy phone cards for your phones. Well both of our phones were out of minutes. We could receive calls, but we couldn't make calls. Moving on...the pastor of the church we have been attending (an American pastor) decided to have all the new attendees over for dinner to get to know us better. He called us earlier to give us his phone number and address. (Side note: Addresses in the DR are useless. Streets aren't labeled and many streets have the same names) So we went out to one of the taxi drivers at the end of our street and showed him the address. He finally figured out where it was and told us to get in. We drove to an area, which he thought was right, but turned out to not be right. He figured that out quickly and started asking around where it might be. After just a few minutes, we finally found it. We got out of the taxi, paid him, and he left us. With the taxi driver finally gone, we rang the buzzer to have the pastor open the apartment door. The person who shot out the 4th floor window was not the pastor and come to find out...the pastor did not even live their. Now what were we to do? The taxi driver was gone and we didn't have phones that could call out. We were stranded. We started walking around trying to ask people if they knew the directions that we had been given. (Another side note: People in the DR are not ones to tell you that they don't know. If they don't know something...instead of just telling you that they don't know, they will make something up.) After about 10 minutes walking many blocks in circles, asking many people who didn't really know what they were talking about, I started getting really upset. I wanted to go home. Not just home to our apartment, but home to Indiana...where streets had names, I had a car and a cell phone, and I could speak the language. But Jon, being the optimistic person that he has become since we got here, continued to do his best to find someone who would truly know what they were talking about. We continued walking around and around, until finally (I don't know what came over me), I started to laugh. I realized that this was just another funny experience that God was putting us through...just another moment for us to learn to trust in God. I laughed because I knew that God was testing us and I had completely over reacted to something that I had needed to trust in Him for. I surrendered it all over and what do you know....I looked up and there it was. We had made it. I guess it really does pay to trust in God.

Well, now you are caught up on a few things going on here. We really are having a great time. We are going through a little bit of homesickness, but not too bad. The people here are nice and very helpful. Thanks for all your prayers. Please continue to pray that we would learn the language quickly.

Beisbol

As I was telling my class what their homework would be for the night, the head of the Parent's Association gave me papers to be sent home to the parents. I quickly scanned the papers to see what was so important that they hand-delivered these messages to me before the school day ended. The bold letters at the bottom of the page caught my eye: Classes Canceled Tomorrow. There were to be strikes near the school so the school was closing for safety reasons. Those welcome words gave me an immediate boost in my step. I happily sent the children on their way and sat through an hour long meeting knowing that I had a long weekend ahead of me.

The bus dropping people off was filled with a buzz that is lacking on most afternoons. People all spoke of their weekend plans. Everyone kept mentioning a baseball game that was going on that evening. It was part of a Mini World Series for teams of boys 13-15 years old and there were several students from our school playing on the national team. Caught up with the excitement of no school for the next day, we agreed to go to this game.

We arrived at the stadium thinking we might be a little late but discovered that they weren't even close to being ready to play. The first thing that we noticed was the section of the Dominican "pep band". It looked more like a group of angry villagers each carrying their makeshift instrument. One instrument looked almost like a mailbox with no post, another looked like a water pitcher, and the main instrument looked like a metal pipe that flared out at the end. Surprisingly out of this strange collection of fans and instruments, came a catchy tune. They played the same 8 second segment non-stop throughout the night but somehow it never got old to hear them play with such enthusiasm. Thursday night happened to be the opening ceremony of this event. There were teams from Venezuela, Puerto Rico, Panama, Mexico, and the Dominican Republic. Finally, the Catholic priest gave his prayer and led the stadium in signing the cross and the beisbol could begin. Carried by the pep band and the home field advantage the Dominican team stormed out to an early 3-0 lead. The Mexican team took advantage of several errors to cut the lead to 1. We left with the Dominican team up 4-2. For one night, we could forget about all the stresses of lesson planning and grading papers and enjoy the environment around us.