Thanksgiving

I was thinking about my own experience and listening to the other teachers talk about their Thanksgiving Breaks and decided that the break came at a perfect time. It helped give people the rest they needed so they could be re-energized for the final stretch of the 1st semester. That thought of a perfectly-timed break sounded familiar. It's familiar because that's how I feel about all breaks: they come at the perfect time. Here are some things we did on our break:

To kick off the break, 1st grade had a Thanksgiving Feast. It was hectic in the moment but fun in hindsight. So many Pilgrims too.


Becki and I shared a Thanksgiving with 20+ other people from school on Wednesday evening. God has blessed us in providing people to share life with even though we are away from our family.


We spent actual Thanksgiving Day at the beach. Very un-traditional but I'm not complaining. Thanksgiving is not celebrated in the DR so we started to forget about what day it was. Forgetting what day it was until we ran into this inflatable reminder.

Beauty Around Us!

I was looking through my e-mails today and I found this picture that was taken by another teacher at our school. I meant to put it up last week, but I forgot. I just thought that you might enjoy this beautiful scene that we all witnessed last week while the hurricane was approaching the country. It was taken at school. Even though all week last week was dark and dreery, God still managed to give us something beautiful to look at. Enjoy!

Comfort Food

We have not been homesick for the majority of the time we have been here. But there are days where we really miss home. Those days usually fall near milestones. Milestones like the birth of a niece, Thanksgiving, and birthdays. I distinctly remember having a rough birthday last year although Becki did all that she could to make my day better. Today is Becki's birthday and it was my turn yesterday to encourage her. She was feeling homesick and I wasn't sure what to do. I sat quietly listening to how she was feeling until I thought of exactly what she needed. She needed food. That makes any situation better. And not just any food, American food. So I worked up the courage to order Papa John's over the phone last night. It was a rousing success. I understood the questions they asked me over the phone. The pizza arrived at our apartment and we enjoyed the garlic breadsticks. I was so pleased with how the delivery worked out, I decided we ought to order more food. I called the frozen yogurt store and once again, understood his questions and placed my order. I even used a coupon. It was another success. And as we followed our pizza with some excellent frozen yogurt, the feelings of homesick-ness left until the next milestone. Thankfully we do not feel homesick too often or we would be much fatter and much poorer.

Rats and Stories

I read a rather depressing book last year called Firmin, Adventures of a Metropolitan Lowlife. Reading it put me in one of those melancholy moods as I read about Firmin, a rat who's love for reading alienated him from his fellow rats and who's rodent appearance alienated him from the humans he had become enamored with. In the words of the author, Sam Savage, "Firmin is faced with what he can only regard as an utterly meaningless life". Firmin feels that through the books he reads, he can rescue himself from his meaningless rat life. He not only wants to read these books, he wants to be a part of them because he "is aware of the relation between a meaningful life and some sort of encompassing narrative". Thus his goal is "to become a character in a story". He recognizes that to live simply for himself, mindlessly eating the worn pages of books like his rat siblings, is to live a meaningless life. He wants to be a part of something larger, something bigger than just himself.

I think the reason that I enjoyed reading that book in spite of its melancholic mood, was that the desire to live a meaningful life is a desire all humans have. We want to be a part of something bigger than ourselves whether we realize it or not. That is the great thing about Christianity. It gives us meaning. It allows us to play a part in a story much greater than ourselves. I was reminded of this when a young girl sitting in the back row of my class asked me directly, "Why did Jesus die on the cross for us?" In that moment, I was not a teacher simply earning a paycheck. I was an agent of God's love and story to children who didn't know him. I was pointing these children beyond myself to a God that loves them so much that he sent his son to die on the cross to take away their sins.

I think that I have enjoyed the last year and a half so much here because at more than any other point in my life, it is clear to me that I am part of a bigger plan that God has. I can see the meaning God has for my life.

Here are two pictures from my class. The first are several students of mine. The second is an enormous birthday cake we had for one of the boy's classroom. It was so wide they had to carry it in at an angle to fit it through the door of the classroom.

Cuts and Colors

Yeah, I know this is probably really random; not the kind of thing you put on a blog, but it's life and it's something I am excited about!

Today, I got my first haircut in the Dominican Republic. I was a little skeptical at first, because I am pretty particular about who cuts my hair, but after many recommendations, I decided to give this place a try. And since it is my birthday on Sunday, Jon said that I could go get my hair and nails done for my birthday present. I was super excited. It was quite an experience and super economical. They do your hair, toes, and fingers all at the same time! I was very impressed. And it only cost $35 to do everything: haircut, manicure, pedicure. ONLY $35! What a deal!

Well, tell me what you think! I did not ask them to make it so fancy, but that's just how they do things here. It's very typical Dominican!I am sure that once all the curls come out, I will better be able to see what it will look like!

Fall in the Dominican!

FALL!! Fall is probably the thing that we miss the most while living here in the Dominican. We miss the apples, the fall leaf colors, the orchards, the caramel, the cider, bonfires, the cool sweatshirt weather, football, and many other things. You see...it is never fall here. It feels like a never ending summer. Who would have thought that one could ever get tired of summer?

Well, we tried to make the best of our situation this year and I would say that we have had a pretty good fall this year. We get apples every week at the grocery (even though they are a little bit expensive) and Jon's mom sent us caramel so that we could have caramel apples. We got to have hot apple cider last week at a teacher fall party. We have even been able to watch several COLTS games on TV this year. It has been quite an eventful "fall" season. We have included a few pictures of our last few weeks here in the Dominican Republic during our "fall" season. The first one is a picture of the boys that I (Becki) tutors eating my pumpkin cookies that I made (thanks to Elaine for sending the pumpkin). The next picture is of Jon and I dressed up like old people for a fall costume party that we went to. The last picture is of a Halloween lunch that was made for us by a dear dear new friend of ours named Akari (She is from Japan and one of the most creative people I have ever met.) Please take notice of all the amazing Halloween details she put into it. The thing in the back right is suppose to look like a hand coming out of the ground. It is really just sausage coming out of eggs. Enjoy!