I can't believe it is September. I have been here for a month, and am just finishing my SECOND week as a teacher! I can't get over how crazy it has been. This past week, the weather was so rediculous--we got the terrible rain/wind from the hurricane, which meant we lost power a LOT, but today and yesterday it did not rain at all, so hopefully it is over! The weather made teaching quite interesting, the kids were going crazy. A few times I was thinking "what in the WORLD am I doing here", but in the end it was a pretty good week...tiring of course, but good.

One craziness--here in the DR, people are really into demons/witchcraftish stuff, so during Bible on Tuesday, SOMEHOW we got on the subject of that and my kids had a million questions that I had no idea how to answer, so I did my best and then got some good advice after class and had to discuss it again on Thursday. The stories the kids had were crazy, and could very well have been true (or part of a truth) so I had to really watch what I said about it. I felt like it ended up being kind of a blessing that we talked about that, because I really felt that the kids just needed to hear that YES evil is in the world and that is why the world is an an awful and scary place, BUT if you ask God to be on your side, He will be, and you will have nothing to fear!! We had a long discussion about that, which was very cool.

Yesterday we got MAIL, which was awesome. Mail day twice a month is seriously like a holiday around here. One of my roommates got all kinds of goodies from her mom, so we had a Dominican friends and other missionary friends over for dinner and desert! Quick story about one of the Dominican boys we have over a veces. His name is Juan Cauri (sp?), he is 16 years old, and when he became a Christian his parents kicked him out of his house, so he is living on the floor of the church basement....pretty crazy of his parents, but very cool that God is so important to him! He was sitting at our house last night reading the Bible and was just SO EXCITED, it was incredibly encouraging.

This weekend we have a Young Life staff training/planning weekend up at the YL camp. I am SO excited for a weekend filled with fun/worship/hiking/getting ready for YL to start! It will be young life staff from here in Jarabacoa, and also Santiago/LaVega staff--so fun to meet everyone else! I am also very excited because it will just be the American staff....which means all of this will be in ENGLISH!!! Praise the Lord:)

Something cool I learned yesterday: Ephesians 3:18 "I pray that you may have the power to GRASP how wide, long, high and deep the love of Christ is." But in this verse, Grasp means to sieze with eagerness and suddenness--very cool! What if I exherted my energy into grasping the love of Jesus with eagerness and suddenness? Talking with my students about demonic forces lead to talking about the end times.We talked about how things will be when Jesus comes back, and a couple of my students were like "I am SO EXCITED!!!" and that made me so excited, and also made me take a step back and really think: just how excited am I? How do I show that excitement? Do I share that excitement as much as I should? That time is near, and I need to make a point to live like it is. I have gotten into such a routine, and I need to get out of that routine and live each day excitedly for Jesus!

HAZAK!!!

Hopefully I will take more pictures soon.....love!