Sorry I have had all of these random short blog updates--things have been crazy! I will do a long update asap, I just thought I'd put these pictures up quick before I forget! They are from the first day of school, my roommate just sent them to me! The one of me using the three hole punch to stick nails into the wall is quite the joke around here....haha i guess I have become quite resourceful in my time here?!Anyways, update soon, I promise!!

WYLD LIFE!!

We had our first EVER Wyld Life club in Jarabacoa last night! We were all really nervous and quite anxious for it to start, and it went AMAZING! There were a few setbacks while we were getting ready, but as for the actual club, it was way better than we ever thought our first night could be! We held club at a local hotel (owned by some of our kids' parents) that is right in the middle of town where everyone can easily get there. Us leaders went at 5 to start getting things ready, setting up, and have some time to just prepare for the night, before club began at 7! We had kids start showing up at 6:50 which is CRAZY here because normally people come a half hour AFTER something is supposed to start! Overall the night was awesome, God definitely was at work because it was complete madness that somehow worked! We had 50 KIDS come, CRAZY because we were hoping for 25-30!
It was just so cool to have our first night be so great. We got together as a Wyld Life team on Sunday to practice through club/talk about everything for a couple hours, and I think we were all kind of annoyed that we had to spend our Sunday afternoon doing that, and then arrive 2 hours before club began on Tuesday...BUT we talked about Romans 16:19 where it says "Everyone has heard about your obedience, so I am full of joy over you;but I want you to be wise and excellent about what is good and innocent about what is evil." So we decided that we must be EXCELLENT and completely prepared at every single Wyld Life club, because if one thing is off, it only takes that to completely lose kids (especially middle schoolers). Last night completely proved that if you strive to do something with excellence, by doing everything as good as you possible can in order to glorify God, then God WILL be in it, which means Satan can't come in and mess things up. SO COOL and such a good reminder that as servants of God we must strive to be excellent in every single thing we do, because I should be serving God in every single thing I do, no matter what it is.
God is good!!! Thank you for your prayers, and continuous prayers would be much appreciated!!

Okay I have to post this, it is totally disgusting!!! Last night I was hard boiling some eggs, and they were doing/looking really weird so I just left them there and had my roommate look at them...and turns out, they were FERTALIZED eggs with BABY CHICKS inside of them!!!!!!!!!!!!! The most horrible thing ever. I might possibly never eat eggs again. At least not in this country.

Thought this was funny, I got my electricity bill today and this is my address:
(keep in mind there is no mail system here)

Entrada Los Candelarios (Entrance of the street Los Candelarios)
Frente a la colmado de Luiz Torrez (In front of Luiz Torrez's store)
Los Candelarios (our street name)
Jarabacoa

What a wonderful week with my students! I felt like this week was the first week that I actually felt like I could be a teacher and do it successfully....without freaking out half the time! It was such a good feeling! One of my friends encouraged me to keep this song in mind throughout the week: "To keep your lovely face ever before my eyes, this is my prayer, make it my strong desire, that in my secret heart, no other love competes. No rival throne survives and I serve only you...." and to focus on teaching, but first and foremost to focus on bringing the love of Jesus into my classroom, and i KNOW that is why this week went so well!

I also am finally feeling like this is real life, that I am here and this is my home instead of the feeling that I will be leaving soon. Things have finally all started, and my schedule is going to be CRAZY but good! Mondays I am going to be having Spanish lessons from 3-6, Tuesdays we will have WYLD LIFE!!! (our parent meeting went so well, and we had some parents that are really willing to help which is sweet!) Wednesdays I have Bible study which usually lasts a couple hours, and Thursday----soccer (I have been voted the 4th-6th grade soccer coach!! ahhhh! haha...but i guess at that age they just need to learn to kick, score, run, ect? at least i hope so. BUT if you have any good soccer tips, let me know!!) and then we will have games on Fridays!

Some interesting things that happened this week......
I was riding my bike on Monday and my chain broke in half, some Dominican man ran up behind me and grabbed it and told me where to get it fixed, which was awesome. After this guy at the car place tried 4 times to fix it, we finally got it!
Wednesday I was in the middle of teaching and all of a sudden one of my students was like Miss Stanley, there is a HUGE spider on the wall and I look over and seriously thought I was going to throw up I was so scared (i HATE HATE HATE spiders) but I had to be the brave one, right? so first instinct: I karate-kick-smashed the spider (thank you jillian michaels)....afterwards I was like omg what did I just do...but apparantly it was hilarious and got me major "cool points" with my students!! haha! and now the whole school knows....
Thursday I was working in the comedor (the outside area where kids eat/play) and was like what is that noise, and I looked over and saw a mama chicken and like 10 baby chicks just wandering around like no big deal!! haha!

GREAT week--what a change things are when you make a conscious effort to live out 1 COR 13!!! Amd constantly praying for strength....haha! BUT God is awesome and can make anything successful when you let Him take charge, so cool!

We had an AMAZING weekend up at Pico Escondido (the YL camp) for our leaders weekend! We went up there Friday night and had club--this was way cool because we had potential YL committee members there (several Dominican parents of kids who have been involved before, and then some missionary couples), they came to check out club and see what YL is all about, and it was a great time for them to be there! We are praying that they really felt the passion for kids and want to be involved in helping support us.

Saturday was awesome. I got up early in the morning and helped make breakfast in the kitchen, which was so wonderful for me because that was my job when I was an intern at Pico, so the kitchen staff is like my family here, and it was such a blessing for me to be able to spend time with them! After breakfast, we hiked up to the waterfalls, and then came back for some YL informational meetings. We had free time all afternoon and had a kickball tournament and a volleyball tournament-so fun! At night we got with our teams to get to know each other better, had worship, and then played SIGNS(the best game ever!)



Today (Sunday) We got up and had morning worship, and then got with our teams and made a rough plan of Wyld Life through December! SO EXCITING! It was so cool to finally be able to talk about it and have an actual plan, finally we are ready to start! Overall this weekend was an awesome time of encouragement for all of us as we prepare to both continue Young Life here and start the new ministry in Wyld Life. One thing Chris (our YL director) said this morning was really awesome--in order for us to minister, we need to be SO FULL of Jesus that we are overflowing with His love in our lives, which means we need to be completely in the Word and totally here in our relationships with God before we can think about doing anything else. It reminded me of my FAVORITE verse from Israel Jer 20:9 "But if I say I will not mention or speak of His name, His word will be in my heart like a fire, a fire shut up in my bones, I am weary of holding it in, INDEED I CAN NOT!" My number one priority needs to be my relationship with God, because if that isn't right on track, nothing will be.
2 Cor 4 "God said: let light shine out of the darkness, and let His light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God! But we have this TREASURE that this all surpassing power is from God, not us!"

It was SO awesome for me to be back at camp this weekend, too, because the last time I spent a significant time at camp was when I was an intern there almost 2 years ago. As I sat this morning doing my devotions in the same chair I did them in every day for 3 months that summer, I just sat in awe of how much God has done in my life since that summer. Who would have guessed that after that summer I would be living here in Jarabacoa?! It was just SO COOL to be sitting there and just thinking holy cow, GOD IS SO GOOD! And He does have a plan, and now looking back I can see just how clearly orchestrated that plan was. It was also really cool to remember how incredibly excited I was that summer to be here in Jarabacoa, wondering what would come next, and if I could ever possible live here. It really renewed my excitement in my life here.

Lamentations 3:21-26 " Yet this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope:because of God's great love, I am not consumed, His compassions never fail! They are new each morning! GREAT is GOD'S FAITHFULNESS! I say to myself, the Lord is my portion, therefore I will wait for Him. The Lord is good to those who wait, whose hope is in Him, the one who seeks Him! SO GREAT IS HIS UNFAILING LOVE!"

Prayer Requests:
-That we would be able to get a YL committee put together
-That Wyld Life (and YL) would be blessed with LOTS of kids wanting to come check things out, and that we would be prepared so that they want to come back!

Gracias!!! God Bless:)

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!