Bible class de la Profe Katy

La Profe Ashley has been letting me teach bible a lot lately. She's pretty stinkin encouraging, and I love that about her. At Makarios, we stick with the same bible lesson for the entire week. That sounds redundant, but the preschool poopers seem to do well with it. We try and change up the activities and such, so they don't get bored with it.

Some lessons are kind of difficult to explain to a 5-year-old! One week, the outline said "Jesus promises us a great future." The reading passage was John's vision. Explain revelation and eternal life to a preschooler, yipee! Anyway, I embarked on that journey. By day 4, they were getting the idea, but here's a little picture of day #2...

(Ashley asks the kids right after the lesson):

P. Ashley: Cuando alguien que ama a Dios muere, no su cuerpo, pero su...
Jeson: Espiritu!
P. Ashley: Si, espiritu! Adonde va su espiritu?
Marileidi: La selva!


*ENGLISH TRANSLATION*

P. Ashley: When a person who loves God dies, not their body, but their...
Jeson: Spirit!
P. Ashley: Yes, spirit! Where does their spirit go?
Mariledi: The jungle!

Oh, Marileidi. In my defense, she might be the most unfocused kid in creation, but thank goodness I had another two days to redeem that lesson!

Cardboard Stories

Two posts in one day, score! I am only posting this here, because I forgot about it in my last post with all its picture mayhem. (Is that even how mayhem is spelled?)

Anyway, the church I attended during college, Austin Stone, showed this video on Easter Sunday. Robin was kind enough to show it to me, so enjoy.

http://vimeo.com/4125092

2 Corinthians 5
¹⁶So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. ¹⁷Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! ¹⁸All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: ¹⁹that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men's sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. ²⁰We are therefore Christ's ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ's behalf: Be reconciled to God. ²¹God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

Ensalada

Well, well. I feel incapable of putting together a coherent blog post, but I thought I would throw some pictures up and let people know some of the things happening around here.This first picture is stolen from Robin. Robin is the administrator/director of the Makarios preschool, and she rocks. I thought some of you may remember this beautiful little girl, Yunairi. This is a rare sighting: Yunairi with completely free, unstyled hair. Is that not the craziest thing you have ever seen? This is all natural, people. She is still pretty much gorgeous beyond words. Also, I think she comes up to my knee or something, chiquitin.
Can somebody please tell me why the blog adds photos to the top of the post? Anyway, this picture is stolen from Robin as well. This chiquito, se llama Luigi (Luis Miguel, really) is hilarious. He is the older brother of the littlest/biggest punk in the school, Ricardo. Luigi has big ears and one of those wiiiiiide smiles. He is adorable. He comes to our bible program on Fridays. You should just notice his outfit here. Oversized pimp shoes, sagging pants over some Hooters shorts, and that hat. Yes, this is the family that somehow has a pair of Hooters shorts. Thanks, donating waitresses!




Over here-ish you can see Kendall with the muchachos that she played basketball with in Pancho Mateo. Sili, her friend on the far left, has been wanting to play for quite a while, and lucky for him, Kendall is somewhat of a basketball diva. I am guessing that "diva" wouldn't be the best word choice here, but I'm not an athlete, so who knows. Maybe it's all the Beyonce I've been hearing lately. Anyway, Kendall let Sili win a game last week, which she never heard the end of, so this week she played again (for bragging rights, of course). She and Ernesto (center) whooped up! Go Kendall!

While Kendall played basketball, I stuck to what I do best: sitting around. I hung out with some kiddos and let them play with sidewalk chalk from the school. It was a big hit. Mostly I just thought the skirts the girls were wearing looked like babydoll clothes, so I took that picture. They were pretty cute, though. I pretty much had to force them to call me by my name rather than "Gringa." Also, a nice young man asked me "Do you have boyfriend? Please, I like be your boyfriend." So charming. I don't know how the ladies don't flock to him!

Just a warning: Whenever I post a picture, I pretty much have no idea where this blog will put it or where I will be allowed to type. Don't be surprised. This is technology, after all (kind of).

Somewhere around here you can see a picture of Ashley and me coloring with some kiddos in Chichigua. It was our first visit to the village since Semana Santa, and it went great! Coloring books are quite the rage out there. We also have been on the lookout lately for kids who could be potential students in the upcoming year. Things are moving so quickly!




Something loca happened before Semana Santa. Kendall and I were spending the day at the beach in Cabarete, when I saw a certain someone in that I recognized. What?! It happened to be Danielle Bartz and Ellen Haynes who I rowed with at UT! What a random meeting! I was under the impression that Danielle was in a graduate program in Spain right now, but apparently, she was relocated to the capital here in the DR! Ellen was visiting her for a little vacay. Sweet mothers! Our hilarious reunion has Danielle thinking about coming up to the north coast sometime after her semester ends. Awesome.

OK, done with pictures, finally!

Some things to pray about:

* We are about to start having some serious meetings to prepare for next year. Makarios will now add two more classes! The plan is to have 2 Preschool I and two Preschool II classes. This involves so many things, including building on to the school. In order for all of this to be possible, we need prayer! We are praying that God will provide all the funding for the building addition as well as the right teachers to join Makarios.

* I have been casually looking at job opportunities for the fall. Claro, it is early, and I am still not exactly sure what I want to do. I have applied for one graduate program in Human Resources, but: I don't know if I will get in, and I don't know if it is definitely what I want to do. I have mostly been looking at social services and teaching-type jobs. If I decide to try and teach Spanish or ESL (or something), I will need to seriously start setting dates and planning on getting an alternative certification. I'm not afraid of the future necessarily, but thinking about it makes me want to launch into semi-frantic "planning" mode, which isn't great when you aren't sure what God is calling you to do yet.

* Odilsia is our amazing housekeeper and friend. She works both at the Makarios house and at the school. She has a beautiful spirit, and we love her to pieces. Today, she was talking to Cara a little bit about some stuff she is going through. Odilsia said she has been fearful for some reason lately. She doesn't want to sleep alone, and she doesn't even really feel comfortable coming out to the Makarios house alone right now. She said she feels like some spirit of the dead (or something) is around, and she just doesn't want to be alone. Now, although this may sound crazy, Odilsia is a believer in Christ. Talk of spirits, though, would be quite common in Haitian culture. The idea would not seem outlandish at all, even to Haitian Christians. Cara was able to reassure her that fear is not of God and that we don't have to be afraid and everything, but please pray for Odilsia. Your prayers are powerful, and she needs to be set free from her fears.

Ok, that's all for now. Next time I might try and introduce everyone to the rest of the staff here!

Isaak: Before and After (more like After --> Before)

Back in the USSR

So, Semana Santa en los Estados Unidos was wonderful. I got to eat my body weight in tex-mex and steak, see the Astros beat the Cubs (because they did in the game I went to), and spend some time with some people I love. It was just lovely.

Kendall and I reunited in the Miami airport before our flight back to Puerto Plata. Just so everyone knows, I was able to have a Starbucks frap in Houston before I left. I managed to refrain from getting one last fix in Miami, though...

Our first night back...
Kendall and I arrived home to a puppy that is hanging out at the house for a little while. He has stayed out in the yard, and our good friend was feeding him until we got here. He is a cute little guy, but he managed to eat everything that was outside during his time alone at the house. Luckily, Odilsia (our friend) was able to store our shoes inside for safe keeping. Whew! We pretty much just stood in the yard staring for a minute before going inside.

So the house was...quiet. I mean quiet as in Dominican-style, where there are still outside noises like neighbors, dogs, and roosters, but ZERO happening in the Mak house. Kendall and I are used to there being anywhere from 3 to 35 people there! Our dear roommate Ashley moved into a bigger apartamento in Monte Llano (near the school) with Robin and Cara. I am so excited for them! The place is super-cute, and Kendall will be moving there as well in the fall when she comes back to work for Makarios for another YEAR! Robin, Cara, Ashley, and Kendall are all staying for the upcoming year. It might be hard to be the only one leaving and wondering how things are going here.

Kendall and I immediately parked it in our designated spots at the kitchen table. These spots are pretty much etched in stone, so interns, watch out! (mentira). We wandered the internets for a while, then had our fallback dinner-- pizza mediana con solamente queso from San Jorge Pizzeria. I say fallback, but we generally eat here about once a week. They deliver, and it only takes 25 minutes! Also, we are gluttons, apparently. (Not really, but we sometimes feel that way).

We also came home to a very clean house, free of all perishable grocery items. Our lovely former roommate, Ashley, made sure we wouldn't come home to any spoiled goods. What a gem. Anyway, today after school, we made our first trip to the grocery store alone! dun dun DUUUUN! Everything went well. We went to the fancy new Dominican Walmart se llama La Sirena. It's pretty much completely American except that we walked out and hitched a moto home afterwards, bags in hand (sorry mom!). I'm starting to get a little less anxious on motos, but they are still not my favorite ride.

Our guagua rides were pretty funny today. We had a pretty typical ride to school, with around 20 people in the van, but on the way home we caught an almost-empty one. Gloria! The man sitting in the row in front of us had a cage filled with 2 parrots. Hello random. I guess I was expecting chickens, or maybe a potbellied pig, but no, they were parrots. Sometimes they have those at touristy places to take overpriced pictures with the gringos.

Anyway, we are getting back into the swing of things, and all is well. We are waiting for Anne and Garrett to come back from the states in a couple of weeks, though!

I will try and post a few pictures next time, but now I'm too lazy for that. I'm pretty sure I have one of the finished product of Isaak's braids!

I guess I shouldn't forget to mention that Easter was great. Dave and I went to the Good Friday service con mis padres, and the Easter service at our church. Both were great reminders of Christ's sacrifice for us.

¹⁵He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. ¹⁶For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him. ¹⁷He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. ¹⁸And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. ¹⁹For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, ²⁰and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.

²¹Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior. ²²But now he has reconciled you by Christ's physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation— ²³if you continue in your faith, established and firm, not moved from the hope held out in the gospel. This is the gospel that you heard and that has been proclaimed to every creature under heaven, and of which I, Paul, have become a servant.

In everything, he has the supremacy-- that is an awesome lesson that I am still learning. The things that I spend time worrying over? They don't matter. Christ reigns supreme. He holds all things together! I can't think of someone else who could do it better.

Besos.

Happy Easter!

³Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, ⁴and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade—kept in heaven for you, ⁵who through faith are shielded by God's power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time.

The fear is back...

So, I thought I was over the worst part of my banana-spider fear, until today. I was carrying two toilet paper roles upstairs when my finger brushed up against something. SPIDER!

A spider was inside the toilet paper roll. I wasn't sure if it was even alive or not because of the weird way it was crinkled up. When I thought I saw it move, I threw the roll down the stairs. Eventually, I used one of those tiddly-wink toys to poke the spider, and it scampered out. Gah! The roll is still sitting at the bottom of the stairs... I'm too scared to retrieve it. I hope I figure out something before I have to get the kids up from their nap...