Whew!

Well, my first team presentation/dvd project is officially done. They're showing it to the team tonight (gulp!). Honestly, I don't like this finished project at all (and I'm not trying to make a disclaimer here). The intro is stale, the clips don't flow really well, and the ending is rather...I don't know...strange, I guess. And the last clips unfortunately do not include the women on the team, which is a sorry way to end a presentation/project. There were other difficulties also, but probably only Andrea would understand them, lol! I'm extremely tired--and this was a SMALL team! We have another one coming in two weeks, so if you don't hear from me around that time I may have died from the stress or fled the country. JUST KIDDING; I love my job! I can't believe how lucky I am to be here. Maggie was talking the other day about how working with SI as a family has given each one of their kids a chance to get some hands-on experience in the field of their interest. I am so glad Andrea and Alicia started using video on the presentations this past summer; I get to practice what I'm majoring in and get some great advice and direction from the girls. God has really blessed me with this opportunity! Anyway, excuse my ramblings and feel free to critique the video if you want.

First team project done

Jimenoa video 1

Jimenoa video 2

Art and nature

I'm here at the base in the little media office corner of Troyers' house. There's lots of hammering, drilling, banging, clanging, thudding, and talking going on over my head, and every so often a sprinkling of dust and dirt showers down on my head. Hence the plastic over my workstation. I even put it over my head once or twice, but it got too hot under there to work, so I'll just brave the dust.


The team from Middlebury already has half of the roof completely done and they are making a lot of progress on the other half. The only reason I have time to write right now is because there's not much to video; they are working on a lot of little details up there so the roof looks pretty much the same right now as it did an hour ago. (Ah, here comes more dust!!)

Anyway, it's been a fun weekend! I've been filming a lot, and this morning I actually got up early enough to get to the base to film the team's morning devotions and worship time.


Some highlights from the weekend:


Saturday night was an art exhibition in Jarabacoa. Francisco, one of the teachers at SI's art site, and Amy Babb both had some of their work on display. The theme this year was Dominican birds. The had the exhibition in an open-air building in a park by a river with decorative nests here in there and bird sounds playing on some large speakers just outside. Pretty cool!


Here's Fran with one of his paintings:

Here's a picture of some of the displays. The whole Middlebury team went to the exhibition.



Sunday morning Nate and Lowell took the team to Jimenoa (him-an-oh-a) falls. I got great video for the team dvd with the video camera, but I forgot to get some pictures of the falls with my own camera. :-(
Some of the guys and myself hiked/climbed/crawled up to way above the falls. It was quite a hike! Extremely steep in parts; we had to grab vines and trees to pull ourselves up. We sweated like crazy, but the view was worth it! There were huge, huge boulders carved out by the rushing river. Lowell said some of them moved after the hurricane rains. You can imagine how much water was pumping through there then!


Here's a picture of one of the falls above Jimenoa itself. All that water funnels into probably an eight-foot-wide gap between rock walls:



Tremendous water power; as Nate and Lowell said, if you fall into there, you die--end of story.


Here's a picture of some of the smaller boulders (and even they are huge). I wish there was a person in this photo so you could see the scale:

I will definitely get a picture of the main waterfall posted sometime. It might be awhile, though.


It's lunch time, so I'm heading down to the cafeteria.

Clay water filter

Catch-up post

A lot has happened since I updated my blog last. I was going to update it Sunday night, but as I was moving pictures from my camera's memory card to my computer I somehow erased them all from the memory card! I was so disappointed; that morning we girls had gone with some friends on a motorcycle ride up in the mountains and I had had some fabulous pictures! So I was going to wait until I could copy some pictures from one of my friends before I updated my blog, but I haven't gotten them yet and thought I should go ahead and fill you in on the other stuff that's been happening.

So...(deep breath)...here we go:

Last Friday-Saturday I was finishing my last history paper for the quarter. I thought it was just an ok paper, so later I about jumped out of my chair in glee when my professor gave me an A+ with glowing comments!

Sunday, of course, was the motorcycle ride, but I'll fill you in on that when I have pictures. (Oh, and don't worry--we got back in time for church! lol)

Monday-Wednesday I finished a 6-page paper for my spiritual formation class, so I was home-bound most of the time. Wednesday evening was staff Bible study. Instead of the regular Bible study, we have just started going through a money management course by Crown Financial Ministries, and we'll be doing that for the next ten weeks, I think (at the base instead of our house). We are divided into four groups; here's a picture of one group:

Recently someone gave Arlene a cacao pod-thing. The seeds--the part that cacao comes from--are a dark purplish-brown on the inside but covered in a tangy sweet white slime on the outside. We dug the seeds out of the pod, sucked the sweet slime off the outsides, and put the seeds outside to dry. We're going to see if we can make our own hot chocolate or something!

This is my last week of school before fall break and I only have a couple of small assignments left to do, so I'm taking advantage of my free time. Today I went with Arlene to Los Higos for the day. Here's a few pictures:

One of the familys up there wanted to serve us lunch: (It was SO good!)

Me with some girls at the site where Arlene works:

Sewing class is on Friday afternoons but only one member came today. This girl in the picture, Chica, is not a member, so technically she shouldn't be using the machine...

...so she and I hand-stitched little dresses for her Barbie. I know it looks a little atrocious, but I think it was her first time or something, and neither one of us wanted to spend too much time at it. Lasting quality doesn't seem to be an issue with her doll clothes; the previous set had been sewn on the doll and Chica just cut them off.

River of Life Fellowship in Middlebury sent a group of people down to re-roof Troyers' house at the base. They'll be here for a week and I'll put together a little video for them. Lowell and I took a few videos/pictures this morning and I now fully appreciate the work Andrea and Alicia did with video for the summer teams this past year. It's harder than they made it look! I feel sorry for the first few teams we will have; they'll be my practice!

More to come....

Despedida slideshow

I thought I'd post this just to prove I'm not idle down here, lol. This is the simple project I finished earlier this week.

Despedida slideshow

A fun evening

Ahhh....what a nice evening! Maggie had invited Amy Green, Amy Babb, Katie, and Alicia to all come over for a birthday dinner for Arlene and I. Since Amy B's birthday was just last week, we made the evening in honor of her, too. Maggie really outdid herself; the food was FABULOUS! She made a chicken alfredo with green, yellow, and red peppers; pumpkin soup; to-die-for Italian breadsticks; salad; chocolate cake; and vanilla cheesecake with pineapple, mango, or lemon topping! I think we all gorged ourselves.

Afterward, we had a hair-dying party. Actually it was just Alicia and Chastity this time; Katie had dyed her own hair red a couple of days ago, and I'll be getting highlights in mine soon, but I didn't tonight because we didn't have the right tools.

Here's Amy Babb and Katie hard at work:

Ta-da! I just can't get over how good these three look with their new hair colors!

21 years

Today is October 9th, which means I've been on the planet Earth for 21 years today (not counting the 9 months in the womb, lol). I was going to list the things I am able to do legally since turning 18 and now 21 but some of them I probably shouldn't mention here, in case someone misses the joke. :-)

Seriously, though, God has been good, and I have been blessed with so many friends and amazing people in my life (and a big THANK YOU to all you wonderful people who wished me well or sent me birthday ecards or messages on facebook!). I've heard that each stage of life holds its own blessings and I'm particularly grateful for the opportunities God has brought into this time of my life. I'm glad I took this chance to come to the D.R. while I can; it's one of those life experices that can completely change who you are, and I'm excited to see what God will do in me in the months ahead.

Today Slabachs brought me birthday flowers!

Ticks and pics

Only two eventful things happened since I wrote my last post (that I can think of, anyway). One was that the Amys' yard and dogs became tick-infested when someone sprayed the lot beside their house with pesticide or something. They were able to eventually get their yard treated, and Monday morning I helped Amy Green take their dogs to the vet to get bathed, treated, and "de-ticked." Arlene is in the States and we took the dogs on the back of her truck so Amy wouldn't risk getting ticks in her car. One of her dogs, Snickers, tried to jump out and just about hung himself on his leash! So I rode in the back with the dogs. It was kind of nasty because if you ran your hand over their coats you could feel the ticks under all the hair.

Snickers is on the left and Diamond is on the right. They're so sweet!

The second thing is I finished a project this afternoon. Two staff members, Jose Nolasco and Andre Lara, will be leaving SI and Nate asked me to put together a picture slideshow commemorating their years of serving with Students International. Lowell had the SI mac computer in the States with him to get repaired until Monday night. So Tuesday and today I spent all day at Troyer's house at the base putting pictures and video clips to music. The staff are having a despedida tonight in Andre's and Jose's honor.

This is Jose and Vanesa Nolasco. Jose worked construction for SI since it's beginning in the D.R., and Vanesa is a dentist with SI. They also have a 4-year-old daughter, Marcella.

This is Andre with Mary, a woman from Los Higos who had a house built by SI contruction team last year. Andre has been pastoring a church plant in Los Higos and wants to work with the church full-time. Andre recently married Johana, one of the preschool teachers with SI.

The Amys

A couple of days ago my sister Adrienne asked, "So, who's the most fun person you've met since you moved to the D.R.?" I would have to say that I have met TWO incredibly fun people that I absolutely love to be around: the Amys.

Amy Babb and Amy Green both joined SI staff after I left last year. Amy Babb is an artist at the art site and Amy Green is a physical therapist who works at the special education/physical therapy site.

I didn't have a picture of them, so I stole this one from Amy G's facebook. That's Amy Babb on the left and Amy Green on the right:

Last night we had a girls' night at their house to celebrate Amy B's birthday. We ate pastelitos and watched a cute French movie and Katie made a DELECTABLE rich, fudgey, chocolate dessert with homemade whipped cream on top!

The whole evening was so fun; lots of laughs and good times!