Growing pains

A few thousand years ago, Moses prayed, "Teach us to number our days aright, that we may gain a heart of wisdom" (Psalm 90:12). Wisdom is not knowledge; it's not "smarts" or some kind of halo that glows over the heads of those who have are more advanced in years. Wisdom is a gift from God that comes when you seek to aquire the right perspective on things--in other words, HIS perspective. Having things in the right perspective brings you understanding.

Since the purpose of this blog was to give updates to friends and family about how I was doing in the Dominican Republic, I wasn't intending to continue writing when I returned home. (And I'm not sure who all was really reading anyway :-) ) And I have that delightfully obnoxious demotivational quote from Despair, Inc. clanging around in my head: "Blogging: never before have so many people with so little to say said so much to so few." *sigh* Sad, but true. HOWEVER, those few might really enjoy the little said by so many. Thus, I write anyway. And ALSO because my dear friend Amy Babb said I should. So Amy Babb, I dedicate my blog posts from this point on to YOU with all my heart :-) Thanks for caring, for your encouragement, and for challenging me in the many, many ways you have over the past year and four months that I've known you. I truly appreciate you more than words can say.

When I look back over the past four months that I've been home I see myself wrestling with issues deeper than just readjustment back to my American life. God has used this time to bring deeper issues to the surface of the "soil" of my soul; issues like identity, loneliness, security, etc.--all of those weird struggles that make the teen years (which I am well out of by now, I might add) and the transition to adulthood so notoriously awkward and personal.

So that's the short summary of what's been happening with me over the past few months. If you don't want the nitty gritty details, I encourage you to skip ahead to the pictures at the bottom of the blog. Otherwise, brace yourself, because in the next few paragraphs I'm going to spill my guts for any interested person to read. Yikes.

Identity. Picture square peg vs. round hole. I no longer fit into my old niche in the family and didn't really want to anyway. I had changed and grown up a lot and coming home made me feel obligated to be a child again. There is a healthy type of fulfillment that comes when you become an adult, making your own decisions, exercising responsiblity and maturity, serving others, and developing an identity of your own apart from the family unit. I love my family and love the security of home, but I had tried my wings once and loved the challenges of flying.

The hardest thing by far was church. Spiritually, I grew more than I had realized in the D.R. I had learned to pursue God on my own and made my faith my own. God had faithfully and gently stripped me of myself, wowed me with an enlarged understanding of Who He is, and challenged all my lazy, Sunday-school answers and assumptions about what it means to love Him and pursue Him with all my heart, soul, mind, and strength. Coming home meant instant confrontation between me and my old self, including the obligatory compulsion to squish my relationship with God back into the family unit's faith and the family unit's church. NOT that my family and I disagree on theology or something! NOT AT ALL! I have tremendous respect for my parents and their spiritual leadership and for their deep and humble relationship with the Lord. I guess I just don't know how to reconcile the family with the big gap between where I was spiritually before I left and where I am now. For some reason it's hard to talk about.

I also find myself more and more able to identify with a different church family than the one my family is a part of, which has understandably caused some friction at home. I feel guilty about it, but I just can't help it. While I respect my home church and deeply love all the people there, I somehow just don't fit anymore. It's so hard to explain in words! I want to grow in Christ and it feels like there is so much more room to do so at this other church. Is this rooted in some kind of pride of autonomy, or is it the nudging of the Spirit, as I had always assumed? I question only because I know how sneaky self-deception can be...

Concerning loneliness, I didn't realize how starved I had been for deep, meaningful friendships with people my own age/stage of life until I went to the Dominican. I had grown up with a cozy, tight group of friends that I had met mainly through our church. But as time goes on, life naturally changes. People move, move on, grow up, grow apart, college happens, etc. Now we are spread out quite a bit and hardly ever see each other. It's one of those annoying things about growing up. Frankly, I've had almost no one at church my own age for years--literally years. And because of my family's busy farming schedule we don't often get the chance to regularly hang out with very many people outside of church. Taking online college courses (althought their time flexibility is fantastic!) didn't help. I worked at home, did my courses at home, and our church is very small.

Needless to say, the people I lived and worked with in the Dominican Republic were a HUGE blessing to me personally and I grew very close to my friends there. Coming home was understandable difficult. It was like, whoosh!, a vital support system for me was gone and I was a bit shell-shocked for several weeks. Then the loneliness kind of stalks you for weeks and months, creeping in and settling like a cloud over you when you least expect it, and melting away only when you can busy yourself enough to be distracted for a while. Eventually you learn to cope, to put down new roots, to look elsewhere for new friendships to nurture. My new friends at this second church have been a lifesaver, and particularly my good friend Maryann.

But my time at home has not been all bad--not at all! I've had many wonderful times spent with family and have had to chance to again enjoy the seasons on the farm and the crazy, but beautiful, Indiana weather. Right now we have a fluffy blanket of snow covering the ground with more giant clusters of flakes floating down every second. Simply stunning! And, for your enjoyment, here are a few random photos from this fall:

Moving cows to new pasture (our dog insists on riding with us):

Milking:

My sister Adrienne and I took a trip to Montana at the beginning of September to visit our cousin, Gina, and her family:



Gina and her husband Jake:


Demolition derby we went to in Ohio with some friends (and, yes, I am a bit of a red neck, which is probably why I had so much fun!):

Maryann and I visited Karissa, one of the interns we lived with over the summer in the D.R.:


Lisa and Katrina graciously volunteered to act in a short video project I had to make for one of my communication courses:

Extended family viewing the finished video at Thanksgiving:



Some fall color:

Vaccinating heifers:

Over my two-week Christmas break from school, I've been packing for Virginia. I'm moving to Regent University's campus in Virginia Beach on the 2nd of January because I have to finish my cinema-television degree on campus. I'm a junior this year, so just one more year to go!

Students International, Dominican Republic promo 2009

Home Again

It's Sunday evening, the 23rd of August. I'm back home, safe and sound, in my family's house in the States, still reeling from my full and crazy weekend. It all seems so surreal...

I'm still exhausted physically, mentally, emotionally. It's so strange to be home where everything is so familiar yet so changed. Or maybe it's just me who has changed. I look out my window and can't get over how beautiful my Indiana countryside is, but I find myself still looking for those Dominican mountains. I've had such a fun day with my family and friends here, but I can't help desperately missing my SI family and friends. I'm torn and disoriented, happy and sad, surrounded and lonely, comfortable and uncomfortable, wanting to share with someone but perhaps not yet. And just exhausted. I need sleep. Ah, re-entry just sucks. Things will get better for sure, after I've had a lot more sleep and maybe a good cry.

Tomorrow morning I'll be starting to get into the old routine again and I have to admit I'm kind of looking forward to it. I've missed the seasonal rhythms of the farm and home and am actually looking forward to tractors, dairy cows, and phyiscal labor again. I'll also be starting my junior year of college and aside from the fact that I'm still so tired, I feel mentally ready to hit the books.

It's going to be a full fall with work, school, a trip to Montana with Adrienne, hopefully a trip to Chicago with some of the summer interns, Lisa and Katrina going to several Civil War re-enactments, Katrina auditioning for a drama that rehearses in Kalamazoo, Mom and Dad's schedules, and whatever else pops up (something ALWAYS pops up). But I'm looking forward to it and know I will cherish these last several months with all of us at home. It will probably be the last time we will all live together.

I'll work on posting my final SI project (a short promotional video) sometime in the next couple of days.

4...3...2...1...

I'm in the middle of my final week. Just four more days. *sigh* I get choked up every time I think about it. I feel like there are so many things I need to do before I leave but my brain is flying in a million directions and I'm having a hard time focusing on anything or thinking things through. I know there will be things I'll forget to do...

These past two-three weeks have been very hard for me. I knew all summer that this end-of-year stuff was coming and thought I was processing things ok and that I was mentally and emotionally prepared...until it actually arrived. The day the rest of the interns left was my first emotional jolt and the hardest day of my entire year here so far. I cried like a baby and eventually couldn't stand to be on the base; everything was so creepy and empty and quiet and sad. In the afternoon I went to town looking for a diversion and ended up going shopping, and then later that evening Jess and Katie were so sweet and invited me to go watch their volleyball tournament. I was so thankful for that!

Then the next day was the day we single SI girls left for our beach stay. Jess, Katie, myself, Arlene, Amy Green, and Amy Babb had reserved two little beach condos for a whole week and I can't say enough about how wonderful it was! There couldn't possibly be a better way to end the summer! The place we stayed at was called The Nanny (below are a few pictures) and it was such a quiet and peaceful place to unwind and refocus. We spent our 5 1/2 days there eating, sleeping, reading, journaling, walking the beach, watching the kite surfers (Cabarete is a famous beach for kite surfing), and just enjoying each others' company. It was the perfect environment for me to sit and process the experiences of my past year and to just pray and think.

In my re-entry processing and thinking through the past year I was reminded of some blog posts written by other North American staff members that stood out to me when I initially read them. They gave me a lot of food for thought and I feel like they expressed some of my own thoughts and experiences so well that I'm just going to quote them. So, the following excerpts in quotation marks are not my words, but I echo their sentiments.

One experience of the past year that has definitely opened my eyes has been, in the words of Ryan and Caroline Holloway, what it is to: "...be a minority (or more maybe accurately...an immigrant). It's one of those things I've always thought about as probably being tough...and it really is. Either people really are staring at me, or I'm just paranoid that they are because I know I stick out. It sort of feels like my privacy is being invaded while I'm in public because I don't blend in. I was thinking...is part of the reason that races in the US often settle together because they don't want to feel like that all the time?

...be assumed to be rich because I'm white. First, White and American are the same thing, and second American means rich. The funny thing is that we're probably average middle class here. Now they don't have a big middle class, but that's where we'd fit. My thought is this...It feels uncomfortable and even a little hurtful when people assume we're rich, I bet it's way worse to be assumed to be poor."

And this post by my amazing friend Amy Babb (we get to fly out together, which is SO NICE) that she posted six weeks before we were to fly home actually made me cry. I have nothing to add to it; although it's from her own experiences, I understand it and it speaks my heart as well:

"It's a rainy Saturday morning and I am sitting on my bed in my robe looking out the open door to a moss and lichen-covered tree filled with limes. I ache sometimes when I catch these glimpses of exquisite beauty, knowing that soon and very soon I will not have the privilege of seeing this same view again.
I am leaving 6 weeks from today. Writing it gives me a suffocated feeling.
I am going back to America, LAND that I LOOOOVE (from the mountains, to the valleys...) and I often ask my God
WHY?
because I basically have the most awesome life ever. I get to look out my bedroom door at lime trees; listen to children laughing while the rooster crows atop his perch on Ysidro's lawn mower. I get to roll my rumbly old jeep down the ragged road of El Callejon, crammed with 6 or 7 people, a lunch box and some water jugs while kids run toward us calling out my name, "EMI!!!" I get to spend hours mixing paint colors, encouraging muralists to keep on painting amid the heat and bugs and rain and dirt. I get to take profound truths leaving in Spanish from Francisco's lips, translate them and send them on to English hearing ears, watching eyes widen or close depending on how the words are received in the hearts.
Martina squeezes me tight in the mornings on my way to the breakfast line. Natan rolls his eyes and shakes his head, not quite ready to greet the day with cheer (or my smile).
I have an incredible life.
Only 6 more weeks of Chinola juice. 6 more weeks of Sancocho. 6 more weeks of dodging motorcycles, of passionate worship, of kisses on the cheeks, of brightly color-coordinated women and waxed and preened men, of copy shops being out of paper and grocery stores being out of bread, of ice cream shops being out of ice cream and restaurants being out of cheese.
6 more weeks of junky old pick-ups loudly selling mattresses, platanos (a do' peso') and mother-in-laws.
And 6 more weeks of my beautiful friends.

O Jarabacoa, what am I going to do without you? I have loved you and I have hated you and I have laughed at you and also with you. I have cried with you, turned my back on you, invited you back in and spilled my heart onto you. I will never be the same."

Thank you, God, for such an incredible year of growth and blessings, of challenging experiences, of wonderful people who touched my heart, of laughter and tears, of learning to love life and learning to live to love for Your name's sake. I, too, will never be the same.

"For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom his whole family in heaven and on earth derives its name. I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.
Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen."

-Ephesians 3:14-21

a REALLY ugly spider

I saw my first tarantula this morning lying by the side of the road when Sarah and I were taking our early morning run. It was dead (thank the Lord) and being eaten by ants, but still disgustingly fascinating. Tarantulas are not common up here in Jarabacoa because of the altitude; it get's too cold in the winter. But in other parts of the island there's an abundance (ick!).

Here's a belly-up shot:



I flipped it with a stick (wouldn't touch it if you paid me!) to give it a more life-like pose lol. It was surprisingly heavy! Gross!

Resort Photos

Well, as promised, here are the photos!

SI here in the D.R. is so amazing; they give the interns a weekend getaway trip to a beach resort between teams. So Ben, Karissa, Dan, Jack, Laura, Maryann, Alicia, Josh, Sarah and myself, as well as our team directors Josh and Vicki Mathews, Jeff, and Bobbie spent June 27-29 in Puerto Plata at a resort called Hacienda Lifestyle. It was SO WONDERFUL and RELAXING! It was such a beautiful place with a great atmosphere. We did nothing but swim, walk the beach, eat, read, sleep, and just chat and hang out. Lol, two nights was barely enough; for me, the perfect vacation is complete when I'm bored with sitting around and doing nothing and I feel de-stressed and relaxed to my very core. The more stressed I was before, the longer it takes me to unwind and rejuvenate myself. But we did have a FANTASTIC time! 

Laura, Sarah, Jeff, Alicia, Vicki, and Josh M. enjoying the sun and sea breeze:

Nearest to farthest: Karissa, Laura, Jack, Alicia, Bobbie, and Sarah baking in the sun:

One of the many gorgeous views of the ocean from the resort:

This was definitely my favorite pool. It was joined to a bar at one end (the gazebo-looking thing at the far end) so we could sit IN the water on concrete barstools while we sipped pina coladas and coco locos! So fun!

Left to right: Laura, Bobbie, Jeff, Jack, me, and Maryann. 

Same pool, different angle. Jeff, Karissa, Bobbie, and Laura.

Sarah playing intern Josh's guitar above the beach:

Another view of the pools and bar:

Maryann, Karissa, Laura, Bobbie, and me at the buffet restaurant. The food there was AMAZING, let me tell you!

They put some of the fruit and bread scraps outside in this feeder to feed the birds:

Another view of the beach in the evening:

A truly amazing sunset!

This woman was making beautiful glass figurines outside of the buffet restaurant:

One of my favorite things we did was have a time of praise and worship on the beach late Sunday night. The ocean at night is so beautiful! The beach was technically closed (so there was no one else there--yay!) but no one came and yelled at us, so I guess it was ok lol.

These pictures are terrible, but I don't have anything better.

Goofy pictures in front of a fountain. Lol, good times, good times!

Countdown

Six weeks left...actually a couple of days less than six weeks. I don't really know how to process it all yet; I'm not sure what to think or how to feel. When I moved to the DR last fall I thought a year sounded like a rediculously long time, but as I approach the end of it I realize that it's not. Time has truly flown! So much has happened and so much has changed for me. And I've changed, too--probably also in ways I won't discover until I'm back on American soil for a while. I really miss the people at home but other than that I'm not at all looking forward to going back. After transitioning through the initial "excitement stage" of living in a foreign culture, then battling homesickness and loneliness for a while last winter, then finally settling into a routine and finding my niche, I've finally put down roots. Life here is the new normal, and now normal must change once again.

I feel like I've been on an emotional roller coaster the past month or so. The end of summer is looming so close and, while I'm really looking forward to the end of the busyness, I'm not at all looking forward to the rest of what the end of summer will bring: lots of goodbyes. This is the last outreach for interns Ben, Dan, and Karissa, which means they will be leaving in less than two weeks and the rest of the interns will head home two weeks after that. Then I will have two weeks after that to kind of recuperate and say my own goodbyes to SI staff and Jarabacoa. I know change helps a person grow and is ultimately for the good, but it really sucks right now. It even hurts.

Anyway, enough of the melancholy stuff for now. Here are a few pictures from the last outreach.

The students who worked with Caroline and Daisy at the women's center in El Callejon:

Vito, one of the team leaders, playing with some little boys at our preschool in Mata Gorda:

Art students sharing hope and the love of God through art:

Tule, one of the little boys in El Callejon asked to wash my motorcycle one day when I was in the community filming art. Ryan Holloway, who is leading the micro finance ministry, has also started a kind of financial mentorship ministry to the young boys in El Callejon to teach them how to work and wisely handle money. At first Tule was really shy about asking if he could wash my bike (it was so cute!) but he finally mustered up the courage to do it. Besides the 20 pesos we agreed on, I also gave him a 5-peso tip because he did a really good job!

I'll try to get pictures of our intern excursions up soon. SI gave us a weekend at a resort a couple of weeks ago and just this past weekend some of us went sight-seeing in Santo Domingo.

Moving right along...

Time is sure flying! Our third group of the summer arrives sometime this afternoon, which means our free weekend is officially over. Karissa, Laura, Maryann, Ben, Jack, and I went to town this morning/afternoon for groceries and just to shop.

I still feel so tired from this past weekend; I'm not sure I'm ready for another group yet. I feel like we're all constantly in transition. The groups stay for two weeks and by the end of the second week when you feel like you're finally connecting with people and getting to know them and can really relax and have fun...they up and leave and you have to start over with another group. It gets extremely exhausting.

One thing I must say is that I'm so thankful for our group of interns (Just so you know the names for future reference: Ben, Dan, Jack, Josh, Alicia, Sarah, Laura, Maryann, and Karissa). While we constantly have large groups of students coming and going every two weeks it's so nice to have a core group of friends that stays the same (for now--let's not think about the end of the summer and everyone parting ways!). I really love our wacky intern group; such different people with very different personalities! It sure keeps things interesting! My favorite thing, though, is being surrounded by a steady group of friends who all love God deeply and make an effort to support each other as brothers and sisters in Christ. Not that we never get on each others' nerves or that we always get along perfectly (lol!), but I think we all feel free to be ourselves around each other.


Here are a few photos from the past two weeks:


One of my favorite activities with the groups (partly because I don't have to film it--lol!) is the Sunday night campfire and worship time. That's intern Josh playing the guitar, and interns Sarah, Laura, Karissa, and Alicia are the four girls sitting in the back to his right.

One of the students in the last group with a little girl at the women's sports site:

Construction spent one afternoon siesta sitting on a hill overlooking the valley and sharing their testimonies about what God has been doing in their lives. Intern Dan is the guy sitting directly to the right of the guy in the light blue shirt and intern Jack is the guy furthest to the right:



On one of our off-weekends we interns headed up the mountains and spent a few hours relaxing at a waterfall. Check out the scale of this one; did you notice the two people in the water on the right?


We found a "natural Jaccuzzi" in a hollowed-out spot in one of the little waterfalls. This is Alicia on the left and Sarah on the right.

Me and Karissa:

Summer is in full swing here at the Students International base in the D.R.! All 9 of the interns have arrived, we've already hosted our first two-week team, and our next team arrives this afternoon. My real work doesn't start until Wednesday morning because the group will have orientation all day tomorrow.

Our first outreach went really well, considering. After a stressful first weekend for me (I was REALLY behind in editing) Maryann and I were able to catch up and BARELY finish in time for the banquet at the end of the outreach. But everyone really liked the dvd, which made us happy! Another high point for us was hanging out with the students on this team; we met some really fun people and had some great times!

Here are a few pictures from the last two weeks. They're not great, but they're better than nothing.

Interns Josh and Sarah leading worship one morning:



The art site did art in the park in the center of town one morning. Some shoe shine boys hanging around the park joined in. That's Francisco, one of our two art site leaders, playing guitar in the background, and Ben, one of our team participants, helping out on the drum.


Construction worked on building a structure to house a water-filtering system for a community called Buenos Aire.

Two of the girls in developmental therapy blowing bubbles with a child at the special education school.