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.

Camping

For those of you on facebook, this is probably old news. A recent highlight for me (ha, highlight from like almost 3 weeks ago! That's how long it's taken me to post to my blog again!) was a weekend camping trip at a huge lake/water resevoir with some friends. There are a lot more and better pictures on facebook, but here are just a few:

We took a boat out to a tiny little island way out in the lake where we set up camp. Not much room, not much privacy, but totally fun! The wind got pretty strong out in the middle of the lake, but we found little sheltered areas for our campfire and little grill area. This is basically the whole island:

Our little camp:

Me, Caroline, and Katie:

Alicia and Chastity, our wonderful cooks, grilling chicken, BBQ pork chops, and twice-baked potatoes (SO YUM!):

It was so nice to just hang out, eat, swim, play games, and relax for a couple of days. We battled rain part of the time, we all felt and smelled terrible by the time we headed home, and I don't think any of us really slept well, but it was still such a fun, relaxing, and memorable experience. We even cooked and ate shrimp that the guys caught around our little island!

Here's the whole group of us: Chastity, Alicia, Caroline, Ryan, Melvin, Anthony, Cristian, Katie, and me: