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.

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: