jump in?

so

many

things

to

complain 

about...

...but what's the point?

I went hiking yesterday to the Jimenoa waterfalls - one of my most favorite hikes here in Jarabacoa.  After a good 35 minute uphill hike, we finally reached the beautiful second waterfall.  The water was clear, almost turquoise, and the sun was hitting the rocks and water in all the right spots.  Just BEAUTIFUL. I was with a bunch of people who wanted to explore the area a bit further than I had before, and we ended up following the water flow down some smaller falls into other beautiful natural pools.  There was one part where it was required that you jump off a rock into the water - only about 12 feet high.  But...

I panicked. 

I absolutely couldn't do it! Something inside of me flipped my insides around in my stomach and made my legs freeze every time I built up the courage to jump.  I kept thinking to myself  "Jess. You've jumped from higher rocks before, stop freaking out! Everyone else did it..." But i stayed frozen.  

This month hasn't been easy.  Things at work are a mess.  People I'm surrounded with are becoming more and more negative.  Emotions are flying everywhere.  It should be so easy to jump into that pool of negativity and messy emotions, right? I've done it before....

Honestly, things with me personally have never been better.  I'm in love with my life, and I'm in love with God for giving that life to me. I was telling someone the other day that if I were a child and been asked to draw how I feel, I would draw me in the middle, surrounded by a yellow ball of light, but on the outsides there would be black. So, what in the world am I supposed to do with this? 

I'm not saying I don't dabble my toes in negativity with frustrating situations, but something inside of me churns and I stay frozen from heading into a negative spiral. 

Thank you, God? Yes. Thank you, God. 

 

"so that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience, and giving joyful thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of his holy people in the kingdom of light." Colossians 1:10-12

Good verse, huh?

(oh, and for the record.. I didn't actually jump)

CONTENTMENT.

Wow. Can I just sum up the last month of my life in one word? 


CONTENTMENT.


I came back the Dominican Republic jumping back into the life I left off with in June. But after traveling and taking EIGHT planes in the span of 5 days, I was ready for a little rest. HAH! 
I had about one day to decorate my classroom and the day after was the first day of school.  I started the year thinking I would have 15 students, but this slowly grew to 18.  So now I have one of the largest classes in the school...again. But we don't get thrown anything we can't handle, right? 

all the boys

It's fun. My class this year is made up of 9 boys and 9 girls, where the class dynamic is very much different than last year. A good different. The problem is that they are all friends and get along a little "too" well - but I guess that's a good problem to have, right? 

all the girls

Luckily, it seems God understood my need for rest and sent Hurricane Irene our way.  We got lucky and only had a ton of rain the first day, and hardly anything the second day. The best part--> NO SCHOOL for two days! It was awesome, and rest well needed!

I decided to become a YoungLife leader again this year. We went on a leader's retreat for a weekend, and while I was still hesitant to decide if I really wanted to make the commitment for the full year this year, I felt a complete sense of peace with the other leaders.  When we had our first club (youth group type thing) I felt contentment that I was making the right choice. So, it's back to YoungLife this year! I'm puuuuuumped :)

I think I found my "home church" here now. There's this school/church out here called Escuela Caribe, which is a boarding school for rebellious American teenagers. They just got a new pastor, who is aMAZing (and the best part of this church...its all in ENGLISH!). Last year I got incredibly burnt out from surface level preaching, let alone surface level preaching in spanish, to the point of me never caring to go to church.  However, the people at Escuela Caribe are incredible and have such great hearts for God.  I am always so inspired every time I go there by who I encounter while I'm there. I've also become a little more fond of someone that works there, so that's fun too ;)


I am incredibly content with where I'm at in life right now. Maybe God is putting this peace into my life as a hint for future plans? I don't know... I've learned my lesson so many times not to have high expectations about anything, so I'm simply taking each day as it comes.  Who knows!


Please pray. Pray for my class and Jarabacoa Christian School. Pray for my roommates and friends. Pray for finances.  Pray for safety (our house was broken into two weeks ago).  Pray for relationships being built and strengthened on the foundation of God.  And pray for this contentment to continue, God-willing.  Prayer is so powerful! 




...Thank you :)

Swaziland, Africa

So, I went to Africa. Swaziland to be specific. I can’t even begin to tell you how this trip impacted my life and how the other 16 people on our team were affected seeing what we saw, and doing what we did.  There were so many times where I didn’t know whether to smile, laugh, or cry. God is truly amazing.  We traveled to Swaziland to be a part of an organization called Advocates for Africa’s Children (AFAC), an organization a woman from our church started after visiting Swaziland about 6 years ago. Here’s a glimpse of our time in Swaziland, and other countries along the way…

Days 1-4 Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday: TRAVEL

The route we took to get to Swaziland was long.  We flew from Honolulu to Manila (Philippines) , Manila to Hong Kong (China), spent a night in Hong Kong, Hong Kong to Singapore, Singapore to Johannesburg (South Africa), then drove about 6 hours to get to where we were staying in Swaziland. OH.MY.GOODNESS. Although it was a LOT of travel time, it was a great time for our group to start a bond, because being together for about two weeks you kind of need a bond to happen so craziness doesn’t begin. Some good times to be had, for sure!

H&M in Hong Kong

Yes, I ate pigeon

Day 5: Wednesday

Our first day in the village of Mgambene. We spent the day at Pastor Edward’s homestead, working and learning what a typical day looks like for the Swazi people. For the women at least, the day consisted of hauling ears of corn from the field to the house and shucking the corn off the ears.  Other people began the project of building a green house.  It was a great day of building relationships with the men and women who live there.  In the late afternoon, around 70 kids (mostly orphans) came to the homestead to receive a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and half an orange from our team.  In order for us to understand a bit more about these kids’ lives, Pastor David and Pastor Edward asked the kids to raise their hand if one of their parents had died, and then again if both of their parents have died. The number of kids who raised their hands was astounding. He then asked who went to school and didn’t go to school. About half. WOW.

After passing out sandwiches and oranges to the kids, we had a chance to hang out with the kids and play with them.  While some of our high schoolers danced with the other kids, I held back and spoke with the local preschool teacher.  Her students were there, and showed us all the songs they knew in English and how much English they have learned already (because schools in Swaziland begin teaching English from day 1).  I asked her what her greatest challenge was, and she told me not having any toys. She has students ranging from ages 3-6 in her classroom, and she proceeded to tell me that she lets one of the 6 year olds in her class go to school for free, because he is HIV positive and has nowhere else to go. She was also really worried about the school closing down because there are no funds to keep it open. Most of her students do not have parents anymore to support their schooling. Several of them are HIV positive. School is the only stability they have in their life and that might have to end? It’s not fair. 

Day 6: Thursday

More corn was shucked, and relationships blossomed among us and the Swazi people on Pastor Edward’s homestead. The highlight: going to the local church, observing a typical church feeding for the orphan children, and playing with them.  At least three times a week the church feeds the kids.  The food they receive is a certain type of rice mixture, with seasonings that help malnourished children get the right proteins and vitamins they need to stay somewhat healthy.  I can’t even begin to explain what it felt like to witness this.

I was playing with several of the younger children. We were sitting down, me facing them, and I wanted to know how much English they knew and what they’d been learning in school.  They proceeded to count up to 150, count by 2s, 5s, and 10s, say the ABCs, and we spelled words together. It was an exciting teacher moment for me, and the joy on their faces when learning how to spell words was indescribable. WOW, again.

Day 7: Friday

We slaughtered chickens. My chicken’s name was Victoria.  Yes, I named her. For some reason killing chickens didn’t bother me at all. Is that strange? Probably. But an awesome learning experience! After beheading the chicken, we were taught how to pluck the feathers and gut the chicken piece by piece.  SO CRAZY. Later on in the day we ate the chickens we killed, prepared by the wonderful ladies on the homestead, along with rice and boiled cabbage.  Really yummy!

 This day also consisted of fetching water from the river and balancing it on your head, shooing the goats away from the chickens, learning how to wash clothes in the river, and chopping down a tree.

We ended this day at the church, where all the kids from the previous day met us and we had Shakira dance party – blasting “Africa” from the van. Incredible!

Day 8: Saturday

This day was…hard. We visited five local homesteads in
Mgambene, homesteads where poverty stricken families and HIV affected families lived – in the worst conditions I have ever seen in my life.  One homestead we visited was lived in by a young woman, who was caring for about 7 children, all orphans, because they didn’t have anyone else to take care of them. Sleeping conditions consisted of a mat on the cement floor of their teeny tiny room, where all of them slept together (which is incredibly uncommon because the boys and girls culturally sleep in different houses but on the same homestead). All of the other families had more adults and children living in the same or worse conditions. 

It was cold this day. I mean, cold. And here these orphaned children are in these homesteads where running water and electricity is the least of their problems.  No blankets, sweatshirts, shoes, good clothing to keep them warm.  There was one little boy in particular, probably not even 2 years old yet, wearing a pink flowered fleece and no pants or underwear.  Just dirtiness, and nakedness.  I can’t get this picture out of my mind. These people are lucky to even get a meal once a day.  How are we just supposed to let this go? How is this okay by any standards?  Well, it’s not. Sometimes all you can do is…

pray. 

Pray that God will protect them, because really…that’s almost all they have.

It’s just not fair.

Day 9: Sunday

Church! We went to the local church of Mgambene, where Pastor Edward preaches and the orphans get fed.  The service was an experience.  In those unstructured hours, we sang Swazi songs, Kate Miller and Jack Thibalt gave their testimonies, Mahea danced hula, we sang our own songs, Pastor Edward preached, Drew preached, an offering was given, and Nina’s shirts from Punahou were passed out to the people.  The day ended in difficult goodbyes to the people of Mgambene and of course, a Shakira dance party with all the kids. AMAZING.

Day 10: Monday

A LOT of driving today.  We drove to a local chicken business that AFAC supports, ate KFC, then drove 2.5 hours to a game reservation to go on a real African safari! We saw several different animals, including rhinos, gazelle, giraffes, birds, elephants, and warthogs. To be honest, it’s not really what I expected.  I don’t know why, but I kind of expected a safari to be like, a ton of animals walking around your safari jeep – so close you could almost touch them.  Nope. Not at all.  
The animals were difficult to spot at times, and the ride was almost 3 hours long.  We really wanted to see the lions, but they weren’t showing themselves that day. So, all in all, it was a long day. But at least I can say I went on an African safari!

Day 11 and 12: Tuesday & Wednesday

We began our time in the village of Nsindatje.  This was kind of the point in our trip where everyone was getting irritated with each other, and wanted to go home.  We all needed an extra push to be open to the new things we would encounter in this village.  In Nsindatje, we tilled the land, planted tomatoes, harvested sweet potatoes, blessed the land, I slaughtered another chicken (Helen), and led the kids in “The Ants Go Marching,” which proceeded a march around the church at least 10 times.  It was awesome! 

Wednesday was my last day with the group.  Thursday morning I flew out of Manzini to begin my long journey home to Hawaii.  I stayed in Hawaii for one night, and now I am currently on the plane going back to the Dominican Republic (school starts Thursday!). 

I think I’ve had about…oh, 5 emotional breakdowns since I left? From leaving early saying goodbye to the youth and amazing friends in Swaziland, to processing Africa, to saying goodbye to family and other friends….you would think this “saying goodbye thing” would get easier right? After years of doing this whole “leaving-for-long-periods-of-time” thing? Yeah…FALSE.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m incredibly excited for this next year in the Dominican Republic, and I think God will show me a lot this year.  However, I’m also incredibly excited to move back to Hawaii next year and start a new, hopefully more stable, chapter in life. 

Well, I think this blog entry is long enough. If you got this far, I thank you for your interest in my life and what God is doing in not only my life, but the world. Your support means more to me than you could ever know.

“You’re the God of this city, You're the King of these people, You're the Lord of this nation, You are. You're the light in this darkness, You're the hope to the hopeless, You're the peace to the restless, You are …”

Photo Cred to Josh Mcfeeley and Mahea Schuman for a couple pictures :)

"and isn't it ironic..."

"When God closes doors, He opens new ones. Better ones. Don't become discouraged when negative things happen." 

How ironic....today.


Do you ever have those moments when you feel like God is simply looking out for you when something happens because the same message/song/event keeps "popping up" at random times?  Or when someone randomly gives you advice or encouragement out of the blue, they have no idea what's going on in your life at the moment, and it for some reason fits what has been happening recently? 


...I've been having these "bursts of the Holy Spirit" lately. Especially today. 


I've been home in Hawaii for about 5 weeks now. This whole summer has been filled with ups and downs, high emotions, low emotions, excitement, fun, strengthened relationships, failed relationships, and flat-lined relationships. Who knew so much could happen in such a short amount of time right? 
Through the good and the bad, God was (and still is) there for it all. He put a burst of the Holy Spirit to encourage me to stay in the Dominican Republic next year, encouraging my good friend Melissa to stay as well.  He encouraged me when I was frustrated at both of my summer jobs, and also with friendships that unraveled into a messy ball of frustration. 


In 10 days I leave for Swaziland, Africa with a team of 16 high schoolers and leaders. I'm incredibly excited. I can't even begin to imagine what God will be doing with us and those in Swaziland right now. 

Please pray for us - for good health, being well-rested, and showing up with the right mindset God wants us to have. God is opening this door for us to do His work, and we want to give Him our all. 

Baby Blessings

Okay, so this year has proved to be the year of babies, babies, babies! God has blessed so many of my friends and coworkers with children this year.  Yesterday I had the priviledge of meeting Inessa - the brand new daughter of our PreK3 teacher, Yocasta, who was born last week during spring break. She is so beautiful and tiny, and I'm so excited to watch her first year of life here in the Dominican Republic.



Inessa, one week old :)





Proud moms:
Laura with Abram, 6 weeks old
Yocasta with Inessa, 1 week old


We are now anticipating Guilianna, the new daughter of our director Karen due to be born May 20, the new daughter of Rebekah - our high school science and math teacher, due to be born in June, the new daughter of Vanessa - the woman who currently lives downstairs from me due in June, one of our Spanish teachers having a daughter in July, the son of our PreK4 teacher Alicia due to be born in September, and the child of Whitney, who works with YoungLife, due in October (thats six more babies, to be exact). I also have some friends in the states that are having babies too!

I have never known so many pregnant women in my life at one time! I do have to say that I have learned so much about pregnancy and the joyous miracle that it is through knowing these women. God is so amazing, and just seeing and watching how a woman's body becomes transformed throughout pregnancy and after giving birth is incredible. It makes me so anxious to become a mommy some day! (don't worry mom...this won't be happening any time soon haha) i just love it! It's just so amazing how everything just works together and naturally... happens. It's just so great!

Thank you, God, for these new little ones :)

"Semana Santa" (Spring Break)

Since after Christmas, I had been counting down the days until spring break.  Here, spring break falls during "holy week", or "semana santa" - the week before Easter.  Basically, the whole country has off work or school this week and it is a great excuse for Dominicans (or everyone) to travel, go to resorts, and have a good time.



Cabarete Beach. The insanity during Semana Santa



So that's what we did! Three of my friends from college, Emma, Jana, and Amy, came down from Michigan to visit me and stay with me at an all-inclusive resort for the week. My good friend Melissa had five of her friends come down from Colorado, where we were a large group of 10 obnoxious Americans at the same resort. It was definitely a good time :)

Shrimp Kabob with tostones, rice, beans,
garlic bread, and salad. Yessss

Me, Emma, Amy, Jana

Melissa's Friends: Amy, Me, Brandon, Steph, Brett, Tyler, and
Melissa in the middle



Everyone!


Now, new thing to look forward to: SUMMER!!!



lucky 23.

Well, I have been putting off writing a blog about this (mainly because I kept forgetting to take pictures, and lets just put this out there - blogs aren't as fun to read when theres no pictures haha)

So, a lot has changed at school this quarter.  I don't remember if I mentioned this, but towards the beginning of the school year there happened to be six pregnant women on staff at JCS. Basically, I'm constantly surrounded by pregnant women at work.  So, as these women have begun to give birth (which is basically one every month now), JCS has found itself with a lack of substitute teachers.  Our fifth grade teacher, Laura (whom i took the pregnant pictures of earlier this year) had a substitute for her class, but two weeks before her due date her sub backed out. We were therefore in a dilema. Basically, in a nutshell, the outcome of this problem was to for Natalie Brewer (the other 3rd grade teacher) to teach 5th grade and combine 3rd grades, where I would teach all 23 of them.

So that's what happened. I went from having 12 students, to 11 students, then to 23 students.



After



Before

You're probably thinking, "oh, 23 students isn't that bad - it's just like teaching in the states" Well, yes. HOWEVER, going from a teaching style of 11 students to 23 students is definitely a challenge. So, we've been nice and cozy in our classroom upstairs learning up a storm all together. I will admit, I actually kind of like it better! Management seems easier, and forces me to be more organized.  Although I can't give all my students the attention they need like I could before, I feel like for the majority of our time together it's still a fun learning environment. AND, this will prepare myself for having 20 students next year!

Here's some improvements to my classroom that I've made recently...

Reading Sticker Chart

New Job Chart




Measurement Bulletin Board



Hawaiian Word of the Week

Skeleton (that I drew for a posture lesson), Behavior pins, Calendar,
Spring Break count down (paper chain), Class Rules

The last two weeks I have been teaching health, more specifically about posture. I had all my students practice good sitting, standing, and walking posture by sitting, standing, and walking with balacing books on their heads. It was fun!



Add caption

Never a dull moment in 3rd grade!

 

aye que bonita la cascada!

Today was another great day for being in the Dominican Republic. I'm going to tell you this right now....I'm SO antsy for spring break in two weeks and to go home in June. SERIOUSLY. However, today was a great reminder of how beautiful this country is and gave me peace of mind that this is where I'm supposed to be right now in my life.

Me, Jessica Stanley, and Melisa Gomez (two other friends/teachers at JCS) went hiking this morning to a waterfall near Pico Escondido (across from Younglife camp).  I had been hiking in this area earlier this year but we decided we would hike to the larger waterfall, basically following the river up the stream until we got to the waterfall.  We at first were complaining about how hot it has been getting lately (like, 90s now! Welcome to spring/summer in the DR), so we decided to lighten the mood and speak in British accents while we hiked. This then continued the whole time we were hiking. What a jolly good time it was!


Melisa, Jess, and me

Jess and I both had Nike shorts, Vibram shoes, and Camelbaks. We're so cool.

See the butterfly?



We made it!

We probably laughed the whole way up and down the river to get to this waterfall. These girls make life quite entertaining, and I am so thankful for that!