just a precious moment :)

So for the month of July I've been subbing in a 3-4 year old classroom for their lead teacher.  It was super weird to hear little kids speaking English (and/or Japanese, Chinese, Korean, and Hawaiian), and after I got over that I quickly remembered my "want" to have an Asian child at some point in my future ;) haha 


I had the cutest conversation with one of my 4 year olds and her mom today...
Anna - "Ms. Jessica is a diamond!"
her mom - "What? Oohh that must be expensive, maybe she has to have her prince buy her some diamonds, huh?" 
Me - "No, my handsome prince already gave me diamonds!" 
(flash my ring)
Anna - "wooowww!"
her mom - "and someday Anna will have her handsome prince to give her diamonds, too, and you'll get married and I will be there!" 


This was probably the most precious moment ever. Such a great mother daughter moment - you could just feel the love radiating from them as Anna's mom spoke about little 4 year old Anna getting married someday. 


So incredibly cute!

Will You Marry Me?

I'm engaged to Brian Sommer. 

OH.


MY.


GOSH.


and I'm sure you're all DYING to know the story, so here it is! :) 


[but we have to start from the beginning]

I left for Indianapolis on Tuesday, June 12 to visit Brian and his family for a few days.  After getting to know his family and the cute hippie town of Broadripple, we drove up to West Michigan to visit my family.  My mother, father, and brother were flying to Michigan for a reunion on my Mom's side of the family, so it was perfect timing for Brian to meet my family as well.  Brian and my parents spent time together at Holland beach and Grand Haven on that Friday.  
Basically that whole day Brian was acting super weird.  I mean, if you know him he generally is a goofy guy...but seriously, today was a different Brian.  He was acting nervous and silly all day, and when we got back to my grandmother's house he kept talking about how he wanted to take me "to this certain place". 

At this point, I totally knew what was coming. 


Brian and his family have been coming up to Holland, Michigan once a year since he can remember, so he kind of knows the area.  He took me through the beach cottages on the lake, walking on the sand, and to the pier overlooking Lake Michigan.  As the sun was setting, he said all these wonderful things, got on his knee, and asked the question...
"Will you marry me?"
AAHHHH!!!! 
YES!

...but he didn't have a ring. HHmmm..
* the ring he was going to give me didn't turn out to be quite right, so he said he would work on getting one the following week.
So, to make it feel more official until the actual ring was placed on my finger, we got a pretend ring from Walmart, America's finest jeweler.  Then he proposed again in the parking lot. 

Classy.


Brian left to go back to Indiana a few days later, and came back up to Michigan after my family reunion in Northern Michigan was over.  He took me back to the pier, in a "different" spot, and proposed again - with my beautiful (real) diamond ring! 

So, I got proposed to three different times in a span of 10 days. Who else can say that?!


I'm so excited to marry my best friend. I can't wait to call him my husband! :):):):):)


Let the wedding planning begin...

"Bearing Fruit in Every Good Work!"

"And we pray this in order that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and may 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 joyfully giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the kingdom of light." Colossians 1:10-12

(I'm pretty sure these verses changed my life this year)


Well, it's official. I am officially finished with my second year teaching 3rd grade at Jarabacoa Christian School. Here are some highlights to the last couple months of school...


I had a student teacher from the last week of March until the third week of May.  Her name is Alyssa Morris from Biola University, and my kids and I had so much fun with her! It was great working with her, and I hope she was able to learn a lot about not only teaching ESL students, but also living abroad and seeing how awesome it is to live that "missionary" life! A few weeks ago we had a going away party for her. Alyssa, you were so special to us! 

Alyssa and I

Miss Morris and the 3rd graders!

We also had an awesome awards ceremony with 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade - complete with RED CARPET!

Some third grade awards included....

Endy for "Best Hugs"

Angelica for "Most Likely to Speak Hawaiian Someday"

Enmanuel for "Most Loyal Friend"

....And many more!

After Miss Morris left, there weren't very many days of school left in the year.  So what did Ms. Ensing do? Last 10 days of school balloons! There were 10 balloons hung from the ceiling starting on the last 10 days of school.  Each balloon had a number on it, counting down to "1" as the last day of school.  Every day we popped a balloon and did the fun activity that was inside! 

Balloon number 9...

Make "9 more days of school" hats!

Can you guess what balloon number 2 was?

 (addressed to Ms. Ensing) "Be our teacher in 4th grade" :) 

The last balloon was a water balloon, for our water day! This was probably my most favorite school day of the year.  We started the morning watching a movie, then I chose a student to be blindfolded for the last balloon popping.  I popped the balloon over his head and got him soaked, which was SUPER fun.  We then proceeded to have a dance party for 30 minutes, involving the whole upstairs floor of students in the hallway.  Then, we all went downstairs and got everyone wet before waiting for the firemen to come and spray all the kids with their hose! 

And that's that. School's over. So fast and slow all at the same time.  What am I doing now? PACKING! In approximately 36 hours I will be at the airport in Santiago, on my way to Indiana - meeting up with Brian and his family. OH.MY.GOSH. I think I tried too hard to not "check  out" on the last weeks of school, and I purposefully tried not to be excited/nervous/anxious/relieved to go the the states after 10 months of being in the Dominican Republic.  I still don't know what to think...

Please pray that my culture shock isn't too extreme.  I will say I'm nervous/excited for a lot of things coming up this week, but culture shock really shouldn't be one of them.  BRING IT ON! 

Okay I'll stop now.  This blog is long enough :) 

Meet Honu...

Meet Honu [HO-new]...
our new class pet for the 3rd grade class at JCS! 
Honu is a red ear slider turtle, and is about 4 inches long.  I honestly have no idea if Honu is a boy or girl, but I just say "he".  He was a gift from a family moving back to the states from Escuela Caribe, where Brian works.  AWESOME!





Honu and my third graders hit it off really well.  First, during Friday Free Time last week my students voted on the name "Honu," which means "turtle" in Hawaiian (I teach my kids a new Hawaiian word every week, and I guess "Honu" for our turtle seemed fitting).  The vote was narrowed down between Honu or Lorenzo, and the name Honu won :) 



The students warmed up to him quickly.  They first observed him in his tank, and later everyone sat in a circle and watched Honu walk around (and he walks REALLY fast!).  How fun!







We hope to continue playing and learning about Honu until the rest of the school year (only 20 more school days!!!).  What a great class pet!













**Please pray this turtle stays healthy...I'm nervous about keeping him alive! 

Opportunities

Opportunities. 

God gives us so many of those "opportunities" to bless us to show His love to others huh? 

I've really felt blessed to be a blessing lately.  As many of you know, I  L O V E  to take pictures.  I had the opportunity to do some photo shoots with a few friends in the last month - one for a beautiful, amazing couple I work with that are having their first baby next month, and another photo shoot for a single mother that works at JCS, whose daughter had her first birthday party.  

First - Kristin and Dave.  Shot at Playa Cabarete in Dominican Republic - they turned out great!

For more, check out this link: http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.725505783584.2144997.15302738&type=3&l=2dab483869 

Dave is the art teacher at our school, and Kristin was one of the first grade teachers (except now she's on maternity leave).  They are also both involved in a ministry called Alianza, which is a ministry to try to get young women out of the sex-trafficking industry in the DR.  They both have amazing hearts for God, and I'm so excited to meet their new baby girl! 

I also got the opportunity to photograph one our preK teacher's daughter's first birthday - Yocasta's daughter, Inessa.  In one of my blogs last year there was a picture of me holding her a couple weeks after she was born.  Now she's one year old! How crazy time flies! She is probably the happiest baby I've ever seen.

For more, check out this link: http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.733939861624.2145971.15302738&type=3&l=432cfb4e59

They all turned out so well! I was so thankful I got to take these for Yocasta. She works so hard to take care of her daughter, and it made me so happy to take these beautiful pictures for her!

sometimes you just have to laugh...

Aaaaahhh so much has happened since Valentine's Day.  For starters, I turned 25 on February 24. I am now officially in my mid-twenties, half-way to fifty, a quarter of the way to 100 years old. GOSH. I am also noticing the fact that I am slowly gaining more wrinkles (some like to say "crows feet") around my eyes when I smile.  This could be due to high sun exposure my whole life, however, I attribute my crows feet to getting old. 


The actual day was fun.  My kids threw me a "surprise" birthday party, we had a half day of school for Dominican Independence Day, and i got soaked after school (the typical Dominican tradition).  

Then, most of the girls I work with and have Bible study with threw me a surprise birthday party, which included enchiladas and playing games all night. Brian came over for a little bit and sang me a song he wrote with his guitar (which was WONDERFUL!), but then had to go back to work. 


All in all, it was great!

Okay. change of subject. 
BIG NEWS. BIG CHANGE. Everyone listening?




...good. 




God told me something I wasn't expecting. and didn't want to hear at first.  
These last couple months I've been really trying to listen to what God is telling me, and really praying hard about what the future looks like for me.  I finally attempted to look for jobs in Hawaii for next fall, and applied to an elementary position open at a school in Kaneohe.  The second I pressed "send," something didn't feel right.  It was like a dark cloud was over that job and the whole topic of teaching or finding a job in Hawaii.  [sign # 1]


So what did I do? 
prayed. HARD. 


I already said "no" about coming back to JCS for the fall.  New teachers were being hired for next fall already.  But just in case, I went to my boss and asked if they had already rehired for my position for next year.  


He said "no, it's still open."  [sign #2]


Then after school I went on a long walk to talk about it with God, alone.  After thinking and praying a lot about it, i figured, "well, what's another year?"  These kids are so deprived of teachers that stay longer than two years, and they rarely see consistency and care from the same teachers year after year - which results in a lack of motivation to do well in their schooling.  If it seems like their teachers don't care, why should they? [sign #3]


Well, here's the news...
God-willing, I'M STAYING IN THE DOMINICAN REPUBLIC FOR AT LEAST ONE MORE SCHOOL YEAR. 


It will be hard. So many changes to JCS are taking place - who knows what it'll look like next year.  But I want to be a part of it. I'm not quite done here yet. 


Financially, it will be difficult.  Plane tickets, classroom supplies, necessary personal items, and so on.... but I know that if God wants me here He will provide, and all I need to do is trust that it'll happen.  


So, that's life right now.  crazy right? Just two blogs ago I wrote about losing the joy in my job and choosing to move back to Hawaii.  Sometimes you just have to laugh.. HAHA!

Prayer is always needed.  Thank you for all your thoughts and prayers - they are greatly appreciated! I couldn't do this without your support :)

Valentine's Day

I probably had the best Valentine's Day ever. 

Here's how it all went down...


After a super psycho day at school (less stress was involved because this was greatly anticipated), i came home after giving a piano lesson to find a note saying "welcome home" and rose stuck on our outside gate of the house.  


Then, another note and rose on our front door. This time with lyrics from a favorite Dave Matthews song. 


I walked into the house, and found another note on my closed bedroom door with yet, another rose.  This time saying "find the numbers to reveal the puzzles inside.  My heart feels just like these balloons popping every time you cross my mind." 
I open my door to find this....

Every balloon had a number.  I had to pop the balloons in order, to find each one with a piece of a beautifully written love note/poem from my most amazing boyfriend.  


(Then we made chicken quesadillas and watched The Bachelor. A perfect night!)





How did I get so lucky? <3