So first of all I need to put out a MASSIVE apology for not updating while I was down in the DR. Sorry for those of you who were checking up on me the past 6 weeks! As you can see from the title of this post, I am home now after 6 amazing, exhausting, life-changing weeks in the Dominican. Before I launch into what God has taught me through it all, I'll show you some summer highlights in pictures, and I PROMISE to upload a video or two in a separate post after this one.
The picture all the way at the bottom is my classroom pre-students. So clean and organized! It didn't stay that way with 9 energetic 3rd graders, but it was fun to see the classroom walls fill up with art projects as the summer went on!
The picture above that is my class with one of our art projects, olympic torches as we learned about the ancient olympic games and Greece (one of our themes this summer was Europe).
Above that is a picture of some of my class and I on the last day! Sorry that everything is out of order!
Fun story with the next two pictures above that one...one day I decided to walk home with some of my students, who live in a Barrio (neighborhood, usually of shacks) down by the Yaque River. They were SUPER excited to show me the river and convinced me to jump off some rocks and swim with them (as you can see in the picture, I jumped in fully dressed in my jeans!). I later found out that the location I jumped in the river was, well, lets just say less than clean. But God protected me and I didn't get a parasite or skin rash or anything from that swim. BUT before I found out about the water situation, I made a promise to my students to come back and swim with them again another day. From that day on, they asked me EVERY SINGLE DAY in class when I was coming back to the river, and the other kids in the class who didn't live in that barrio decided that they were going to come too when we took this big "river outing." I couldn't bear to break the kids hearts or go back on my promise, so one Monday near the end of the summer I took about 6 of my students back to the Yaque for popsicles and a swim- we were also joined by lots of neighborhood kids eager to show me how they could flip off the rocks and catch fish with sheets. I mostly stayed on the shore to take pictures and make sure everyone stayed safe- God was faithful and everyone was safely back in their houses that evening, including me! God really calmed my fears about being in charge of a bunch of kids out side of school, going to the sewage river, and being in a barrio without any other adults I knew. I learned a lot about trust this summer, and I would do the whole afternoon again in a heartbeat to get to see the big smiles and excitement on all the kids faces again!
Above those pictures is a photo from Irish dancing class! At first I was only supposed to do one week of dance class as a special "surprise" class for the girls, but they liked it so much that I did 2 more weeks of afternoon dance classes at Anija, the school I taught at. The girls loved it, it was so unlike anything they had ever seen, and they got to keep the shoes at the end! After those 3 weeks, I was asked to go out to the Ark (the orphanage) and teach dance lessons to the girls there for their weekly talent show. I had a couple of hard days there, since at first the older girls thought the dance was "too hard" and wanted to do a ballet instead. So, with all the ballet knowledge I had from seeing the nutcracker every Christmas when I was little, I made up a "ballet" with the older girls and did irish dancing with the younger girls. It was a really cool experience to work with the older girls on a "ballet" because I feel like it was God's way of telling me, "I don't need your Irish dancing talent, I need your heart for these girls and your love of dance and your willingness to be here." And we had a great time! The girls even begged me to come back to make up another dance for the next week's talent show. This time we did a Hannah Montana dance. After the first difficult dance class with this group I never would have guessed that these would be the girls telling me not to leave and making me cry because I was sad to leave on the last day! They may not have learned much Irish dancing, but I made some great connections and had so much fun seeing how proud the girls were to perform their dances at the talent shows. I will try to get my hands on one of the videos and put it up here!
So, a few overall things I learned from the trip. One major theme of the summer was trusting God. There were a couple of days where he brought me to my knees and to a point where I had to tell Him, "I don't know how I'll get through today." These of course turned out to be some of my best and most memorable days, because when we give up control and ask God to come through, He shows us how great his power and faithfulness is! Being in these situations made me realize how rare it is for me, when having a bad day, to go to God and ask him to come through. My natural reaction is to tell myself to snap out of it and move on. I've definitely learned how great it is to trust in my Lord to provide, and I hope that's a lesson I don't forget! I hear the hymn, "Tis so sweet to trust in Jesus" with new ears now!
Well, this post is getting pretty long, props to everyone who made it this far! I've learned so much more the past 6 weeks, please ask me all about it! God bless, and watch for dance videos hopefully very soon!
