A long time coming ...

Dearest Family and Friends,

Saludos! Two brief confessions before I proceed: 1) At this point in transition and assimilation into daily life here, it's very difficult to not speak Spanglish (as in, I originally wrote as a greeting and then erased ,"Dearest Familia y Amigos") - my brain seems split right now and tires a bit from switching back and forth between the two languages and sometimes my words fall through the cracks of separation into an alphabet soup where they're all jumbled and some words start in Spanish and end in English, and vice versa. I say this to warn you/beg your pardon if it slips into typing subconsciously - perdoname :-) 2) I apologize for so much time having gone by since my last update. I confess that I was hoping to sustain the time and energy to continue to create lengthy, literary updates that would blow you away and make you feel like you're right here with me every moment. After a month and a half of living here, I'm finally really living, and I'm realizing that unfortunately, there won't be any possible way to take everyone along for everything with me, but that's been hard to let go of - I wanted to put you all in my pocket and pull you out to show you everything so badly. That's how much I'm soaking up living here, the good, the not-so-good, the in-between - it's so tangible and flavorful. All that to say that I'm sure you're ok with shorter posts and probably more pictures, right? I can do that. I'm raising my right hand to type and typing with my left to make it a formal agreement: "I Sarah, promise to update more frequently, using less words so you'll actually read all of my posts, adding more pictures and settling for them not being travel-magazine worthy."

You're so not believing me already because my "brief confessions" were a super long paragraph. Have faith though ...

School has started! My first grade class has 16 endearing, hilarious, unforgettable students that I already have a deep love for. It's amazing how important to me they are already. It's such an interesting dynamic, teaching children of poverty ; they're incredibly easy to love because they hand their hearts to you from day one. No pretenses, just raw emotion and truth. There are certainly challenges in teaching them that I hadn't foreseen in romanticizing the entire experience before I came, but the Lord knew that ahead of time and ordained that this overflowing love be birthed from the first day of school, to conquer all of those challenges in His name; difficulties such as altering classroom management and discipline structure specific to this population, limited resources as we're living and teaching in poverty, and the spiritual battleground that this their hearts as we introduce them to Christ. What a blessing to have Belizeur and Kelvin (classroom assistants for first grade) in the room with us at all times, helping in every way possible. Their overwhelming hearts for service and love for the children is an encouragement to me every day.

Some students have had some difficulty adjusting to the changes in staff, missing former Makarios teachers who have made a lasting impact on their lives, and some have simply had difficulty adjusting to a more structured daily schedule compared to their home life over the summer. Despite how these difficulties manifest throughout the day, the students come in every morning with squeals of sheer joy just to be arriving at school. Our staff devotional lasts from 8:30 - 8:45, at which time the students are permitted to come into the building and have 15 minutes of recess before songs and prayer. We let out a welcome whistle to wave them in and they come tearing through the field with hugs, high fives, and smiles for everyone, making us so excited to start another day --- the embodiment of His mercies being new every morning - God's mercy for us, our mercy for the students, the students' mercy for us, and our mercy for one another as staff.

With varied levels of ability and prior knowledge in our class, we're working through a comprehensive review of the alphabet, specifically focusing on the vowels, and we're excited to work with consonants next week. We capped off our vowel review with a vowel parade throughout the building on Friday (it was a big hit, I'm thinking we'll parade once a week)! In math we've reviewed quite a bit as well - number recognition, 2D figures, counting, addition, and more. Next week we're building a giant number line with paper plates and searching for buried treasure hidden under different quantities.

Our students brush their teeth every day, and we all enjoy lunch together after a student has blessed the food. No matter whose turn it is to pray, a special blessing is always lifted up for Odilsia and Monica, our "cocineras" who prepare "la bandera" every day. "La bandera" ("the flag") refers to some type of meat, rice, and beans, which is the typical Dominican lunch (specific options vary but those are the necessities). Another ridiculously cool detail about Makarios School food - we've got fruit trees in our backyard to add to lunch or breakfast - the freshest of fresh bananas, right off the tree!

I am so very happy to teach at the Makarios School. I can't communicate accurately what a blessing it is to have been brought here to teach these particular children in this manner with these co-workers --- it is truly a divine fulfillment of a dream that's been a long time coming. There's much more where this came from concerning school but I'm determined to make you read this entire post so I'll move on to life outside of school ...

We have a home! My lovely and talented roomie Imani Folkes and I have found a cute, quaint little place on ... well actually our street doesn't have a name. It truly doesn't. But the great thing about our hometown of Montellano is that everything is referred to as relative to something else, so we simply say "the apartment on top of Luis's apartment" and it's understood exactly where we live. (It was even put into the data system as such at the internet office when we signed up for wireless.) We're very happy here, feeling more comfortable every day as we make it into a home. We painted this week and now we're bursting with exciting blues and greens, and we're thankful to report that we have our necessary appliances and feel like "real people" who can cook at home, wash clothes and keep food cold.

As two single girls moving in and getting set up to live life for two years, there was much heavy lifting, assembly, and logistics that we were lost on us, and we couldn't have done it without the help of our teammates and our new Dominican friends who dropped everything they were doing to help us get organized. I hope to be as helpful to any newcomers in the future and to serve others in the way that is so well exemplified by the people in our lives here. Chris and Erika Snapp, who we just recently had to say goodbye to as they headed back home to the states, Andy and Lauren Upton, our fellow solteras Miranda and Dena, the Menolds, the Miles, and our Dominican friends galore have all made our struggle their struggle and have come alongside us to help with anything we've needed, giving much grace along the way.

Outside of school we've been enjoying decorating our apartment, community dinners and Bible studies with Makarios staff, cheering for our new friends playing in local basketball games, making friends in the community, and attending church at Templo Biblico, just a 5-minute walk from our home. At this point we feel completely comfortable taking public transportation anywhere we need to go - it's wild that that's already become the norm - jumping on the back of a moto and flying from one end of town to the other, squeezing into a carrito or a gua gua to jet from city to city, 4 to a seat, no seatbeats, windows down letting the breeze in ... This is our life here.

I am continually overwhelmed by Dominican hospitality. A walk through town can turn into visits with three or four neighbors, pulling out chairs for us and offering whatever they've just made to eat or drink, telling us the latest joke or "chiste" they've heard or asking about Makarios and commending us for working with their children. We try to explain that the pleasure and blessing is ours and try to explain that their welcoming us with open arms brings us such joy.

There are 17,000 more thoughts to impart and stories to tell, but to fulfill the promise of not making this a forever-long post I'll wrap it up and post some pictures to give faces to these people you'll read about. Please know that I think of you all often, love you very much, and pray for you from here in the Dominican Republic. If I may toss out some prayer requests for this next phase of life: please pray for our continued progress in instructing, guiding, and loving our students, for the continued uniting of our team as a whole, for the relationships we've already built and will build in the future to be Christ-centered and glorifying to God, and for the motivation and energy to stay as connected as possible with you all.

Thank you from the bottom of mi corazon for believing in this and for being a part of God's work here. Each day of life here I realize that it was part of His plan all along to call me here, and that my arrival, which has brought about such revelation as to who God is and His heart for the nations, has been a long time coming (as has this post :-))

God bless you all!

Lovestruck Sarah