Gracias a Dios

Hey folks. It's about that time when cultural stress starts to hit. I've been here for a month, so I'm right on schedule. The last two weeks have been a little difficult, living in a culture that is not the one that I've known. There's a lot of truth to what I said before about trusting God and that it's better to be okay with not being to go where you want when you want, but that's not always my reality. Sometimes I still am really frustrated with things here, and it's exhausting to deal with those stressors. People call to me and stare at other people (including myself) everywhere I go, power and internet are unstable things in my house, and the Spanish hadn't been rolling off my tongue as naturally as it usually does. So, I am taking a leaf out of a friend's book and I am deciding that it's time to start looking on the bright side and being thankful for what I do have to maintain a positive attitude and a thankful heart. So here is a small list of the things I am thankful for:

1. God is good. He's gotten me this far-more than sufficient proof that He will continue to carry me through.
2. I receive love and encouragement and support daily from this guy (I'm lucky I'm in love with my best friend...and that he's coming here in 2 weeks!!):

3. And these lovely people:

4. And these lovely people (among others) (sorry for just stealing your picture Steph :) you're beautiful) :

5. I live in the mountains now. The beauty is breath-taking.
6. The community that I've become a part of is incredible and so supportive.

7. My students are amazing and so much fun to have.
8. I get to do fun things with math every day. (cue name-calling ;) #hatersgonnahate )
9. The coffee here is divine.
10. Mango. (and fresh fruit in general)
11. Moto rides are pretty fun.
12. I get a cold shower every hot day.
13. I have internet in my house.
14. I get Dominican food made for me every day.
15. Spending time in the Word has been so natural and enjoyable to me lately.
16. I have a great group of people to work out with and even enjoy it!
17. When you kill a couple ants in your vicinity the others somehow sense it and disappear faster than they arrived.
18. I get to watch Gilmore Girls with my friend Katie all the time and it's awesome.
19. I have a fan.
20. I have less stuff and less space so my organizational skills have improved dramatically!
21. The day my backpack broke for good was the same day that a brand new, awesome one arrived (they're hard to find here when it's not the time right before school starts and Minerva got a shipment of clothes to sell that same day and magically had a backpack in that shipment!)
22. I have an awesome Bible study here that's one of the highlights of my week.
23. The buildings are so colorful.
24. It's always green here.
25. The school campus is gorgeous.
26. Coke has real sugar here.
27. I have a great relationship with my host mom.
28. I live in a safe place and have a lot of people to look after me.
29. Pizza and brownies.
30. I get to hang out with my students outside of school and have movie and cookie/brownie nights with them.
31. I sit on my second-story porch lots of times to work on things.
32. I have markers and colored pens.
33. I get to speak and listen to Spanish every day.
34. Butterflies.
35. Bachata (i.e. Prince Royce).
36. The mornings and evenings are cool here in the mountains.
37. The monkey that I pass every day on my way home from school.
38. God provided money that wasn't there for me to be here and move back with a little bit left.
39. I haven't felt this healthy or whole or strong in a very long time.
40. God is always with me, guiding me, protecting me, and giving me strength.

"Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good; His love endures forever." -Psalm 118:1

Así van las cosas

Sometimes in this country, things don't always go as planned. Sometimes the lights go out before I've saved my work and since my charger has stopped working for my computer it shuts off in a split second. Sometimes the power goes out for hours when I have a ton of work to do on my computer. This happened yesterday since it was pouring. I got a little extra time to spend with Jesus and a nap in the pouring rain. It wasn’t so bad I suppose :) An advertisement that I have seen at gas stations here is, I’m not kidding, “Siempre hay gas”-we always have gas. Why, you may ask? Because sometimes gas stations just run out of gas. Sometimes you’re running really low and have just enough to make it to the gas station-just to find out that they’ve run out for today. And then you have to rely on a friend to bring some to you.  

I have been finding this to be very true in the classroom as well. One morning Brad and I got to school at 6:45 as per usual to get ready for our 7am class which is AP Calc, Pre-Calculus, and Foundations of Math all in the same class. The printer wasn't working and we had quizzes to print out for some of our Foundations students. The mini computers for the rest of our Foundations students were not left in the library like they were supposed to and were locked up until the rest of the staff arrived at 7:45 when our class was almost done. Most days there are issues with some of the videos they are supposed to be using on Khan academy (probably due to the connection). We have to improvise and make do with what we have. Almost every day feels a bit like a juggling act that we somehow perform daily. And you know what? It works. The students learn things-things that they are supposed to on a given day-and they are all receiving the individualized instruction that they need. 

Sometimes you have a really fun lesson planned one day and you get there and you know what? Your students just aren’t in the mood today. They just want to be lectured at and don’t want to have fun. Sometimes what you thought you planned out really well, you didn’t.

And so goes life. We like to think we have control over things. We like to think that we can get anywhere we want when we want, that we can have access to whatever we want when we want, that we have control over the simple everyday tasks. Then our car breaks down or thunderstorms during our tubing adventure or our flight is delayed and we miss the only connecting one going out that day and we’re suddenly reminded that we don’t have quite as much control as we think we did. These circumstances are unfortunate and annoying and at times costly, but they can create some of the best memories. They put us in our place and remind us of our dependence on God. And this unpredictability of life has been teaching me so much, beginning with my lost passport before I came and continuing on throughout a lot of my experiences here.

It’s a little bit contradictory to the other important things I’ve been learning-such as how to plan ahead for lessons (a very difficult feat for someone like me) and how to maintain sanity and organization in a chaotic world (a book that I have been reading through to help myself grow in this area) and I don’t want to discount the importance that learning how to plan and organize holds on my time here, I just am constantly reminded throughout my efforts that it’s ultimately left up to God’s will and that I need to leave more room for His speaking into my life.  

Que sueñes con los angelitos...

On top of our math classes Brad and I are also teaching another class on MWF with the 10^th graders. On Mondays we have what’s called Crew and Wednesdays/Fridays we have a Devotions class.  The idea behind Crew is that we are all members of the Crew-we are not passengers. We work as a team, we are active participants in our work and in our lives, and we don’t just sit back and let things slide by.

Today, our theme for Crew was dreams. Last week we asked them to think about what they would do with their lives if neither money nor other people’s expectations were a factor. This week they all went around and shared their dreams. It was a beautiful thing. How often do we let kids dream? How often do we ask them to do that? How often do we ourselves dream? Often times we find that we’ve forgotten how. These students have beautiful dreams-maybe it was just the delay in the caffeine reaching my bloodstream but I started to tear up a little bit as I heard them. They want to be forensic scientists and doctors and NBA players and PE teachers and business owners and mountain climbers. It’s beautiful. These are big dreams for these kids. Some of them grew up knowing what it was like to dream but many of them never even dreamed of making it to college. Even now, many of them are going to have to really fight to make it. They have to work hard, be really good at something that they can get a scholarship for and fund-raise their way there. Many of them do make it there. Some stay here.

Since we know that asking them to dare to dream may be a dangerous thing, we help them come up with a plan. Once they spoke their dreams aloud, we said “Great! Now let’s make a plan for when and how you’re going to achieve this goal.” They wrote out three things they would have to do during college to reach their goal. Then three things they would have to do during high school to reach their goal. Then three things to do this year at Doulos to reach their goal. And finally, three things to do this semester to help them work towards their goal. This seemed like such a crucial part to me. Being capable of imagining a dream is half the battle but it does nothing as a coin thrown in the fountain.

Many of us have already achieved the dreams of these students. We are doctors and scientists and business owners and teachers and now what? What’s our next dream? Why did we want to be that in the first place? Is it still our dream? Are we accomplishing what we wanted to do? Can we do it better?

Ahora te pregunto, now I ask you…if neither money nor the expectations of anyone else were a factor, what would you do?