One Week

Heavenly Father,

I only have one week left in this beautiful country.  I thank You, Lord, for all that You have taught me.  Over these past two years I have grown so very much.  I think back to last year, all the times I wanted to leave the DR.  You faithfully sustained me, and now I don't want to leave.  I am trying to trust in Your plan for me, God.  I know it is better than what I have dreamed up.  Help me to finish well, Lord.  Help me to leave a legacy here in this city, in this country.    

I pray You will help me stay in close contact with my friends here in Santiago.  Bring me back to this crazy city soon, Lord.  I really don't think You are done with me here.  Going back to Oregon is going to be hard.  Help people to not forget to pray for me.  Help me to not forget to pray for them.  I cannot say thank You enough, Lord, for putting such amazing people in my life in Santiago.  You spoiled me with some really amazing friends. 

Bless the people and ministries I have worked with here in Santiago.  Bring more people to help with the work.  I know the harvest is plenty, but the workers are few.  I pray for more leaders in APPS, especially female leaders.  Stir up the hearts of people in Vida Nueva to want to serve the youth of the church and community.  Help APPS to not just be a fun place to be on Saturday nights, but help it to be a place where the young people are growing closer to You.   

I thank You for the lives of the girls at the Hogar de Ninas.  They are such sweethearts.  Dancing with them, crafting with them, eating with them.  Spending time with them is always one of the highlights of my week.  I pray You would do a mighty work in their hearts a lives.  Bring them to You, Lord.  Show them how loved they are.  Show them that You have a plan for their lives.  They are important.  They are noticed.    

I lift up New Hope to You today.  Oh Lord, do a mighty work in the lives of the girls there.  Help them to turn from their sin and run to the cross.  Give energy and strength to the employees at New Hope.  I especially lift up the teachers and nannies.  It is a hard and exhausting job, God.  Give them what they need to do what YOU have called them to do.  Continue to send interns to help.  Cast out the darkness and evil in the lives of the girls and bring them to You.  

I pray for Cantico Nuevo.  Bless that church financially, God.  Help them to grow and saturate Santiago with Your amazing HOPE.  I pray they would reach outward.  There are so many people searching for You, Lord.  I pray for their Sunday school program.  Give the leaders new ideas and help the kids to grow in You.  Help the little ones to not only learn stories about You, Lord, but show them what it is like to have a real relationship with You. 

I lift up Iglesia Bautista Vida Nueva today, Lord.  You have blessed me with two amazing church families here in the Dominican Republic.  Help Vida Nueva in the transitions that are coming.  Help it to be a church focused on the lost people in Santiago.  Help Vida Nueva to reach outward, as well.  I pray for the men and women's ministries at Vida Nueva.  Push people outside of their comfort zones, Lord.  Help Vida Nueva to reach new and more people through Real Momentum and the couple's retreats. Teach them new things.  Help more people to get involved with grupos de vida.  Help the different cultures and languages to mix well.  Help people to not just sit in the seats on Sunday, Lord, but fill them with a passion to serve You.     

I pray for Refugio, the young adult group at Vida Nueva.  Give the leaders wisdom as they plan activities.  Put creative ideas in their minds.  College is so difficult, Lord.  Help them flee from temptation.  Give people opportunities to speak about what they are passionate about.  Help every last Sunday of the month to be a time of encouragement, prayer, and togetherness.        

God, I pray for Andrew, Isaac, and Joseph.  The three boys You entrusted me with for the past two years.  I have loved watching them grow into men of You.  Watching them step out in faith.  Watching them pray and serve.  Watching them grow academically and spiritually.  Let the seed fall on fertile soil, Lord.  Help them to get baptized and take the next steps of faith.  Protect them, God, as they go back to SCS.  Keep them safe and guide their paths.  Don't let them fall into temptation.  Put amazing friends in their lives that will bring them to You.  Help them to be involved at a church or youth group.  Put mentors in their lives to help them when they have questions.  

Use me in a mighty way this summer in Oregon.  I thank You for the job You've given me this summer working at my church.  Help me to transform the lives of the youth in Oregon.  Fill me with more creative ideas.  Use me in my family.  Help us to read Your Word together.  Help us to really pray together.  Use me in the lives of my friends.  Help me to just have a fun summer where I can relax a little bit.  

Continue to show me what You want me to do with Satura and the creative workshops I have been giving.  Guide me in the next steps to take, Lord.  Show me what You want me to do in the future.  I pray You would bless the dreams and ideas You placed in my head.  Help me to serve You with my whole heart, Lord.  

Thank You.

Thank You.

Thank You.

In Your mighty name I pray, Amen. 

God is working all over the world

What I've been reading:  In the fall, the girls read an autobiography called Evidence Not Seen by Darlene Deibler Rose.  This story captured and broke my heart at the same time.  Darlene was serving as a missionary during WWII.  She was placed in a labor camp in the South Pacific.  Her amazing survival story empowered me to be more prayerful.

from: here

In preparation for our Haiti field trip, Annie spent the year teaching us French and Bible.  One morning in Bible she shared a story from one of her favorite novels, The Insanity of God.  A missionary in northern Africa was struggling to see how the church could survive under persecution.  He traveled all over the world studying and learning from persecuted Christians.

One of the mini stories this missionary collected was about a guy named Dimitri.  He was a pastor in a communist country who was imprisoned.  He spent each day in his prison cell waking up, turning to the east, and singing a heartsong praising God.  The other prisoners would throw poop at him and yell at him to stop.  If he found any little scrap of paper he would write as much scripture on it as possible and he would put it on the wall of his cell as an offering to God.  The guards would beat him and tell him to stop.  Eventually they were so fed up with him, they brought him down to be executed.  As they were dragging him away, all of the prisoners in the building stood up, faced east and sang Dimitri's heartsong.  The guards were so astonished and scared they did not kill Dimitri, but let him go.

from: here

Another story the missionary collected was from youth in Russia.  When they were under communist rule, they memorized chapters and books in the Bible so they would not forget them.  Now that they are free to worship, the youth don't even know the names of the gospels.  The author also mentioned how we are so complacent in our faith in the US that the devil doesn't want us to be persecuted.  Persecution would bring us closer to the Lord.  The novel gave me a lot to think about.

"Those of us who have grown comfortable with the teachings of Christ have allowed His teachings to lose their edge."  Nik Ripken  

The Cross and the Switchblade was one of the required Bible books for school this year.  It was a fascinating story about a small-town preacher who goes to New York to work with gangs.  God called him and he wasn't exactly sure why or what he was going to do.  I can definitely relate to that.  This is a story about redemption, forgiveness, and the amazing power of the Holy Spirit.  

One of our students recommended The Little Woman, another missionary novel.  Christin read it; she told me that I needed to read it next.  The beginning of the story is so much like my own life.  Gladys felt like she was supposed to go to China.  She had no plan or idea what was in store for her.  I feel that way about my next journey to Costa Rica.  I don't know what God has in mind, but I want to be faithful and obedient.

from: here

Another friend recommended a book about missionary Amy Carmichael.  I don't know anything about her life, but I want to gobble up this book to find out all about it.  I am excited to be able to spend time this summer reading and relaxing and resting.

What are you reading?  Any recommendations?  

Con mucho amor.

Creative Math

What the boys have been making:  My goal for math this year has been to include more projects and note taking so the boys are not simply on the computer doing the Teaching Textbooks program every day.  Here are the last of the projects we did in math for the year.  Unfortunately, we will not have time to do any special final math project.  I hoped to have them math a math dictionary, but there are other ways I want to spend our last four days together.

Math secret code coordinate graphs - We were learning about coordinate planes.  I found a great website that had a secret drawing.  The boys had to follow the coordinates and connect it together to see the image.  This forced them to learn the true importance of whether x or y comes first.  :)  Then I had them make their own and swap with a classmate.  It was interesting to see what secret drawings they came up with.

Stem and leaf plot projects - We studied different ways to display data.  If there had been more time, I would have loved to have the boys pose a question and ask people to gather data.  However, I gave them a list of data points that they had to creatively express in a stem and leaf plot.  They also had to find the median, mode, range, and mean of the data.  I thought it was so neat they took the assignment and ran with it.  I hadn't even thought of making a tree instead of a flower.

I still cannot believe I am almost done with my second year of teaching.  How are you finishing up? 

Con mucho amor. 

How beautiful are the feet...

...of those who bring the good news! - Romans 10:15

The first week of May, the Reyes Academy and Comunidad Multicultural, a local Haitian/Dominican church, ventured together across the border to our neighboring country of Haiti.  It was a crazy two nights and three days full of heat, sweat, and a lot of Jesus.

We took a bus from Santiago to Dajabon, a town in the north part of the DR.  We crossed the border on foot, and we stepped into a whole new world.

Over the three days, God taught me that everyone is searching for love.  When we were in the baby rescue center, there was a little boy who looked so sad.  Christin asked if she could pick him up, and the workers said yes.  She held him while I tickled and played with him.  His face lit up.  He was bubbling over in laughter.  He wanted to be noticed.  He wanted to be loved.

When we were at the orphanages, the older kids loved talking and connecting.  The little ones loved holding hands and playing.  What can you do to love the ones around you a little better today?

God taught me about stereotypes.  I have heard that Haiti is dirty, hot, and like a desert.  I was so surprised when I we were driving to the Citadel.  There were trees everywhere.  Looking out at the top of the mountain I could see mountains beyond mountains beyond mountains.  They were all green and beautiful.

God taught me to lean on Him for strength.  Climbing the Citadel was a huge task.  The mountain was high and the walk never-ending.  We started off singing as we were walking, but then we were so out of breath that didn't work.  Eventually Christin and I took turns praying.  We prayer walked up that giant mountain.  We prayed for the trip, the ministries we met, our school, our students, our families, and for the country of Haiti.  When we keep our eyes fixed on the problem or the mountain, we will fail.  But when we fix our eyes on the LORD, He will help us.

God taught me about what heaven will be like.  I loved serving on a team with people from different countries.  We had Haitians, Haitian-Dominicans, Dominicans, Americans, and Dominican-Americans.  It was a mixture of skin colors, cultures, and languages.  And it was amazing.  We would sing in English, Spanish, and French.  We would lift our voices together in prayer in Creole, English, and Spanish.

When we were at the top of the Citadel, we had communion together, thanking Jesus for all He has done for us.  One of the leaders of the other group mentioned how we are in such awe and wonder of the beautiful view and of the amazing Citadel, but how we need to be even more amazed and in awe of what Jesus did on the cross.  It just gave me such a beautiful picture of what heaven will be like.

"After this I looked, and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne before the Lamb."  Revelation 7:9

I learned the power of communication.  I never thought I would learn a third language, but I can have conversations in French and tell the story of the calling of the first disciples.  Annie taught it to us before we left for our trip.  We stopped at Fort Liberty to walk and pray with the people.  We came across this little beach where people were bathing and washing clothes.  A little girl came up to Christin and I, and we asked her if she wanted to hear a story.  We shared Matthew 4:18-22 with her in French from memory.  She actually understood us, and she repeated the names of the disciples back to us in French.  Walking along the water, imagining what the story was like, I realized what it truly means to be a disciple.

"Come, follow me," Jesus said, "and I will send you out to fish for people."  Matthew 4:19

I loved watching the boys interact and play with the kids at the orphanage.  One of them asked to pray for a woman on the beach who was studying for a test.  They washed plates, they hiked the mountain, they amazed me.  It was incredible to see the fruit after two years working with them.

God, what do You have up Your sleeves next for me?

Con mucho amor.

National Poetry Month

What we've been writing:  April is one of my favorite months because it is National Poetry Month!  (Here's how we celebrated last year.)  It was a fun month full of creativity and poetry.  I loved being able to have the girls with us to share and push the boys to be even better poets.

Poetry calendar:  I saw this idea to have a calendar with a different poem a day.  The boys were so curious when I was creating the calendar.  It was fun to practice reading poetry out loud.  We often read a poem and then studied that type that day during writing.  I thought it was the perfect opportunity to expose the students to different types of poems.  Plus, it made a really fun display on the chalkboard wall.

I am - art poems:  We started our first day of poetry with combining writing and art.  The idea came from here on Pinterest.  The kids wrote "I am" poems, and then using oil pastels and watercolors to paint the background.  These turned out incredible!!

Poetry stations:  I had lots of different ideas for short poems.  Since we are always short on time, we made a day of poetry stations.  I came up with some of the ideas from this blog.

• Station 1: Poe-TREE with haiku baggies  The kids wrote haiku poems based on random objects found in baggies.  Then, they hung them on the poe-TREE.  The poems turned out really funky, but it was good to expose them to the poetry form.

• Station 2: Magnetic poetry   Mom gave me some magnetic poetry words last year, and I found a cute magnetic board when I was in the US last summer.  When the boys saw this station, they said, "Wow, so cool."  Christin also had magnetic words.  They took selfies with their magnetic poems. 

• Station 3: Dice poetry  The kids rolled the dice to see how many lines, how many words, and the topic of their poem.  The boys all happened to get one line poems, and then sat there doing nothing for the rest of the ten minutes of the station.  Next time, I would make sure to specify they need to write three or four of these, especially if they are that short. 

• Station 4: Art and senses   I found this amazing art book over the summer, so the kids wrote poems using their senses, focusing on one of the art pieces.  These poems were really cool, and they forced the students to think about art and writing in a different way.  

• Station 5: Magazine poetry  This station could have been a whole day in itself.  The boys created really short poems, and just kind of glued words onto the page.  Next time, I would have this be an activity on another day.  They could focus more, and I could keep an eye on the situation. 

Intravista poems:  I found this awesome book called Friday Poetry Anthology.  It is a great resource for middle school Language Arts teachers.  It has a poem a week for 6th, 7th, and 8th grade.  It includes prompts and connections to the Common Core State Standards.  One of their poems was called an intravista poem.  It had a hidden message within the poem.  The boys LOVED writing these.

Sonnets:  We read A Wrinkle in Time during April, and there is a great quote connecting sonnets to life.  Christin led the kids in some structured notes about two different kinds of sonnets.  Then, they wrote sonnets in groups.

from: here

Poetry Party:  Christin and I had the great idea to have a poetry slam and go to a cafe to have the students share the poems they wrote.  We invited their families, also.  We picked a cute cafe downtown and even called to check and see what time they would open.  However, when we arrived at the cafe at 8am, it was not open.  We decided the only other place open that early was McDonalds, which was conveniently down the street.

The kids were so proud of their poems.  They did a great job sharing, and the noise in McDonalds forced them to speak loudly and with confidence.

Corinne also shared a poem she wrote, which I loved.  It was great for the kids to see that people write poetry for fun.  Corinne didn't have a teacher forcing her to write.  :)

What's your favorite poem?  How are you encouraging people to read poems?  Have you ever found a poem that impacted your life?

Con mucho amor.