This was the title of our support raising booklet. We have finally made it to our destination. We feel that we can relax and dig in here. We arrived on the evening of May 15. Bill and Juliana Hanson were at the airport in Santiago to meet us. Bill is the interim pastor at Nueva Vida Church and long time Dominican missionary. God answered a prayer of Ben's in that they had brought their foster son, Rolando, with for the trip. Ben had been so sad to leave his buddies in Rochester and we prayed with him about making new friends in Jarabacoa. What a blessing as Ben and Rolando chattered away in Spanish in the back of the van during our drive up into the mountains to Jarabacoa!
We have been blessed to rent the Kids Alive team house until the end of May. It has lots of space for us to unpack and sort our belongings, some yard for the kids to run in, and hot water every morning when we turn the hot water heater on! It seemed like we had a heat wave the first week as we all were dying of the heat. Now we are more comfortable and we are not sure if we just adjusted or if we really arrived during a heat wave since we don't have a thermometer or a TV to give us the weather.
The kids have enjoyed playing with Kids Alvie missionary kids. This has eased their transition as they won't start school till the fall. It was good for them to hear from other kids who have moved around and gone back to the States for home assignments etc. Ben is impatient to get a bike and REALLY wants a dog. He tends to display his difficulty in adjusting through being rigid about his food choices. Elena is struggling with fears of bugs, darkness at night, and all the Dominicans fawning over her (as they do with all little girls). Having gone through some of these adjustment issues in Guatemala, we trust they will pass and continue to pray for them.
Our first two weeks have been consumed by the hunt for a car and the hunt for a house. Rick visited nearly every car dealer from La Vega to Santiago. He spent a long day practicing his Spanish! He also drove around Jarabacoa with a mechanic to look at possibilities in town. Then he went back to the dealers with Chello, the mechanic, to check out the vehicles he had seen on his solo trip. Used cars hold their value here because labor is inexpensive and there aren't corrosive elements except along the coast. So we gulped many times at the price of 8-10 year old vehicles. We looked at four door pickups and SUV. The test was, can it get us to Boma easily? Boma is the church's newest church plant and to reach it you have to ford a river, bump through a rock field, and make it up and down the muddy roads.
Finally we met Chello at a lot in Santiago for a look at one more car, a ten year old Toyota 4-runner. We are able to drive the price down and stretch our budget for this SUV that is in great condition and has Chello's stamp of approval.
The hunt for a house continues we have looked at dozens, toured 6-8, and called about many more. The process to rent a house is as follows: put the word out to all your Dominican friends and missionaries about what you are looking for. Drive around town and look for vacant houses. If there is a for sale sign, call the number to see if they are willing to rent. If there is no for sale sign, talk to the neighbors to find out who owns it and try to track them down. Our best options so far have been houses that are currently being rented by missionaries or Christian Dominicans who are moving or going to the States.
Some of the difficulty personally in looking for a house is balancing cost, amentities, size, family needs and ministry needs. Most of the house we have looked at are within our budget. The question is, what house will serve our family and ministry needs the best. Most houses have a porches on the front where a lot of entertaining is done. Three bedrooms is a must since we know we will have guests. Older houses sometimes have more grounds and extra rooms but scare us in terms of plumbing and electrical wiring problems. We need to be accessible to everyone, so one beautiful, roomy house we looked at just out of town wouldn't work.
At this point we have a few viable options for houses and a fall back that is less preferable. Our top choices won't be available till the end of June, so we will most likely rent a furnished house for June.
As far as household items, we have so far purchased an inverter, a stove, and a ceiling fan! We have also located a refrigerator and some furniture to purchase used. All these items are from missionaries who are leaving the field. We are very thankful for these used items since buying new always costs a lot more. Once we are in our house we will pick up the smaller household items (kitchenware, towels, etc) that we need.
Overall entering the Dominican Republic feels much easier than when we arrived in Guatemala. This is mainly due to the fact that Jarabacoa is so familiar to us and we have some many friends here already. We are already making it a regular habit to drop in on our Dominican friends in the evening to relax, chat, and seek advise. The other reason entering the D.R. seems easier is that our language skills advanced during our time in Guatemala, which was the whole point of going to Guatemala!
Saturday, May 26, 2007
Our Month in the US
Well, it has been a while since we posted! We had a whirlwind visit to Minnesota as we transitioned from Guatemala to the Dominican Republic. We visited with as many people as we could, dividing our time between Minneapolis and Rochester. It was great to reconnect with family, friends, and supporters. We are thankful for all the hospitality extended to us during the time. You are all welcome to visit us in the D.R., but not until we are settled!
We found the U.S. a bit of an adjustment from living in a 300 year old city for 7 months. Everything seemed HUGE and spread out. We had gotten used to walking everywhere in Antigua and so every time we left the houses we stayed in Minnesota our kids would ask, are we walking? No, we are driving, driving, driving everywhere. We did some shopping for things we found were hard to find in Latin America or very expensive. New shoes were top on the list for example. In the U.S. products are cheap and labor is expensive. In Guatemala and the Dominican Republic the reverse is true. So it is cheap to get a haircut, get your car fixed or hire someone to do your lawn, but shoes, plastic food containers, games/toys, are expensive since they are typically imported.
We were so eager to get to the D.R. and see our Dominican friends at church and set up our home. We had so many unanswered questions about the future and we felt like we had been nomads for over a year already. See our next entry for an update on the D.R.
We found the U.S. a bit of an adjustment from living in a 300 year old city for 7 months. Everything seemed HUGE and spread out. We had gotten used to walking everywhere in Antigua and so every time we left the houses we stayed in Minnesota our kids would ask, are we walking? No, we are driving, driving, driving everywhere. We did some shopping for things we found were hard to find in Latin America or very expensive. New shoes were top on the list for example. In the U.S. products are cheap and labor is expensive. In Guatemala and the Dominican Republic the reverse is true. So it is cheap to get a haircut, get your car fixed or hire someone to do your lawn, but shoes, plastic food containers, games/toys, are expensive since they are typically imported.
We were so eager to get to the D.R. and see our Dominican friends at church and set up our home. We had so many unanswered questions about the future and we felt like we had been nomads for over a year already. See our next entry for an update on the D.R.
Friday, May 11, 2007
Doulos Discovery School
Where will your kids go to school? Are you going to homeschool? We often hear these questions and decided to add our answer to our blog because we are excited about the school Ben and Elena will be attending this fall. This past year in Guatemala and Minnesota we did homeschool since we were not in one location for a full school year and in Guatemala "summer break" is from mid October to mid January. However our preference in the D.R. is a Christian bilingual school.
Doulos Discovery School was founded several years ago by long time missionaries to the D.R. "Doulos" means slave to Christ; it is the school aim to raise up children who are slaves to Christ--pretty radical! In 2005 we had the opportunity to tour the school and were impressed. It has a unique vision for sharing the gospel in the Jarabacoa area and providing a quality education to children who would not otherwise have the opportunity. Using U.S. curriculum, the students are taught in both English and Spanish. They have a focus on experiential learning that includes outdoor education. The students are also involved in community service projects.
We believe this is a place where our kids will thrive educationally, socially, and spiritually. For more information and great photos see the Doulos website: www.doulosdiscovery.org
Since being here, we have visited Doulos a few times. We want to do everything we can to help Ben and Elena make an easy transition into school. Ben, who is very social, played in the playground while we talked with the director of the school. Unknown to us, he was playing on the playground with this year's First Grade Class, the class he will be a part of next year. And after a few minutes, he had made friends and figured this out. Ben was also excited to learn that there is a soccer camp in July. Doulos has a very strong soccer team. For Elena, who is quieter, she was able to meet her teacher, an American from South Carolina. And they seemed to bond, especially when the teacher told Elena she could help teach the other children English. The transition for Elena will be a little harder. We know it would have been in the United States as well. But we are looking for ways to help ease that.
Doulos Discovery School was founded several years ago by long time missionaries to the D.R. "Doulos" means slave to Christ; it is the school aim to raise up children who are slaves to Christ--pretty radical! In 2005 we had the opportunity to tour the school and were impressed. It has a unique vision for sharing the gospel in the Jarabacoa area and providing a quality education to children who would not otherwise have the opportunity. Using U.S. curriculum, the students are taught in both English and Spanish. They have a focus on experiential learning that includes outdoor education. The students are also involved in community service projects.
We believe this is a place where our kids will thrive educationally, socially, and spiritually. For more information and great photos see the Doulos website: www.doulosdiscovery.org
Since being here, we have visited Doulos a few times. We want to do everything we can to help Ben and Elena make an easy transition into school. Ben, who is very social, played in the playground while we talked with the director of the school. Unknown to us, he was playing on the playground with this year's First Grade Class, the class he will be a part of next year. And after a few minutes, he had made friends and figured this out. Ben was also excited to learn that there is a soccer camp in July. Doulos has a very strong soccer team. For Elena, who is quieter, she was able to meet her teacher, an American from South Carolina. And they seemed to bond, especially when the teacher told Elena she could help teach the other children English. The transition for Elena will be a little harder. We know it would have been in the United States as well. But we are looking for ways to help ease that.
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