Life in the US

I forgot to steal pictures from Kiawah for the blog..so here they are! Such a fun trip and great to see almost all of our family (missed Chris and Kirk)

Tubby McWaddlesalot wasn't too excited for this picture, but it was fun bonding with him and Hendo.

Fun night hunting for night crab's with Eric and Henry. The moon was SWEET the pictures don't do it justice.

Henry looking sharp in his NC Wesleyan jersey!

2 of my favorites. Yovanny and Jazzmine, spent a lot of time with them my last few weeks in the DR

My little Dominican Niece, Ali.

Spending time in Wheaton with the Cabin Time crew. Figure I should include this since Schletz is one of my most loyal readers.

Fun road trip with my parents (yup!) from Wheaton to Kiawah to Rocky Mount. Very thankful for them doing that with my to get my car down there. It was fun to have them in Rocky Mount to get an idea of where I'll be for a while.

Pretty eventful first week with an Earthquake, Hurricane and Tornado. 35 trees fell on our campus and obviously the only 2 that landed on anything fell on our bullpen and fencing! Insurance covered it though so its all good and will end up probably looking better than before.

I hate big scary colorful spiders. Unfortunately they are everywhere around our field since we are right next to a little mini forest.

Baseball coach?

Amazing whirlwind trip to Tallahassee for FSU-OU game. Great time with family and friends. Very thankful for my authentic FSU family hosts the Kelloggs!

My long lost little buddy from Caroline and Kirk's wedding.

Blurry picture....sweet tradition

The VIP crew for the weekend @crbourne and @benkuenzle #noles #noregretsweekend #didthatjusthappen?

My new home.

A lot harder to take pictures of the field than I anticipated. Very beautiful field and I have/will be spending lots of time there!

Barrio Flores and Barrio Cercado Abajo Outreaches

One of my favorite pictures I've taken since living here. Her role was to help the little kids color, but she took it one step further and got out the bible and read to the calm kids while they were coloring. The kids really stepped up and did a great job.

The kids lining up to have their evangelism bracelets tied on by the Ark kids.

In Barrio Flores coloring with the kids. They kept coming and we had about 200 by the end.

It was a challenge trying to do a bible story with all these kids!

These are 3 sisters that I got to know in January and hadn't seen since. I went to their house to see if they could come to the outreach and they weren't there. About 5 minutes later I saw them running towards me down the street with huge smiles! I was glad they hadn't forgotten me.

Kids working hard on their evangelism bracelets and cards for the kids.

The kids at the Ark have all come from incredible situations and extreme poverty. Some of them have been living here for 5 years and it can sometimes be hard for them to remember that they have some incredible blessings in their life that can be taken for granted. They have food, attend a private school, have birthday parties, have beds/clothes/shelter, and loving house-parents. On the other side of the walls the kids have next to nothing.

The 6 week summer interns and I all had the same reflection when talking about the kids in the Ark. We decided to do something about it and started teaching the older kids how to lead VBS for kids in the community. The kids may fight and get mad about little things sometimes at the Ark, but they all really stepped up and did a great job. There were more kids than we expected but the Ark kids had a great attitude. I think they really learned more about the blessings they have and about serving others that aren't as fortunate as them.

Glen Ellyn Bible Church

I know I have been slacking on my blog lately. Lots is happening here, and I've been extremely busy. I'm starting to realize that I will be busy pretty much up until the day I leave (August 1).

I figured I could cheat this week and post a link to Glen Ellyn Bible Church's ongoing blog for the week! This is a special church for me as they are my sending and supporting church.

http://gebcindr.blogspot.com/

Math Question

Ok this question was argued to death with a few members in the group that I was with in Haiti. If there is anyone smart out there that actually reads my blog please comment and let me know!

 Ok so when you divide 1 by 1/2 you get 2, and the smaller the fraction you divide by the larger the answer. I.e. 1 / 1/4 = 4 ; 1 / 1/8 = 8 ; etc. So as you approach zero with the fraction the number gets infinitely larger. But what happens when you actually divide by zero?

The group was generally divided into 2 thoughts
1. My thought is that since you multiply by the reciprocal of the fraction 0 / 0 then you get zero.
2. The other argument is that it doesn't make sense that as you approach zero the number is getting infinitely bigger, but then all of a sudden when you reach zero it goes all the way back to zero?

It is confusing to try and type it out but hopefully somebody out there understands and can help me out!

Picture Day!

Today I started an adventure of taking pictures of each child and class. This is for 2 purposes: 1. Is to have options of pictures to put in the kids progress reports that we send out to their sponsors June 1 (yeah right...hopefully july 1!) and 2. I am trying to put together a database of each child's name and picture that I can leave with the next missionaries.

Not a ton to say I'll just let the pictures do the talking. Remember all of these kids are in our ministry and if you want to sponsor one for $35 a month please let me know! 

Feria del Libros (Book Fair)

Here are some pictures from a trip to the Capital that I was able to take the 6-8th grade class. The "international book fair" lasts about 2 weeks and is PACKED with students and kids. It is essentially a cultural park, multiple museums, and tons of books to read and buy all wrapped into one. The big natural history museum was probably my favorite part. 

The kids don't get to leave Constanza very often, let alone go to the Capital, so I was so happy to be able to help make this happen. Today I have also been printing off photos to give to the kids to help them remember the fun day! 

This class is interesting to me because they are extremely close. They really enjoy being together and it is fun to see, and it was fun to spend the whole day with them. 

One thing I have loved during my time here is driving kids around/to their house. I do it way more often when I am in Jarabacoa but it is so fun for me to help out that way, especially when the alternative is a kid walking 5 miles home. One of my favorite things is when every single kid is belting out the same song at the top of their lungs! I thought I had a good video of it from this trip but it didn't work.

 On the way home, we had some extra "treat fund" money and we were able to have a nice Pica Pollo lunch, which was definitely a treat for them. In the capital there is a huge mall type place with great food places and a huge grocery store...I wish it was in Constanza!

Haiti

With a pretty open month of May, one of the things I was able to do was help with our site in Haiti. Jeff Vandermolen and Brian Veen have been doing the majority of work with team hosting and site planning. We had back to back teams where Brian was already in Haiti so I was able to help out by hosting the team in Jarabacoa for a night and then taking them over on a big Caribe Tours bus the next day. I then stayed on for a few days and worked with them and got to know some of the kids. I only had time to load 3 pictures, but there are a few more on my facebook page. Our site is really moving a long there! We have 90 kids living in homes in the community and it will be exciting when they are all moved onto our residential site! We helped pour the foundation for the 2nd house. The kids that were mulling around were awesome and really really not used to seeing Americans. This little girl was my favorite (even though there was one point where she got behind a pile of dirt and just took a little bathroom break about 20 feet away from everyone!). I was a bit caught off guard that these kids literally had the same clothes on all week. It was definitely different than the poverty I'm "used to" here in the DR.