Copy of Email Update (with pictures!)

Just in case you don't get my emails but want some more details! (and if you want to be added to the list let me know!

I feel like it has been forever since my last update and I apologize for the lack of communication lately. A lot has happened in the last month and I thank God for providing such a great situation for me. The people, kids, and other missionaries here are great and I could not be more excited about what God is doing here. There have definitely been some trying moments/adjustments/inconveniences, but I am loving my time here. Quick side note-if anyone has sent me an email and I haven't responded please resend it! I am trying my best to respond to every email, but unfortunately I have been finding out that I am not getting some emails! I don't know what the deal is but when people have resent them they have gotten through fine...thanks!

Alfredo (my boss..) in action at OANSA

I am learning more and more everyday...I was talking with Leandra (in charge of academics at the care center) and we were talking about differences between the different cities within the country. And one thing she said was that people get married when they are much older in Santo Domingo (capital). I thought that was interesting but what was even more interesting was when she said that they get married at 17 or 18 there as opposed to 12,13, or 14 in Constanza! I am still doing my research to find out if this is legitimate but I thought that was pretty crazy!

I am trying to keep my blog updated but it is tough with limited internet access, but there are still some good updates on there including one that explains the difference between the care center and ark! My first month has been amazing and I am so pumped to see what God has in store for the next few years here.

Here are some highlights.

-I have been working in the care center for about 4 weeks now and am really getting settled in. I wake up for the 8am devotional Mon-Thurs with the staff at the care center and really has been a cool time every day to worship God in Spanish (not to mention great practice...) My responsibilities right now include teaching sports/gym classes in the morning and english classes in the afternoon. I have tried to put some good details into my blog so if you're looking for more go there!

Helping some of the younger kids get ready

for an OANSA competition

-A couple days into my time here, Craig went with me to Jarabacoa and we were able to find a good bike and I have since made 2 trips down the mountain to Jarabacoa. I am actually writing this from the Trautweins after our big Thanksgiving celebration! Today was my first solo ride down the mountain and it went very smoothly. I love having the independence to be able to get around town so conveniently yet also being able to take the bike to Jarabacoa.

One of my favorite foods at the Care Center!

Needless to say I was a little surprised when

they showed me what it was....

-My apartment situation has been a bit sticky, but things are coming together. I was supposed to move into my apartment a few weeks ago, but things were slow with building the new house for the family currently in my apartment. I ended up staying with the Rowley's for a week or two longer than expected, and now I am in a temporary apartment in the same property that I will eventually move into in January. It isn't all bad though, the apartment is fully furnished and has ESPN in english complete with american commercials! (jokes on them as it would be very difficult to get to best buy or taco bell....)

-Today has been a HUGE blessing for me. Yesterday was probably my weirdest/toughest day in Constanza knowing that it was Thanksgiving and there was not one mention of it all day! I would bring it up and how important it is to my family and how much I always loved the day and all they knew is that you eat turkey...Thankfully the Trautwein's invited me to a big thanksgiving party with a group from their home church in California. It was such a contrast for me and it completely recharged me and it was nice to enjoy some good food other than rice and beans for once! I also got to visit with the Lanier's (family from missionary training school in Colorado) for the 2nd time! Now that I can make the trip on my own, Jarabacoa will be a nice change of pace from Constanza every once in a while.

-One of the coolest parts of my first month is how fast I was able to really connect and get to know the kids that I am with every day. There are only 22 kids at the Ark which was such a great number and I have a great relationship with all of them and it is never boring around there! The more challenging aspect has been getting to know the 100+ in the care center, but I have been attacking it and I am really starting to build some great relationships there as well. One of my highlights every day is eating lunch with the kids at the center and just talking and spending time with them.

Me with my group for OANSA bible verse memorization.

They are always trying to weasle their way to some

extra points but we have fun!

PRAYER REQUESTS

-Safe Travel throughout the country the next few weeks as I am visiting different sites and coming home to the states Dec 11. I am feeling very comfortable with my motorcycle and to all the moms out there I do wear a helmet when I am traveling to Jarabacoa!

-Comfort and peace as I continue to transition and get used to being so far away from friends and family permanently for 2 years.

-Please continue praying for the kids...every day I learn a little bit more about a child's situation or what they have gone through and they have been through more than we can ever imagine! The great news is that they are all hearing the gospel and really having life-changing experiences through Kids Alive.

Panuelo...hands down the most popular game here.

Kind of like steal the bacon...with a shirt?

-Health...it has been good so far and praying that it stays that way!

-Upcoming trip to Wheaton. Pray for safe travel (again) and some great quality time with friends and family. I also need to shore up a little bit of my support as I have had some unexpected expenses and also some things have been higher than I budgeted. Pray for wisdom for who (and how!) to ask for, and the peace to know that God will provide!

Thank you all so much for you support, I wouldn't be able to do ANY of this without you. I love hearing from everyone so keep the emails coming-

In Christ,

Kyle

The main room in the care center, where lunch is served

also used for parts of OANSA

Dominican Softball

One of the highlights and unexpected treats of living here has been playing on a fast-pitch softball team in Constanza. When I first heard about the possibility of joining this team I didn't know what to expect at all...I thought it would be very similar to slow-pitch chicago style softball with old men. I was very pleasantly surprised at how similar it is to baseball and at the level of competition. Alfredo connected me with the team as he also plays on it and it is made up of players from several churches in the area. The coach has really taken me under his wing and helped me out a ton and I have really really enjoyed getting to know the guys on the team.

It is a very very strange and new feeling for me to be heckled after EVERY play. I am one of maybe 6 total North Americans in the city and they definitely remind me. I hear "Americano" yelled out during the whole game no matter what is happening! It is fun though because I will have a few fans and people who try to talk to me in English as I'm walking up to the plate with phrases like "howdy my friend." Luckily it hasn't been too bad since I have played pretty well, but as soon as I start playing bad it could get ugly real fast! The environment is amazing...the town loves to come and watch the game and there are always people lining the fences at the street and out past the fences in the outfield. There is usually a decent crowd in the stands as well, and almost every game has an announcer who does more of a play-by-play than in the US, it is fun to listen to.

Now on to the important stuff...I am playing right field which I have come to love. Now, I can't really ever remember a time in my baseball career where I was an outfielder but it has been an interesting transition. It is much easier for me to hit in this type of league where the pitching is more similar to a baseball trajectory than the huge arching lob of chicago style softball. First double-header I was 3-6, next game 3-4, and then last night 4-6 including a 2 RBI single that put us up by 1 in the last inning after trailing by 9 heading into the inning! It was an adventure though as an error by me in the bottom of the inning tied the game back up...I am still getting used to the very unlevel outfields! Hope you wanted to hear the details....

I haven't been able to get any pictures or video of me yet, but I took a video of the surroundings of the game before ours last night to give a feel of the league. I am hoping to get some video/pictures in action at this Sunday's game. This has been so huge for me to be able to keep my competitive side entertained while I am here!

Care Center vs Ark

I have spent a lot of time trying to clarify what I am doing in the DR and for people that are familiar with Kids Alive and the Ark just what exactly the difference is. I figured I would just do a quick clarification post to help out.

The gate to the complex, it is in front of the care center

and during the day there is a guard to control

who has access to the complex

The Care Center an Ark share a large plot of land where the Ark is essentially 2/3 of the land and the Care Center takes up the other 1/3.

CARE CENTER

This is where I am primarily working. Basically it is a 3 room school where Kids Alive identifies children in the community who need extra schooling/care/meals and they come for half a day. This works well because the public/private schools are all only half days, so if the child has school in the afternoon then they are able to come in the mornings and vice versa. The children are also able to eat lunch there.

Here is a good picture of the Care Center. Right now there are

3 classrooms that are used and once the roof is put

on the 2nd floor will be huge for growth.

The Care Center is run by a man named Alfredo who has been a real blessing for me as we get along great and work well together. It is always fun to come to work. The academic side is run by a woman Leandra who is incredible with the teachers and children and has developed much of the academic curriculums and plans for the Care Center.

A small playground behind the Care Center.

My role is basically to serve as a gym teacher in the morning Monday-Friday and then teach an english class in the afternoon. On thursday they have OANSA (awanas) with the younger kids in the morning and older kids in the afternoon which I am also involved in. It is a great set-up and I really enjoy eating the meal with the kids every day after their classes in the morning.

OANSA out in front of the Care Center. Alfredo is the on

the right with the camera. The other man in the red shirt

is Giovanny, a house parent at the Ark who is very

involved in OANSA.

OANSA inside for a bible verse competition. This is one of

the classrooms at the Care Center.

ARK

This is the 2nd ark in the DR from Kids Alive. The ark in Jarabacoa was very successful so this is the same thing only in a different location. Right now there are 3 houses each one with 2 Dominican house parents and about 7-8 kids. Each family usually has 2-3 biological children and then the rest are children that have been rescued from really tough situations.

One of the Ark houses, one in construction in the distance

Here is the other side of the Ark. Big soccer field in the middle and

Basketball court in the distance. The other 2 houses to the right.

The children usually remain on the complex with a few exceptions such as school, church, "ark activities," and other special occasions. I am also in charge of sponsorship for the Ark, which involves a few projects a year and helping keep the sponsors from the US connected to the kids and the other way around. It is fun to work with the kids, but also can be a little difficult to get them fully motivated when they are trying to do projects for 9-10 sponsors!

A few of the kids hard at work on my first sponsorship project,

a little christmas card. Arts and Crafts have never been my

strength, but I'm giving it a shot!

The directors are Arsenio and Belkys who are very very good for the ark and have helped tremendously. They also serve as house-parents at the Ark and have 2 sons who live with them. I have really been able to get to know the kids at the Ark very well as I spend a few hours there every day whether it is to help with homework, read, or just play with the kids. It is a great experience and I am really enjoying everything about it!

Hope this clears it up a bit, if you have any more questions don't hesitate to contact me.

Constanza!

Ok, first of all it will be very difficult to recap my 5 days since I have gotten here because it feels like I have been here a month already! But here is my best attempt. I have been so blessed to have the Rowley's here to help me with the transition. Craig and Libby have been here for about 2.5 years with their 3 kids Carter (16), Gabe (13), and Isaiah (8). I will have pictures up of them all eventually once I start actually using my camera!

Picture of Isaiah, as you can see we get along well

with the video games! I took this right before

updating so I could have at least 1 Rowley

picture on here for this update!

Craig came down to pick me up from Jarabacoa monday afternoon. Their oldest son Carter is attending school in Jarabacoa during the week and comes home on the weekends, this means tons of travel time for Craig in order to help him get there and back. Travel is a little difficult with Constanza because of its location in the mountains, but it is very worth it.

Monday night I enjoyed meeting Libby, Gabe, and Isaiah and having my first meal with them. I have been placed in such a great position with them already established here to help me. I have really enjoyed my time and conversations so far with them. Craig has been especially helpful with finding my apartment and my moto, I am very appreciative of all the time and effort they have invested into my transition so far (especially while I live with them for the first couple weeks!)

Tuesday I spent pretty much the entire day with Craig, which included running some errands he needed to do for Kids Alive, going to the 2 available options for my future apartment, looking at prices for motorcycles in Constanza, and going to the care center.

Tuesday I also got to meet both Alfredo and Arsenio who I will be working extensively with. Arsenio is the director of the Ark and is a strong Christian man who I have loved getting to know this week and definitely look forward to getting to know better over these next few years.

The majority of my work here is going to be at the Care Center, and Alfredo is the director of the care center so he will be my boss. I couldn't have asked for a better person to work under, he loves God, loves kids and loves sports! He invited me to play on their fun and competitive fast-pitch softball team, and our first game is Sunday so I am very excited about that.

I was able to come to an agreement on an apartment also which is a huge answer to prayer! It is within a couple hundred feet of the Rowleys, and a very short moto ride from the Ark/Care Center. Couldn't ask for a better location, also it is on the 2nd story of a "colmado" where I will be able to get water and other food/drink items very conveniently. The owner/land lord of this apartment is the same person who owns the Rowley's house and he gave me a great deal and situation due to his great relationship with the Rowley's.

On Wednesday, Craig and me ventured down to Jarabacoa to look at prices for Moto's. He also had some work to do with overseeing a construction project at Jarabacoa so it worked out well. We met up with the Kids Alive bus driver and good friend from past visits Eladio. He was great to spend time with and a big help in finding a moto. I have very fond memories of getting to know him on past trips and I was glad to have this time. We bought a great bike and got a pretty good ( i think?) deal on it, so it was a successful trip in that regard. After a long, construction filled trip back up the mountain I was back.

Me and Eladio loading up the Moto (his idea for

the picture not mine!)

Thursday was my first glimpse into how they run "OANSAS" (awanas in the us) at the Kids Alive project. It was a blast, the younger kids are there in the morning and the older kids in the afternoon. The first 30-40 minutes are spent with the kids in 4 teams and playing various games and competitions with the winners getting points added to their team. After this the groups split up into small groups of about 8-10 where they show the leaders what scriptures they have memorized from the OANSA book. This was interesting for me because I was thrown right into being a leader for this section so my spanish was put to the test! This is a big part of what I will be doing and it was really fun to get to know some of the kids a little better.

Friday's are generally a day where I don't have too much responsibility at the care center. There are no classes and all there is is just a few hours of planning for the teachers. I don't know exactly what I will be doing on fridays, but I am assuming it will involve some work over at the Ark and spending time with the kids.

It has been a crazy, but amazing week and I can't express how excited I am to finally be here, and to be able to finally call Constanza home! Hopefully I can get better at taking pictures and put more on here...Please keep me in your prayers that the transition will continue to go as smooth as it has this first week! Thank you all for your support.

Post-Guatemala Update!

Ok this will be my much more detailed addition to the email sent out. If you didn't get the mass email and want to be on the update list just let me know.

Left Guatemala at 430 am Mountain time, spend 5 hours in Miami and finally made it into Jarabacoa at 9 pm on Saturday night. Was picked up by a few of the 2 year missionaries in Jarabacoa which was great, and then had some pizza at the Trautweins. The Trautweins are a family who I met on a trip after my senior year of HS through College Church. We have remained in contact and they are a huge reason I am with Kids Alive now.

Trautwein's (stolen from facebook, sorry!)

That Sunday I was able to go to to a church service that they have at the "Ark" the last sunday of every month. It is a cool time when relatives of the kids are invited to come to the service and I actually got to hear the house-parent of the house that our family has sponsored for years. I have a great relationship with the boys in this house and it was an absolute blast to spend time with them and for it to be a complete surprise for me to show up.

After the service, I tagged along with a team of dentists from California as they went to a "barrio" in a very poor part of Jarabacoa. It was a good experience for me to start using my spanish and communicating with the people who live there. My spanish was further along than I expected which was very encouraging..but still a ways to go!

Great story from Sunday Afternoon. One of the cool things about MTI (missionary training school in Colorado that I attended early summer) is that you meet people from all over the country who are going off to all parts of the world! I connected very well with a few families and one of those families was the Lanier's who not only were headed to Jarabacoa, but they were also from 20 minutes away in Schaumburg! So one of my goals was to come hang out with them a bit while I was in Jarabacoa, but unfortunately I wasn't able to connect with them and was only in Jarabacoa for a short time...so after me and John Breul (missionary in Jarabacoa) dropped the team off at the team house, he had me try out driving one of the vans from the team house to the Trautweins, to test my stick-driving abilities. Anyways I was driving through a back-way to get to the Trautweins and there were a bunch of kids out in the street playing soccer, and a dog ran in front of me and I had to stop. All of a sudden I hear 2 girls yelling "Great-Grandpa! Great-Grandpa!" (which was my nickname at MTI apparently because of my terribly old age and grey beard...) I somehow had stumbled into their neighborhood which was within walking distance of the Trautweins house! I talked for a bit, then dropped John off and walked back and spent some time with them in the afternoon. Such a God thing and I was so happy that I was able to see them!

Me with Anna and Sarah Lanier and their neighbors.

I forgot how much I love Dominicans

That afternoon I helped the dentist team set up for their week-long dental clinic and then spent the night with the Trautweins and the team at dinner/the house. Monday was a day spent at ANIJA (the school) where I received some valuable traning/orientation through Kids Alive. I was also able to spend over an hour with "Chu" the P.E. teacher at the school and help him with classes before my orientation stuff. So fun to play with the kids at the school, especially the ones from the Ark that I already had a good relationship with. It was a lot easier to say bye when I could tell them that I only live 2 hours away now.

My time with the Trautweins and the rest of the KAI staff in Jarabacoa was amazing, I am so thankful for families like the Trautweins who have been so instrumental in getting me to Constanza and preparing me for it.

Ok this was wayyyy too much detail and I am assuming only the diehard readers (family...) will be interested. I will post my post Jarabacoa update as soon as I recover from writing this one!

North Central Game

Before last year's game, cool picture with the bell

The week of the North Central Game was always one of my favorites. I love the atmosphere, especially last year when we were both top 10 in the nation. The game is the only one we have where we play for a "trophy." The winner gets to keep the trophy until next year's game.

All the seniors after winning the bell in '07 at NCC

Usually the "little brass bell" stays on our sidelines during the game, but last year we had a tough loss to North Central during the regular season so for a change they get to have it on their side.

Me and Coach Kirk after the '07 game

The last time we played at North Central we had an amazing come from behind win and I'm hoping for a similar result this week. It will be very weird for me to be in the Miami Airport during this game, but God definitely knew what he was doing scheduling my travel date to the DR on the same day. The fact that I am so excited about getting to the DR will help make up for missing the game.

Why Antigua Is the Perfect CIty for My Family

On my walk to school I was looking at the various shops on my 8 minute route to class and I couldn’t help but think it is the perfect place for my family to move!

Antigua Outlet Mall for mi madre

Emanuel’s Farmaceria for all of Chris’ allergy needs

The local Empesario to cater to all of Caroline’s accounting cravings

The scandalous Beauty Salon for Kate (there are only so many applicable stores on the way to school….)

Motorcycles everywhere for Eric for his commute to the city

Video game lounge for me and Chris

A huge mountain/volcano that the girls can use in order to train for their next half-marathon

A nice little park for Dad to do his crossword puzzles at and for Henry to run around for hours in

Many different travel agencies so Mom can book her weekly flight to Phoenix

Lots of school options for Henry to be raised bi-lingual

A nice little bakery for Mom to find Ice Cream Cakes for every occasion.

All sorts of Vehicle options for Kate and Eric's ever growing family? (kidding...)

And last but not least, stray dogs everywhere for Dad to play with!