Beach with groups

One of my favorite parts of the week is when we get to go to the beach for some worship and talking time. It's a nice way to wrap up a week-long trip and talk through what they did and saw. Last night was no exception, it was a great night to share and hear from everyone. We had 2 fantastic teams from Wisconsin with great leaders and great middle schoolers working hard! We love groups like these, they are very special!

Cafeteria painted!

They did it! After lots of work, the team was able to finish painting the new cafeteria expansion. It looks incredible and it's going to be awesome to welcome the kids back to a bigger and better cafeteria!!

Building

Our summer teams continue to work hard as we have the expanded cafeteria almost finished! It's been awesome to see the dedication of these teams to help us fit more kids in. It's going to double our cafeteria size which means a lot more space and more kids!!

Summer program finishes

It's hard to believe, but our summer program has already come to an end. We have a 5 week program that is very similar to VBS. This summer, we had a fantastic turn out and the attendance was impressive! On the last day, the kids presented some of the things they had learned through their classes and we had a special lunch. As they headed out the door, they were given a gift bag with donated clothes and shoes and the team that is here helping us this week got to be involved in this whole day. I also got to love on Angelica, one of our teachers bitty little 3 week baby (she's just about 6 lbs now!)

Loving the prego's

I just wanted to share how much Dominicans love their pregnant ladies. When you are pregnant in the D.R. you don't have to:

-wait in line

-carry anything

-park far away (special parking sign at the supermarket in that picture)

-exercise

-bend down

I'm kind of just expected to sit around and rest and that's okay with everyone! It's amazing the type of queen treatment I have been upgraded to, simply for having a belly! On the flip side, I do get some comments when I try to be a pregnant American and bend down for something or carry something or exercise...but I'll deal with that for the star treatment I get the rest of the time!

Family

Ariel's brother is married to a lovely lady from Norway, and last week, her family came to visit. We went to Maimon on the weekend and got to share eating fish with their heads on. Ariel still takes the head off of mine before I eat it, but it was a good time to be with the family and especially those neices and nephews! Their faces never fail to put a smile on mine!

Construction

We have been filled with rocks and dust at the school, but it is well worth it to see the progress that is taking place! The cafeteria has long been too small for the 200 kids that we feed altogether. When everyone is present, kids have to sit in the windows and sides of the cafeteria. This also means that we were restricted to growth, as there is no where to have the kids together to eat. Well, soon that will be a problem of the past as the cafeteria walls are coming tumbling down. So far they have worked amazingly fast to get the roof ready and the walls and floors prepared for our summer teams to continue work. Already I am excited as I see the room that we are going to have. In just a few weeks, we should be able to fit more kids, so in anticipation of the fall semester, we have begun enrollment for a new 4 year olds class!