Seeing Both Sides to a Rainy Day

I had a crazy thought yesterday that I want to share with you.

Yesterday was out of control, I had a million and fifteen things to do and little time at school. Our Saturday is the end of the week (I have told you guys that our school week is Tuesday through Saturday) and a crazy time as a teacher because all my progress reports, and end of the week stuff is due. On top of all that is due and all that is being wrapped up, it is also my laundry day. I take my clothes to the laundry room we have on our school campus and do my wash. It can be kind of tricky since the machines only work when there is electricity and to give you an idea I could probably safely say that 47% of the school week is spent with 0% electricity. Sometimes doing laundry looks more like a relay race running back and fourth every time the power comes on and off. I have faced the challenge of bringing home wet clothes before because of no electricity but not yesterday! I beamed with pride on my way to conquer the task of laundry! I was all over the task of the washing machine and was flying until I got to the dryers. This is where complications generally arise, but yesterday I had confidence. To my surprise one of the two dryers was not working, this was sad because I had two loads (don’t judge me I was washing my sheets). This was a little frustrating because I was in a hurry and had a million things to do. So I took home my sheets to put on our clothes line hoping the looming clouds would hold off a little longer. As I am hanging up my sheets a crazy thought came into my mind, I hope no one steals my sheets. It caught me off guard, I was like wow that is not a concern almost anyone would have in the states, but it is really legit out here. I do live in a city engulfed in poverty. Someone asked me this week ‘are they poor there?’ to which my response was yeah, well kind of. To any American who has never left the States, they would be shocked at the way they live here, but to the rest of the world, here is not as bad as other places. After I said that I noticed more, like people washing their clothes in the aqueducts, taking a shower in a barrel of water outside, things like that. Its weird, when people see us they automatically assume we are rich because they know we are American…and they are right. A man asked my roommate the other day for a bed sheet, just one. I have never lived a day with out a bed sheet, food, clean water, entertainment…luxury. So when the crazy thought crossed my mind hoping not to have my sheets stolen, I quickly corrected that thought because if someone is desperate enough to take my sheets off the close line the can have them.

I am writing this blog a day early because tomorrow I am going to Santo Domingo! I get to go on a trip with the girls in my classroom. I am really excited, it’s a chance for them to get to see me as a person rather than a rule keeper. I have never in my life been to the capitol of the Dominican Republic, I love new adventures! Maybe this week I will surprise you with an extra post telling of my adventure! I hope all is well! I miss you guys!

P.S. my sheets were still on the line when I got home.

If you have read one of my first blogs you would know the reason behind the extremely edgy and clever title of my blog is because in emailing my grandmother I noticed we had two views on rainy days. Her emails would go something like…its raining again today, I sang rain rain go away but it didn’t listen. My emails would go something like ITS RAINING!!!!! I cant believe it!!!! PRAISE THE LORD!!!!…I use a lot of caps, I can be one of those you know, intense screamers over email (thanks for hangin in there with me grandma!). I began to notice the two sides to a rainy day, I said notice not understand, can I get an amen from all you Arizonans. This week I can say I might can see kind of the other side, don’t get me wrong! don’t read this post and think I have turned into a hater, that would be insane I still love rain to the depths of my soul, but this week we experienced some rain because of the tropical storm and hurricane that headed our way but then took a detour. When rain sits on the ground it gets into the water and turns it brown and causes problems. One prevention method is to turn off the water before this happens. Upon the news that the storms may hit us this week I began to prepare, having already spent a couple of days without water, I got a HUGE (I am not yelling at you, just emphasizing) bucket as you can see from the picture. It was a beast to carry home! My arms were sore for two days, but it was totally worth it when our water was shut off for a couple of days this week. I got to take a shower-less shower with water from my bucket! It was beautiful. It was an adventure last time, but this time I faced the adventure and came out clean!

I just want to put a little thing in here about the hurricanes…I went through “survival of natural disasters training” last Tuesday and feel ready!! We covered everything that covers the island from earthquakes to tsunami’s I know what to do. I want you to know I live almost in the middle of the island, three hours away from the beach, so to us its just a lot of wind and rain. I also live on top of a mountain so we don’t really worry about flooding. The apartment building I live in was built for hurricanes, the director of the ministry watched the construction of the building and is really confident of it’s stability. I am fine. Here is a cool side note, the US Embassy is my best friend, they know I am here! If there is a problem, natural disaster, political, or anything like that, they have an evacuation plan for the Americans. Its real too! they have brought in relief and aid in the past for the ministry I work for.

So most of my blog followers have heard all of this so I will tell you a story I probably have not told you. God really speaks to me with rain. When I was in Macedonia two years ago I was having kind of an off day…I just felt like God was a million miles away. I asked God to remind me that he loves me and if he could do that by making it rain I would just be delighted. This was not a huge stretch, I could see rain clouds in the distance, but it was the best I could come up with. We were on our way to Kosovo and the rain clouds kept building and building but not a drop of rain fell. All day went by and even though the clouds looked so heavy I got nothing. I was so disappointed and fighting tears as I rode in the second row of seats in the 15 passenger van with my team. I began to pray quietly and started to apologize for putting limits on God, for telling Him what I needed. Right at that moment it was as if time stood still and for the first time in my life I was captivated by a rain drop that I could see go through the passenger window around the guys in the front seat back to my row and landed on my cheek. When it touched my skin my stomach got butterflies. Without skipping a beat it started to down pour! I couldn’t breathe.

I hope things are going well for you guys. God is so good, everyday I become more and more aware of this. I miss you!

I am writing you on a Wednesday! I wanted to be cool and edgy like all the other bloggers so I have invited my brother in-law to be a guest on my blog. He is going to share with you a story that will make you laugh so hard, I promise. Here is his experience one afternoon with a spider.

In case you’re wondering, white men can indeed dance…

Today I was at work and Jennifer sent me a text.  As I went to retrieve the phone from my pocket, I looked down to see a spider-about the size of a quarter-running across my midsection.  Thinking quickly I screamed, ( to disorient said spider and to invoke  the power of the “rebel yell”), turned around, (unsure why this occurred), and started vigorously slapping the area that the spider was last seen, (the reason for this should be obvious).  In my haste to remove the spider from his host, (me), I lost track of what I had on, (gun belt, magazines, handcuffs, pepper spray, baton, and pistol), and continued assaulting the aforementioned location, (while deftly spinning, and at the same time asking all assembled if “he was still there?!?”).

Turns out he wasn’t…

The tsunami of movement created a vortex that propelled the spider across the room and onto the floor.  The co-worker closest to me advised that “he’s running by the door”, (obviously attempting to escape the fury of the giant he had recently awakened).  With one more battle cry, I leaped upon him with one foot, crushing him and leaving his body as a warning to others.

And I think I broke my finger.

I had what you would call an intense week, some might lean more towards the word bad but I am standing firm with my decision of intense. It began Tuesday night when I got home and made a stupid mistake. I went to turn my computer down and it asked if I would like to install updates in which I replied heck yes my fashion may not be updated as often as I would like but that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t update my computer! I then had a pivotal conversation in my head that should have sent up a red flag. The computer gave me specific instructions “do not turn the computer off or unplug” I was like ok I respect that but closing the lid is not the same thing as turning it off right? I mean obviously they are specific and this screen would have covered it so I think I am good. That was the last time my computer worked until Friday. I didn’t panic, get angry, or even an out of control amount of upset I was like “oh that was stupid, hopefully I can figure this one out”

I had a really intense week with one of my students. She hates me. I wish I could paint it prettier and say oh we have our rough patches but that would be lying. Through prayer God has totally given me encouragement and reminded me that its not me she hates its what I represent to her, which is authority. He has given me out of control patience when it comes to her but this week it was a little rough. It can be kind of exhausting to have someone hate you, especially if you are a bit of a people pleaser.

On Wednesday night I went to take my shower and to my surprise the water was bairly coming out but I proceeded thinking oh gosh I bet this is the last shower I am going to get for a little while. Sure enough the water was turned off, but praise the Lord I got a shower! On the same night we had no electricity. It was a very third world night no running water or power. I found it rather funny. You may not know this (I didn’t until Wed night) but you use A LOT of running water!

That night I woke up because the rooster, who is so gracious enough to think of me in the morning and wake me up incase my alarm doesn’t go off for some reason, had jumped the fence and was literally right outside of my window. That day he almost died.

I went to school the next day feeling weird waking up with still no water or electricity and opened one of my drawers in my desk and a cockroach crawled out and I had to take a moment away from my desk. One of my students offered to find it and kill it but they are fast little buggers and we never saw it again.

All this to say things were building up a bit and starting to ware on me. By Friday I went to catch the van and was sitting outside on the verge of tears, mainly because I was stressed and tired. I just started to pray and I said “Jesus I don’t know how much of this I can take, its getting a little out of control, can you help me out” I really felt God respond “its ok Heather, you are doing alright, I am proud of you”. I got in the van and asked a staff member if I can use her skype to call HP about my computer. After an hour on the phone with him (he was totally awesome and SO patient and did not judge me for not knowing as much about my computer as I should) he got my computer to restart!!!! I did vow to him that I now know that closing the lid is the same thing as shutting it down. Now my hard drive is completely wiped but I like to see it as a clean slate! Praise the Lord I have an external hard drive that I sync to my computer at least once a week!! (can you tell this is not the first time my computer has crashed). I was finally able to breathe this took a million pounds off my shoulders, it’s a little crazy to have your one source of communication cut off this far away from home. God is so good!

I would say it was a good week with some very intense moments, a lot of learning and growth, and so many ridiculous moments. Here is a good one watching two boys catch a chicken that had snuck into my classroom.

This week is going to be a good one I am really excited! We had some shuffling of the staff and so well its hard to explain but its exciting and good! I have some good backup! I am also going to Santiago where I will hopefully have some strong burger! I don’t know if I mentioned it but it does exist and it is one of the best hamburgers I have ever had! I might go see a movie too or bask in the luxury of air conditioning!

Finally my domestic update! This week my roommate busted out some cookbooks for me and I am going to make potato soup tonight! I am also making yogurt (for those of you who just said to your computer screen “What you can make yogurt” I want a virtual fist pound right now). I am going to try to make a new thing from the cook books every week! It will be fun and hopefully I will come home as Betty Crocker since she is teaching me everything she knows. I love you guys and miss you!

I still cannot believe that I get to call what I do work! It has been another good week full of learning, adventure, and laughter. This week went by so fast I am having a hard time knowing where to start. We closed up our summer semester and have a one week break between summer and fall. During this break the kids will go into the community and do work projects while the teachers prepare for the next semester. I am so glad God brought me out here when He did; I was able to get the hang of things before having a full semester! What was my favorite part of this semester you ask? Well I will tell you. Doing devotions with the kids! Every morning I got to talk about whatever God put on my heart for the girls in my class. We went through the book of Romans and it blew my socks off! Just reading through it was intense and then interacting with the girls was out of control. My favorite days were when we covered chapters 6, 7 where Paul is at the end of himself, he is at the point where he is looking in the mirror and says I can’t stand what is looking back at me! It is the passage that kind of says I know what I should do yet I do what I don’t want to do… and he is at that point where he is fed up with the power sin has over him. We all took time to write down that sin that is weighing us down that we can’t get away from and saved it for the next day where we got to talk about Ch 8 that reminds us that there is NO condemnation for those that are in Christ Jesus! And we talked about the victory we have because of what He has done! On this same day we talked about shame and to define it easily, it is a lie we believe about ourselves that we beat ourselves up with. I am not pretty enough, smart enough, good enough, I will never be…whatever the lie is! This day the girls totally clicked with me! What breaks my heart is every time I see them in their brokenness I want to ask them what lies they believed that got them where they are. On the last day we were finishing the book and I asked them what they thought and one girl responded ‘they should teach this book in churches, if more Christians understood this the world would be so different’. It was crazy so many times we would read one mind blowing verse and have to pause and go “whoa can you imagine if we lived just this one verse, what life would be like?” it was so good. I really do love what I do, I have had my hard moments but they are shy in comparison to the good.

Ok I feel like I should tell you guys a funny story. So recently I have been into reading Ted Dekker books. He is an amazing writer who writes intellectually intense books about CSI kind of stuff and keeps you guessing right up to the end on what really went down. Sorry that was a little confusing… anyway so I am reading one of his books the other night (Skin) and I get to the point of the story where the murderer in the story is describing how he kills two random people I get to the intense part of the description not really breathing because I am worried about what is going to happen next and the power goes out. We are talking like I had to have my hands out to find the table my flashlight is on kind of dark all the while going, oh I hope a killer is not in my apartment. I laughed at myself afterward but was scared out of my mind during.

I am really excited for this week and not really sure what it holds since it is different from all the others but we will see! Everyday is an adventure that is all I know!