Seeing Both Sides to a Rainy Day

I have been on a running kick since my junior year of college when I joined the running club (umm me and two other people who were crazy enough to wake ourselves up and run up to four miles before 7 am). So I carried on the tradition and get up at 6 to hit the “track” by 6:15. As I have mentioned in other posts this track is very unique in that it is a dirt/rock road around a cow pasture, I have literally had to dodge both cows and horses on many laps. On Tuesday half way through my first mile I started to sprint to help get my time down and I hit a rock and fell. It was one of those falls where you just lie there because you are just not able to get up yet…after a little while just laying (probably in cow manure) I peeled myself off the “track” marched over to the rock and gave it a piece of my mind, choking back tears I walked home. When I got home I went to the sink and washed my wounds with soap and water…it hurt. After I washed my roommate advised me that the water from the faucet is not clean and that I should probably use filtered water. This is when I had one of those “I am tired of this third world country moments”. My cuts began to get infected because according to a staff member “that is just what happens here”, it hurt so much to walk because my knees were so bruised and I had a limited supply of band-aids. I decided to not stay frustrated but to beat the infection and the pain and to my great delight my cuts are no longer infected and doing well! On Friday I went running first time since the fall. I am anti “track” now so I decided to take a route that involves running on the main road then taking a beautiful little “side road thing”. On this road I began to notice a lot of “insane I wake up early to exercise” people. This made me think “I bet this loops around”! So I kept going and going and going and I thought “when is this going to dump me onto the main road”. Now in my routine, I start at 6:15 and am usually home by 6:45 well at 6:40 my spidy sense is telling me that I should be near where I live and I need to find a road to cut over. So I find a dirt road and I walk down it, walk because I am also anti run on dirt roads now. I get all the way down to discover that it is a really long residential driveway in the middle of nowhere, so I turn back around and get back to the road I was running on. At this point I was at a crossroads, do I turn around and go home or do I continue to pursue the “loop”?

All in all I had a pretty good week this week. I had an intense time in the classroom. My heart shattered when in Bible one of my girls raised her hand to say “the Bible is just really boring and I don’t get a thing out of it” and almost all the girls agreed. I wanted to get mad until I remembered my thoughts on the Bible when I was their age. It was a clear example of how when you let it, the Holy Spirit takes the words on a page from just being another book to an awe inspiring, page turning, life changing adventure. Please keep praying for me to have the right words and actions towards my students. I had a really intense heart wrenching event go down on Saturday and it was so sad because the students turned the staff on each other. Please pray that the”house staff” (Me, Chris, and Sandy) get united again so that we can better serve the girls.

So of course I kept going because it’s a “loop”! At 7 I decided I better turn around because I am now lost and this road does not look like it is going to loop around and now I am going to be late for school. I got home at 7:25, 35 minutes past my normal arrival time (that is a long time to be running in my opinion) and my roomie was like oh good I was literally just about to take my bike to go find you. I ended up eating b’fast without ants and bringing my stuff to get ready at school so I didn’t miss the “bus”. It was a crazy morning. But I think I ran longer than I have in a while. On my day off today I followed the road all the way around and it does actually loop, I have no idea how long it is but it took about 45min and it was a beautiful run! My life is always an adventure, never a dull moment.

This week was intense I only went to school 2 days but they were pretty rough. I did have a good conversation with a new staff member, she was talking to me about her loneliness and missing home. I told her some of the hard times that I have gone through and I still have days like what she was having…um actually the day before that conversation I was beat and wanted to go home. I shared with her some of my secrets well my only secret. Making sure to get away and talk with Jesus. This week I was reminded how important it is to pray for missionaries. If you guys think of me please pray for me that God would encourage me in the moments where His voice is softer than the lies its hard when you are not surrounded by friends and family to encourage you.

Today is my day off and I am just relaxing it is really nice. I have had an unproductive day and am proud. I did go to town and all the Christmas stuff was for sale. It was exciting. I wish a storm would blow in to cool us down so I didn’t marvel at all the pretty sparkly ornaments while sweating. Another side note I invited myself to an annual Christmas Eve beach trip for staff that I am excited about. Who gets to go swim at the beach on Christmas Eve? I am so lucky! I miss you guys!

The second day of house trip we went to this place called paradise island. It was a little slice of paradise. You take a 20 min boat ride out to this island that is about the size of a basketball court. It has little grass huts on it and you can get as much coca-cola and fruit as you want. The sand was a perfect white color and the water was so clear. So beautiful. The best thing about this place is the opportunity to snorkel the island is surrounded by a huge coral reef so I went with a small group and a guide and got my snorkel on. I remember what I learned from my last adventure and did pretty awesome in my opinion, by the time I leave here I will be a professional. I only freaked out while we were swimming (well everyone else was I was stiff as a board out of fear) through a shallow part and there was a bunch of stuff under me like the coral fish, and stuff. The water was only like 4 feet deep and this stuff was everywhere and I kind of flail my body around when I swim so just being stiff was the only way I could think to survive this. Once we got past this we reached really deep water and you could see so much. But I feel like describing it will just take away from the experience so that is all you get. I got back to the island and just had a great time of chilling and reading. It was so relaxing. We took the boat back to the DR where the driver of the boat was running a bit late. We hit a huge wave that about tipped us backwards (this is true, honestly even the driver got scared) it made the girl beside me freak out but I comforted her with my awesome nautical knowledge. We then went on a ridiculous fast tour of the mangrove trees (trees that have a unique root system that live in the salt water) but it was more like a go-kart on a track with the trees on either side. It was really fun and funny. I think the driver was just taking advantage of scaring the girls. It was so much fun. When we got back to the home base (I don’t know how else to give you a point of reference its hard to describe going from tiny island to big island) we continued to relax on the beach. It was a really great trip with the exception of that night. It got out of control dramatic between the girls and one verbal fight that ended in a girl punching another girl and so a staff member and I escorted her back to the school. This ended the adventure with the house but the staff member and I got to talk and had a pretty good time on the way home.

Today I had my day off since going on a trip with my students is fun but it is still very draining so the school gives extra days off. I went with Sandy (the mentioned staff member above) on a hike. We had a great time, the beauty of this country is out of control. I can not say that enough.

Now I am beat, I got a sun burn so bad yesterday I almost cried when I put aloe on it. It still hurts and the hike wore me out. I miss you guys and am posting more pictures on Face Book to further explain my adventures.

Retreat was incredible! It was some good Jesus time! My testimony went well! I went on the first night and it was so weird because as I was sharing I got encouraged and was like oh my goodness God is so faithful! So awesome! It was really cool. I also was encouraged by the testimonies, I think I said this last post but the theme was many roads one way and it was so cool to see this theme play out as many of the staff shared their hearts and what God has taught them. What was so cool was how hand picked by God each night was. He appointed his people to share because different stories would show different angles on Gods love that would touch the students in a much needed way.

The games were also amazing! We played some crazy ones. I finally found something I excel at, milk jug lacrosse. This is a game where we were broken into two teams given half a milk jug and was told to simply get the ball in the small soccer net using your milk jug only. Best part… beating people with you milk jug was not only accepted but encouraged. I ran up and down the field so much, beating getting beat it was intense. I was so worn out. But I rocked!

As I mentioned last week I had the craft workshop and it went well. The first day we made tote bags out of old t-shirts and the kids loved doing this (i included a picture of the bag i made). I got to teach them how to sew with a machine so that was fun. We also refurbished old items and did our own thing for a couple of days. One kid took a hideous candle menorah type thing cut it apart and welded it back together and it looked so awesome! In fact I called dibs on it when he goes home and cant take it because it is really heavy. The last day we did childhood crafts and we made homemade play-doh and colored. I would say the workshop went pretty well, the best part was the conversations I got to have with the students as we were crafting.

This week is going to be intense. The kids who thrive on structure have been without it for a week. So it is going to be a bit rough as I demand it back when I get the ball rolling tomorrow at school. I had an awesome day of relaxing today in preparation for tomorrow. The retreat was amazing but very intense on the staff.

I will close with a funny story. Everyday retreat started with brunch, but a Dominican style of brunch. One morning I am eating with the students and one of the boys says Ms. Donohue I don’t know if I can take this anymore! I say “what do you mean?” he says “well brunch is a combination of breakfast and lunch, so that means I should see the amount of food for two meals filling my plate, instead I starve all the way to dinner” I told him that Dominicans don’t really do brunch, I guess its just an American concept. I hope this story is funny to you if not read it again but this time imagine a teenage boy who sounds like he is about to die from starvation because he has not eaten in a month, however despite all of this is still respectful.