House Photos!

By popular demand, here are some photos of our home!

A front view of our Dominican home :)

Right side view from our front balcony - those are banana and lime trees below!

Left side view from our front balcony - our neighbor's tin roof home and beautiful trees.

A front view from our balcony of the mountains and part of our neighborhood.

Another view from our front balcony of our neighbors home and chicken coop. They have been incredibly helpful to us in our first weeks in our home and are always "a su orden"

(at your service)!

Our perf cabinet that Joe constructed for us to put our clothes in :)

It's nice to no longer be living out of suitcases!

Our kitchen. The bowl with the towel over it is homemade pizza dough which we ate yesterday for Joe's 28th birthday lunch! It was delicious!

Hope you had a great weekend and are enjoying the beginning of fall wherever you are.  SDG

In the Swing of Things

It’s been about two weeks since our last update – we really are trying to be diligent in updating our blog, but there is just so much to do that sometimes it’s hard to find time.  That reminds me of a quote I read this week in a book I’m reading by Chip Ingram called Good to Great in God's Eyes: “You’ll never have enough time in your schedule – you have to make time!”  Clearly, I need to make time to update this blog, so this is a lesson I am working to internalize. 

Rather than just tell you about what we’ve been doing this week, I am going to let some pictures (and captions) do most of the talking. 

Camping trip to "Spirit Mountain," Manabao, DR.  We stayed in these shelters last weekend on Friday and Saturday night with two other couples from school.  The view is amazing and we enjoyed a relaxing weekend.

Obligatory campfire picture.  We camped with Rob and Meghan (R) and Keith and Kerrie (L)



Christen enjoying the great swing at Spirit Mountain....



.....And the view while on the swing!  Amazing

This is the view from our bedroom door that we get to enjoy each and every morning.  I don't think it will ever get old!

This week, I want to share a bit about our work here so that you get an idea of what we do in a typical week. 

Christen has been busy teaching and is really getting into the swing of things in the classroom.  She is doing a great job with her middle school students.  The highlight of teaching science so far this year for her has been using soccer to teach students about the scientific method.  In addition, her 9^th grade health class has been a blessing in disguise (she wasn’t especially prepared to teach this class) as her students are engaged and interested in the subject matter each time they meet.  Overall, she really appreciates the fact that she can start each day by giving her students a big hug and spend time talking about what is really going on in their lives during devotions class. 

I’ve been working on numerous projects, but one of my main thrusts thus far has been getting the school’s peso account in order so that we can have more transparent financial statements and reports this year (and in the future).   Primarily, this involves ensuring invoices go out and payments are received for tuition, class trips, and other similar items.  In addition, we are working to improve the tracking and logging of expenses and other costs the school incurs for various reasons.  Since much of this has not been done in great detail, I spend much time trying to give more granularity to the income we receive and expenses we incur on a daily, monthly, and yearly basis.

Over 50% of the students at Doulos Discovery School are on need based scholarships, which means that their families are responsible for only a small portion of the monthly tuition payments and the rest is covered by donors who “adopt” a student for a year (or typically, for several years).   In addition to a portion of the tuition, parents are required to put in a certain number of hours of sweat equity at the school doing things like cleaning, repairing broken items, cutting the grass, etc.  

Because the school relies so heavily on donors to cover student tuition and educational expenses and desires to provide the best possible education with outstanding teachers, is not financially possible to provide salaries for the North American staff members at the school.  Essentially, Doulos has decided that their mission is to provide a quality education for as many students as possible, no matter their family’s economic situation and is trusting God to provide the teachers and funds to support them.  Therefore, each staff member (yes, including us!) is responsible for raising their own financial support to fund their being at Doulos (this includes all living expenses, flights home, insurance, etc.).  

In addition to accounting for tuition payments and other receipts at the school, I am responsible for reporting to each of the missionaries (staff members) at the school the status of their support account – or the status of the account that pays their salary & living expenses – funded by their supporters.  Eventually, I will also run the payroll system for all North American staff and generate financial reports for the board and other interested parties.

As you hopefully can see from the pictures and the narrative, we’ve been quite busy and are finally settled into a “normal” schedule.  While challenges obviously present themselves daily, we continue to trust God and strive to abide in His love whatever our circumstances.  We hope and pray that you are doing well! 

SDG

PS: For those of you who asked, we will take pictures of our house THIS weekend.  Sorry for the delay!

The First Weeks: Part IV

A very happy Friday to all!  I apologize for the delay in posting this, but we’ve been VERY busy over the past two weeks.   I think after reading, you’ll understand!

Over the course of the past two weeks, we’ve had some fantastic opportunities to get to know some of the families of the students here at Doulos.  The first such opportunity was Sunday, Aug 21^st (right before we embarked on phase four of the couple shuffle) when we were invited to go to dinner at a recent graduate’s (Josue) home with Rob and Meghan.  Josue was one of the top students last year at Doulos and spent countless hours of his own time contacting colleges to attend.  His motivation and zest for life is amazing and he is truly an inspirational person.   This summer, he was accepted at Spring Arbor University in Michigan and worked out details to live with a family (which would defray many living costs for him).  However, he still had to fund his tuition which his scholarship didn’t cover, which was something on the order of $7,000.  Near the end of this summer, he still lacked $4,000 (at about the time we arrived) but God worked mightily and two and half weeks after we had arrived, he had full funding for his first year and was granted his I-20 paperwork (legal papers to say the student has enough money to attend school).   Anyway, dinner was great – typical Dominican food of rice, beans, and chicken along with fried plantains and fresh squeeze passion fruit juice (Christen’s favorite).  Josue’s family (mother Daniela, father Hector, and brother Daniel -11^th grader at Doulos) were great hosts and their joy and love for others despite how little they have materially is absolutely refreshing. 

After dinner, we completed phase IV of our couple shuffle and moved in with Patrick and Erin and their young daughter, Ezrie.  On Monday and Tuesday, we experienced our first Hurricane as Irene was bearing down on the island, although she did little to no damage to our area, save raising the river via some fairly strong rains for most of both days.  As usual the week flew by and we were busy with all of our normal responsibilities but still able to get several things done enabling ourselves to be more settled.  Patrick and Erin left on Thursday for a wedding in the states (just in time to get another taste of Irene!) and we house-sat for them over the weekend.  Wednesday afternoon we test drove a vehicle and had it looked at by a mechanic.  Since all checked out okay, we decided to buy it, which we did on Friday afternoon.  Not only was this fantastic news, but we also received news from our friends Eric and Katie in Tennessee that Joe’s car had sold earlier in the week!   God truly works in mysterious ways and His timing could not have been better.  Praise the Lord for wheels J



Our new "Mazduki"Jeepeta (Suzuki body with Mazda diesel engine)



On Thursday night (sorry, backtracking just a bit) we were again invited to the home of some students from the school.  One of the children, Jeddison, is in Christen’s 6^th grade devotions and sciences classes, so it was neat for her to see where he lives and to get to interact outside of the school environment.  Jeddison’s father, Robinson, grilled some of the best chicken we’ve ever had while Christen got to help the mother, Flarida, prepare the bananas (which were boiled this time) and beans for the rest of dinner.  Once again, the hospitality of the family was fantastic – we continue to feel so welcomed here!

After dinner with Jeddison's family (L-R: Rob, Meghan, Flarida, Jeddison, Robinson, and Ruby)

The weekend was very restful as we had a house to ourselves, which was much appreciated by both of us.  Our co-worker Tim turned the big 3-Oh (30 years old to the layperson) on Saturday, so we attended his GI Joe themed party that night, which was a lot of fun. 

At the GI Joe birthday party with Kerrie and Keith (our first hosts in Jarabacoa)

On Monday we finalized the lease for our NEW HOME in the DR and were able to move in to our very own place on Tuesday afternoon.  It’s been an absolute blessing to have our own space and a place to make our own, although outfitting it is certainly going to be a process.  Wednesday, we also got to bring home our new addition to the family, a Border Collie/Australian Shepherd puppy.  The Executive Director here at Doulos, Krista, owns both the mother and the father and was looking for good homes for the puppies after they had a litter of seven this summer.  His name is Patch and although neither of us were really “dog people,” we already love having him around!   

Christen and Patch (background, our salmon colored new home!)

That brings us to today, the 27^th birthday of my lovely wife of 3 years, so I’d like to publicly wish her the happiest of birthdays and MANY more.  Hope you all have a great weekend and, if you have time, fire us a quick email with an update on your lives.  SDG