One of our New Year’s resolutions for 2012 has been to be better at staying in touch with friends and family back in the US. Well, here we are in February and we’ve only posted to our blog once and emails and phone calls have been sporadic at best. That’s the bad news. The good news is that we (or at least, I) have never been all that great at communicating with far off friends and family, so our resolution of “getting better” is still achievable! Anyway, the following is some of what happened in our January 2012.
When we returned to the DR on January 6th, we both knew we’d have plenty to keep us occupied. We were both able to detach ourselves for the few weeks we got to spend in the US over Christmas break, but toward the end of the break, our minds often wandered to what this semester would hold. Just before Christmas break, I was informed that the Cafeteria that serves lunch to about a quarter of the school’s 250 students (and snacks and drinks to the rest throughout the school day) would pass to the school and fall under our umbrella starting in January. Not only that, but our Executive Director was on a three state fundraising trip to the US for the entire month of January – therefore the majority of the Café burden would fall to me and our Managing Director, Tim.
While the Cafe had been run as its own business for the past three years, it had experienced numerous issues and struggled to break even. Obviously, as the Finance Director, I was quite apprehensive about the undertaking. A solid half of our operating budget at Doulos comes from donors who sponsor students to attend Doulos where they would (financially) otherwise have no such opportunity. Needless to say, we are not in a position where we can afford to take on a money losing food service. Therefore, since arriving back at school, I have been intimately involved in the daily operations of the Café Taino – from ordering, to cashiering/sales, to accounting (obviously) – I’ve done it all.
Overall, the first month of running the Café under the banner of Doulos Discovery School has been a pleasant surprise. January was a short month (only 13 days of classes where the Café served lunch) and we still broke even. I am looking forward to gathering a full month’s worth of data to see where we stand, but it looks like with a little work and a few more tweaks, things will work out just fine. I’ve also learned a lot about trusting God through this experience – I was fairly apprehensive about the possibility of the school losing money through taking this on, but God has provided for our needs as He always does. It sure has been encouraging (although exhausting for the first month back). The other positive is I get to interact with students of ALL ages at the school more now than I would have ever though possible. I think I know more kids names now than some of the other teachers who have been here for much longer than we have!
All this is to say that I have been updating my resumé this month – not because I am looking for a new job, but because of this big change that I’ve experienced in my work during the month of January. I now have experience with Mergers and Acquisitions (taking on the Café as a new “business segment” of our school) and Restaurant Management. One thing can surely be said for working for non-profits; you will never be lacking for titles.
Christen has been busy in the classroom and continues to be a fantastic science teacher who all of her students really seem to enjoy. (I will leave her stories for her to share, but I had to mention what she's been up to).
As always, we hope this finds you happy, healthy, and living in God’s grace. We LOVE to hear from you and are looking forward to our first visitors THIS month!
SDG
