We’re going and going. While one saga has trailed off, another has picked up right underneath the dust of the prior. Keith and I hit the Dominican ground running—everything has been either orientation for our teaching jobs, searching around town for living necessities, and setting ourselves up in our new house. Todo es un proceso, it’s all a process.
In the midst of the stress and exhaustion, it feels right to be here. Jarabacoa is familiar to us, and we feel confident in where we are physically. We know where to buy groceries, we know where to buy paint (for the lime green walls in our house…don’t get me started), we know where to (eventually) find peace and quiet, we know where we can look at the sky and see God’s glory and hand in all of this (luckily that’s on our rooftop!), and we know how to get to and fro from all of things (which will be easier when our bikes finally get here).
What we don’t know is when we’ll get a break, a rest; when we’ll feel at home in our house, when we’ll feel confident in our jobs, when we’ll feel at home in our community of people.
May God continue to give us the patience to wait on Him.
I am anxious and ready to finally jump into what we came here to do, teach and disciple, learn and learn. I can only dream of projects for so long…I just want to do them. I want to find and create art is this school with the students. School starts on August 18th. Vamonos!
Pray for unity of staff, for smooth translations and transitions, for all of the pieces of the puzzle to fall into place.
We’ve had a few setbacks recently, all silly minor things that aren’t that important in the big picture, but nonetheless have contributed to our stress, and have kept us from giving our full attention to our jobs. Pray for resolutions and for Joy while we wait out the process…
Just like we eventually got our luggage, we will eventually have walls that aren’t lime green and peach, we will (hopefully) have our bikes to get us around more efficiently, we will eventually have all of the junk that was left
out of our house and all of the amenities we need
in our house, we will eventually know the specifics about what and how we will be teaching.
Soon everything will have its place.
“””””””””
I’ll end with an excerpt from a poem by Denise Levertov:
Always the mind
walking, working, stopping sometimes to kneel
in awe of beauty, sometimes leaping, filled with the energy
of delight, but never able to pass
the wall, the wall
of brick that crumbles and is replaced,
of twisted iron,
of rock.
the wall that speaks, saying monotonously:
Children and animals
who cannot learn
anything from suffering,
suffer, are tortured, die
in incomprehension.
This human being, each night nevertheless
summoning—with a breath blown at a flame,
or hand’s touch
on the lamp-switch—darkness,
silently utters,
impelled as if by a need to cup the palms
and drink from a river,
the words, ‘Thanks.
Thanks for this day, a day of my life.’
And wonders.
Pulls up the blankets, looking
into nowhere, always in doubt.
And takes strange pleasure
in having repeated once more the childish formula.
a pleasure in what is seemly.
And drifts to sleep, downstream
on murmuring currents of doubt and praise,
the wall shadowy, that tomorrow
will cast its own familiar, chill, clear-cut shadow
into the day’s brilliance.
“””””
The second grade studied Germs and Healthy Living for their fall expedition. In art class we did a short project on creating our own imaginary germ, which ended up likened to a villain (hence the Wanted poster format). Then they wrote a few sentences about them (which I am not sure you'll be able to read...)
