¿cinco semanas?

hi friends!

so what´s been going on the dominican these days. most excitingly, last night there was an epic rainstorm ALL night long... which is a lot louder when you´re sleeping under tin roofs! but we all loved it. with coffee this morning, it was like a little taste of home! however, downpours tend to make working in the bateyes a little more difficult, as don bosco and los robles are pretty much out of reach unless the roads are clear and dry. where last week we were pretty much spending both mornings and afternoons in the villages all week, this week has looked quite different, and in the mornings we haven´t been able to leave at all to do physical and eye exams in the bateyes. instead, the clinic recently got a gigantic shipping of supplies, so we´ve spent some time trying to organize those into their "places" and taking inventory. today, we got a fun new task! COTN recently approved an abstinence and HIV-AIDS education program for the DR. they have used it in africa before, so we are currently running through and translating the manual into spanish, as well as trying to figure out how to make it culturally appropriate, by talking with the nurses and translators here. we´re really excited to be a part of this project, since HIV-AIDS education is something we´re all interested in! even though we won´t actually get to go out and teach any of these things, we´re happy to know that the program is available for other teams and the staff to use in the future. while AIDS isn´t a huge problem in the DR, as it is in many other countries, there is a lot of negative stigma associated with the disease. so we´re hoping that this program will try to curb that by distributing accurate information.

in other news, english classes are still going well. i think we´ve all experienced moments of great frustration as well as moments where everyone is excited about what they are learning, so that´s been great insight into the life of a teacher! we´ve really enjoyed the relationships we´re forming in the bateyes. additionally, our entire intern team has really enjoyed being able to all come together and work on updating sponsorship files in the different villages. we LOVE the days when there are older kids around to help us organize. this is a concrete way that we know we are making a difference and doing something here, which is always very comforting, since there are a lot of things we do where we don´t see the results.

this weekend all of the interns and their families have a day trip planned to one of the nearby beaches, and we´re really getting excited about the surgery team coming from the capital in a week and a half. its crazy to think that we only have one more full week working in our various ministry groups! two weeks from today we move out from our families and into the mission house, to start finishing up, debriefing, and beginning the process of saying goodbye. crazy. but in the meantime, we still have three weeks of crazy dominican life left!

we would love some prayers, if you get a chance... we´re feeling pretty physically and emotionally drained as we enter our sixth week here. pray that we will find the motivation and energy to really make the most of the rest of our experience, and that we will continue to be open to what god is teaching us, especially as we start to think about how this all applies to our life at home.

thank you and god bless!
ps sorry for the lack of pictures, none of us was technologically prepared to share any of them with you!

love to all our families and friends,
lauren
alicia
elisa