Day 3

Caitlen teaching the Dominicans English 

Good morning fellow Americans! It´s the beginning of day three here in the Dominican Republic and things are going well! The past three days have really been inspirational and eye opening. Because I have had the pleasure of being in the Dominican before I thought I would know what to expect. Well I couldn't have been more wrong to be completely honest. Leaving everyone back home was difficult and I still miss them very much, but i wish they could see what I see. Every person I see has a smile on their face and not a complaint to spare. I look around and see poverty, but to our American standard. To them, they have all they need, and more.
   Having three years experience in the language of Spanish, talking to the people here is probably the most entertaining thing I have done yet. All ever want to do is make conversation, even though I am probably not the best and they probably make fun of my spanish as soon as I walk away. They are all friendly and welcoming; though, and love to teach us new games.
   Today, I taught English to the Domincan students. Marisa, Griffin, Lizzie, and I taught three classes of mostly elementary aged children. Most of them were very involved with the class and some of them surprised us at their English knowledge. I have more classes of older students tonight and I am really looking forward to attempting Spanglish conversation with them.
   Over all this trip so far has been incredible, heart warming, and life changing. I cannot wait to come home and share all of my stories to my friends and family. For now, I am going to go play with the children!  (: For everyone back home, I miss you, and I love you! I hope you are having fun in boring Findlay ;)
    ¡Adios!                                                                                                                                                           
    -Caitlen

Ricardo had a smile that brightened everyones day ! 

Some of the students with their new English teachers 

Cody & Carlee on day one after working hard digging the footers for the Creole church.

The children are so precious,  here she was showing  Emilee lots of love.

This is the second time I have been to the Dominican Republic.  Both times, my favorite part of the trip has been interacting with the Dominicans.  So I was extremely excited when I got to help with the VBS this morning.   We got to play games and talk with the kids, okay I blankly stared at the kids and tried to understand their extremely fast Spanish chatter.  

The best part of my day was when a little girl ran up and started talking at me.  I couldn’t understand everything she was saying but I heard her saying my name.  I thought she was saying that her name was Emilee, but after finding someone to translate, I found out she remembered me from the last time I was here.  It was just amazing to me that she remembered not only my face but also my name.  So while my morning was great, my afternoon was a bit more difficult.  I had already been to the site of the Creole church to dig, but this afternoon I got to go again.  Yes Dad, I actually worked two days in a row.  Yesterday, digging was exhausting, but today it was just plain hard.  There may have been a million rocks in the dirt we were trying to dig in, and the sun was relentless.  But it’s awesome to think that our hard work is going to help with building the Creole church.  

After we got back from digging, we got to play at the school with the kids again.   We learned a bunch of games from the Dominican girls, and spent most of the night playing them.  The girl from earlier in the day came and I was excited to spend some more time with her.   Hopefully I get to see her again, but even if I don’t, I can’t wait to hang out with the kids again.  Even if we don’t speak the same language, we somehow manage to have fun and learn from each other.

Emilee Reed

The kids were so proud of the papers they decorated for the VBS.

Kristin & Brooke posing with this sweet little girl.

Hello, it’s the third day of the Dominican Republic mission trip with Gateway church. We woke up at about seven thirty, I do not know for sure because no one has their phones. After that we ate breakfast and had a small prayer session. Then we found out what we were doing today, for me it digging in the morning and painting in the afternoon. We started digging at around nine in the morning and finished around noon. Most of the time we talked about food because we were so hungry. After that it was lunch time where we had peanut butter and jelly sandwiches which helped my hunger. Later, it was down stairs for some painting, and honestly I think I would rather dig. When we were done painting I went outside and played soccer with the little Dominican kids for about two hours. Then it was dinner time with a meal of great tacos. After waiting an hour for the women to all take showers I finally got to rinse off. Overall it was a pretty good day, but very exhausting.

Jake Bixler