Dominican Republic Catch Up: Thursday, April 14

Our last day of distribution. Sad heart. L We’ve been pushing and pushing Sarah to get better! Forcing yogurt and bread down her, because we know she won’t want to miss the last day of passing out gifts! Dave wasn’t able to go again…which was really sad for him. He did get better enough to travel on the plane, which was the biggest praise!

    

       

We stopped by Altagracia’s school and visited the kids in their classrooms. We got to play around with the preschoolers, which was a BLAST!! I started picking up the kids and hugging them. There was this one boy who was shying away so much, and fighting it! A little girl was pulling him towards me so I scooped him up and held him tight. He was such a little boy. J

This is me pretending to be writing on "my" blackboard in
"my" classroom 

 Then we went up to the 3^rd level to see their construction. They are stopped mid-way on building. All they have right now are the cement walls up. They are waiting for other teams to volunteer to come and bring workers and money to get the supplies to continue. There is so much work to be done on the school. It needs so much help. Once the 3^rd floor is complete, the whole school can come at the same time. Right now, the kids come in shifts. It makes for a long day!

I was peering down from the 3^rd floor and happened to see kids playing volleyball down on the concha….so ya know I had to join in J So we played for awhile and it was so refreshing! Got VERY sweaty…but still so rejuvenating!

 These two distributions are close, which is nice for the van riders.  There were so many kids there that we had 2 testimonies in 2 different rooms! The girls were all in one room and Heidi King gave her testimony, and the boys were all out in the front room, the “porch” area, listening to Alan’s testimony. We each had a different job each day. Someone was the designated photographer, two other people were responsible to cut the tape off the boxes and separate them into 2-4 girls, boys; 5-9 girls, boys; and 10-14 girls, boys. Then there were runners who came to the right area and asked for specific ages. Sometimes we had to give a little girl an older box because we didn’t have one for the age. Sometimes there were mix up with labels and a boy ended up getting a girl box! We were able to fix those mistakes!  We were also able to see what were “great” gifts and other gifts that don’t do so well or aren’t as popular. Sunglasses, hats, gloves, bracelets-all great things! Playdough that isn’t bagged and lid comes off-bad gift. J And kids are kids, so it was hard for some of them to be excited about soap. They need it, like kids need clothes, but it was funny to see that kids are kids, no matter the country! During the testimony time, we are slicing and stacking boxes.  There were a lot of boxes to get out this time and the testimonies were kinda short, so I got to lead them in “Yo tengo Gozo” again! It was soooo fun. Made my heart beat fast and get full. I’m not scared to speak to them in Spanish. Now, adults and peers…that’s kinda scary. It’s humbling too…

 

I was given this little doll from my 2nd grade student.
I gave it to this little baby, who just loved it and played
with it allllll day!

 We ate lunch here with the people of the church and hung out for awhile. A LONG while. J  We played street ball with the local kids with a big bouncy ball that he got in his box. (Another great gift idea!) it was soooo hot, but the joy of playing with the kids-priceless. One of the kids noticed that I was throwing left-handed and he is told me he was too!  Small connections, big smiles.

Our last stop was at a very small small small village. The houses on the way there were so broken down, incomplete, and small. There were about 20 kids in the church and we were worried about it only being this many. The pastor went around through the village and rounded up more kids. She knew who they were-it wasn’t just anyone. You have to be selective because everyone wants one, and it’s just impossible to make that happen.  As we were waiting, the kids were singing church songs. 2 kids went CRAZY on the bongos and the guida (a metal can with bumps on the outside that works like a washboard?) They were sooo good and it was amazing to watch and listen to their rhythm, praising God. Ahhh…really touched this music lover’s heart. Then we started leading songs and they joined in. Amazing.  The kids were being smushed like bugs into this so small church. We even had kids sitting outside in the yard and we were passing the boxes THROUGH the window! Being smushed is a GREAT problem to have!