la escuela!

after girls’ staff prayer and breakfast this morning we hopped in the gua-guas with the group that is staying here from pennsylvania.. and WENT TO THE SCHOOL!! it looks so great and i loved being able to look around where i will be spending so much time all year! last time i was in the DR, the school didn’t have a roof yet and nothing was set up.. so the building is sweet. and the kids? wow! they are so fun! it will definitely be a crazy year and be very challenging in so many ways. the challenge is something that i look forward to and i love that it will be hard and something much different than anything i have done. there will be (and already are) so many areas i fall short in but it is cool to know that where i lack, i can lean on God’s strength all the more.

cool story- the group ran a soccer camp type thing today i was walking back to the school with a 13-year-old boy, ruben, that we hung out a lot with last year. we talked for awhile and i was telling him how i am going to be teaching this year. he graduated from the school this past year but i told him he could come visit and that i will need help with my spanish. he said he would and started helping me with pronouns when i’d say something wrong.. reason this is all so great- i had been watching kate with her class and watched her and camille do songs and just kept thinking about how much i want to learn. i can’t wait to be able to separate kreyole from spanish and learn dominican spanish (different than the espanol I learned in school). talking with ruben was just really encouraging and helped me feel more confident in conversation.

side-note: thank God for His strength today! i didn’t sleep too much because i was skyping late with my family and taylor- loooove skype (and you guys too)! then i was up at 6 for prayer.. also, today was HOT. most days have been, but i woke up sweating (not uncommon here- esp in august!). i guess it was just more than usual.. and then we were playing soccer all day in the sun! THEN we went to pancho mateo and kate gave the group a tour.. wiped out. and loving it.