March :)

Hello again, from the DR! Our weather is getting hotter and hotter, as summer months are approaching. We usually reach 30 degrees by mid morning. We are still online, and will continue teaching online till the end of the year. It was relieving for us to get this new, as we can now plan accordingly without flipping back and forth.

We do have the exception and permission to have students on campus (up to 15) who are failing and need additional support. I have been able to have one student on campus everyday for an hour, where I get to spend one-on-one time with him. I have learned so much about his family and have loved time with him.

We only have 3 weeks left of school, as we finish the first week of June. We are finishing up our planning and yearly mapping for next year (in preparation), and working on packing up classrooms. We have no indication from our government whether we will be back online or in person for next school year.

May has been a CRAZY month for us! We are finishing up school. We are packing up our physical classrooms. We are planning for Kindergarten Graduation, which is culturally a giant celebration here. We are planning for end-of-the-year, learning celebrations. We are getting our documents and yearly plans ready for next school year, in preparation. I (Lisa) am taking my second last course towards my Post Bad degree, which fills evenings. The business has been good for us, though, and we have felt value and purpose in our weeks.

Mentally, we have been struggling these past months. We have felt tired, unsure, and insecure. We have almost reached a year here, and are hitting the stage where the honeymoon adventure has ended. We are saying goodbye to yet another nanny, and preparing for our dear friend Kelsey, who’s flights keep getting cancelled in hopes to arrive here in July. Matt and I are trying to do our best at school, as well as parenting tired children in the heat. We would love so much to invest more in our neighbourhood, our churches, our community, but find ourselves collapsing after full days of school and children. The Lord is teaching us that Doulos and our children ARE our ministry- that is enough.

We have really grown this month in our learning with fellow colleagues. We have learned so much from the staff around us, Dominican and American. We have learned more about the culture of this town, this school, and this county. It has been an honour to learn alongside many others here in Jarabacoa.

Hayden is wrapping up PreK, and Sawyer is still home with a Nanny for full days. We LOVE our time with our boys when we get home!!! We drive our nanny home when we get home eat 4:30, and Taya, so we are usually only home and transitioning by 5, then making dinner and spending time with the boys. We love biking outside, sitting in water pails to cool off, playing with seeds and beans :P, and playing on the gravel road. The boys particularly like taking toys out to the road to collect gravel and sticks. They adore biking, and thanks to the grandparents, both boys got their very own bikes (that work) last month!!! Sawyer now has a strider and Hayden has a rust-free, safe bike.

We are finding more mini cockroaches inside our house, and increasingly more spiders. It will be time to call the Fumigator soon! 😛

Matt and I are spending time reflecting on our year in review- what went well, what we enjoyed, what was hard, and what we hope for in the coming year. It’s been neat to set some family goals for the next year in the DR.

Thank you for staying in touch with us! Email us, text us, stay in contact. 🙂 We love you and are grateful for you. XOXO. Lisa.