One Year!!!

We have completed our first year in the Dominican Republic as teachers!!!!!!! Doulos’ mission is to educate and equip servant leaders, through Expeditionary Learning and Christian discipleship, to impact the Dominican Republic. This year we have tried our best to uphold this mission through online learning. We have had small glimpses of in-person Doulos, as small groups of students have been allowed on campus. We have fallen in love with our students, their families, and this town.

Yesterday we had a staff retreat, dedicated to debriefing and celebrating the past year. We sent off staff that are moving to the States, and prayed over them. We enjoyed each others’ company and cheered together. This year has been hard. Worldwide. We have ALL adapted to a world we never could have imagined. We have become adaptable. Flexible. Innovative. We have welcomed new tools and strategies that we never thought we would need or use. And we have grown. Oh, how we have grown.

As a couple, we have felt like we were drowning for much of the year: trying to balance full time teaching, new culture, parenting in a new culture, language immersion, heat, bugs, little to no electricity and water, and then parenting WELL. We are letting go of the mistakes, the failures, the challenges, and we are embracing the growth we have experienced. We have been naming these growth areas: we have helped our children through SO MUCH CHANGE. We have helped them adapt to nanny after nanny. We have held them on the tile floors for weeks through tears, as they missed their grandparents, their “Kinsley,” their Tia’s and friends. We have watched our Hayden learn conversational Spanish without a single Spanish class. We watched him start school, on campus, every day from 7:15 until noon. And we watched him learn to trust an entire group of Dominican adults who made his education possible. We watched Sawyer trust new caregivers, again and again. We watched him start to talk- slowly, hesitantly, but clearly. We watched him learn his numbers, his colours, his manners. And as a couple, we learned to lean on each other. This has never been a bigger blessing. In the absence of “our people,” we have become each others’ people. We have shared this new life and these experiences together- every step of the way. We have shared Staff prayer time, staff meetings, lunch hours, prep time, and debrief. We have never before worked so closely and while we were nervous, we are SO GRATEFUL. We have come out stronger and better together.

We have learned to continue to maintain an open door policy, while carefully setting boundaries to keep our mental health intact and our family life a priority. We have learned to be CHILL. We cannot predict when we will have electricity, but we can predict that when it rains, our sewer will back up through the floor drains. We cannot predict if our garbage bins will be emptied during the week by the garbage collectors or by the stray horses and bulls, but we can predict that the garbage will be out of the garbage BINS each week. We cannot predict the curfew time, the covid rules at the local grocery stores, or the effect it has on our school system, but we can predict that our children will learn from our attitudes and our dispositions constantly. We cannot predict the wifi, the ants in the house, or the cockroach count for the night, but we can predict the roof over our heads and the Lord’s provision EVERY SINGLE MOMENT.

Today we close our classrooms up. We hand in our keys. We hand in our complete Year At a Glance for next year, lesson plans for the first week of school, 2021 goals, and curriculum/expedition overviews. We say goodbye to staff moving to the United States. And we celebrate the work God has done this year.

We are still unsure of what summer will look like for us. We have plans, hopes, and desires, but we know that we cannot predict anything. We are praying we may be refreshed, whatever that looks like. We will keep you posted as to what happens over summer. We look forward to playing with the boys and exploring the island.

XOXO. Lisa.