Happy Thanksgiving!!! 
We celebrated Thanksgiving with a fellow Canadian family on Monday, and thoroughly enjoyed mashed potatoes, turkey, and all the fixings! This was a great break from rice and beans! 😛 The rest of our staff here at Doulos celebrates American Thanksgiving at the end of November. 

We are still working hard to meet academic excellence online. More importantly, we are still striving to disciple and equip our students to become godly leaders. This looks different every week. As a school, we have met for online chapels every week which include a message from our Chaplain, collective worship, and small group discussions. Thanks to technology, we are able to do all of this online. In each of our grades/classes specifically, our curriculum and academic content is based on biblical teachings. In Kindergarten, this last week, we focused on the story Jesus feeding 5000. This wove into our Social Emotional teachings of communal eating, breaking bread, building relationships, trusting each other, sharing, and gathering together. We read many stories together (I record myself reading stories and talking as though my students are in front of me, and send them the videos) about ways food brings us together. We then focused on our culture, cultural differences, and value in culture and language. This influenced our Literacy (which I teach live online), as we wrote responses to these topics, drew pictures of ourselves eating food with our families, made grocery lists, and learned how to read pictures/books about community and eating together. This translated into Math, as we read about the fish and the bread. We used fish and bread to enhance number sense as we practiced counting, and understanding that numbers are made of many parts. Students engaged in art at home (with instructional videos by me), creating their own fish and bread that focused on developing their fine motor skills and English vocabulary. — (This is just the beginning of the happenings of our learning!) 
Matt is still enjoying High School Science! He will have to write an update soon to fill you in, from his perspective!! 
Hayden is adoring Pre Kinder, and is excelling at his work provided by his teachers. He loves his online classes, and participates in Spanish! He is also learning many biblical principals that interweave his academic curriculum. I have LOVED watching him learn! Sawyer understands SO MUCH Spanish, and LOVES his nanny. Angi is a beautiful woman with two kids of her own. Because school is online, her children come to our house with her. This has provided our boys with “adopted siblings,” and has been challenging, but so healthy for them. 
We are still unable to attend church, due to COVID. We have joined a Bible study, though, which we attend as a family on Wednesday nights. We have loved this chance to build community, grow deep roots, and learn together with others. 

We have been reaching out by inviting someone (family, couple, person) over once a week to invest in our community and make friends. We took a break these last two weeks, though, as my sister and her husband have been here!!!!!!!!!!!! I cannot add enough exclamation points. 🙂 Mitch and Kristina have been the most relaxed, comfortable, and encouraging visitors. Our boys have opened up again. They have relaxed. They have felt at HOME. We all have felt an overwhelming sense of belonging and community and HOME with them here, and we are dreading their departure on Saturday. I am so incredibly grateful for their two weeks here (I will post pictures on our Blog), and feel refreshed and capable of continuing our journey here. We were able to go paragliding with them, show them our favourite river spot, take them to the ocean, take them to our favourite street restaurants, give them a tour of Doulos, and visit our favourite local greenhouses and mountainside views. We haven’t had any rain while they’ve been here, so they haven’t gotten to experience bucket showers or our water turned off for days at a time :P, but they have experienced the intense heat, bugs and power outages! 

Thank you for you continuous support and investment in our journey. We look forward to investing in more relationships throughout the month of November, and seeking out ways to make traditions as a family as Christmas approaches.
In regards to Doulos, we are seeking many people to fill many positions for the following year. If you are interested, or know anyone who is interested, send them my way! Doulos is the most amazing school. We are honoured to be a part of this ministry, and are in awe of the work God is doing here in Jarabacoa, through Doulos. Doulos is always seeking educators, and financial supporters. Over half of our students here are sponsored to attend Doulos, and we always need more sponsors for our students from low socio economic backgrounds. We are also always in need of quality literature for all grades, including our tiny dusty library!
We love you and appreciate you all, and are grateful for you in so many ways. Thank you thank you thank you. Love in Christ, Lisa.

Hello!!! Welcome to Fall in the Dominican! I will add photos under the Photos Table. 🙂 We are not experiencing much relief from the heat yet, but hope it cools off soon!

We have now completed 5 weeks of teaching online! We have hit many roadblocks, but also encountered many successes. I can not thank you enough for your donations towards class books! I was able to purchase several boxes of books. These books are picture books that model inclusion, diversity, kindness, culture, world issues, beauty, and humour. I have labeled each book “To Doulos Kindergarten; From ___” with your names inside! Thank you again! I can not wait to introduce these books to our children. For now, when teaching online, I have been recording videos of myself reading these books to children. They have watched these Read Aloud from home and LOVE them!!! It is an incredible segway into deeper conversations and learning. Some of you also graciously donated Math manipulatives and learning tools for our class. THANK YOU!!!!!

Matt has completed a few weeks of online Science teaching, and LOVES it! He has a coach that works with him through lesson planning, marking, teaching strategies, etc. We are starting to get into the rhythm of both working full time, something we were not anticipating when moving here. The boys are beginning to adjust to their Nanny, who has immersed them in Spanish and in Dominican culture.

Our Covid numbers have decreased slightly, and our government recently extended our curfew hours from 7pm to 9pm. We have enjoyed taking our kids to the river, driving to surrounding cities, and exploring the mountains. We’ve slowly been making friends here, and joined a Bible study. We have stayed healthy thus far!!! Praise the Lord!!! Matt and I have still struggled to sleep well at night with the heat, the noises, and the new bed.

In the coming weeks, please pray for continued adjustment to the culture and the community here. Pray for our hearts to be opened to building new friendships and growing deep roots. As well, please continue to pray for health and rest for our family! 🙂

A few humorous facts about our lives/time here:

The neighbour dog climbs to the top of the roof each night, and around 4am he HOWL CRIES at the moon until the sun comes up. Needless to say, we are ready for him to have a new home. 😛

Of all the things to wake us up at night (aside from The Dreaded Dog and roosters), it’s the BATS!!!! Their high pitched squeaks fly right by our open windows and they are SO LOUD and SO HIGH PITCHED!!!!!

Our favourite activity is walking down our gravel road to the Colmado (fruit stand) to buy eggs, fruit, and corn.

What teaching online looks like: Matt and I arrive on campus at 7:25 each day. We have staff prayer time in the amphitheater until 7:45. I grab coffee from our Cafe on campus, and open my computer in my class at 8. I open my daily plans, prepare my materials, and set up for my first Live Class. I open up a Live Class on Google Classroom at 8:20, where my assistant and I greet and chat with students for 10 minutes. Our goal here is to create as much community as possible. At 8:30 I mute all students’ devices, and we begin with singing a song together. Students dance and sing from their houses. 🙂 We proceed to work through Literacy “stuff” until 8:50. Lessons each day look different. Direct teaching (me talking the entire time) is worst practice, so we play many interactive games. For example, as we work through learning different letters, sounds, words, and parts of speech, students use their whiteboards and markers to SHOW what they know. We practice together, learn from each other, and grow.

Similarly, for our Math Live Call, I send manipulatives (learning tools) home each week that each student has at their screen during our Live Calls. This way I can show, model, teach, and explain, while they participate with their tools. For example, we have been working on counting to 10. Each student was given 10 Bingo Chips and 10 Linking Cubes (blocks). During our Live Call, I modelled counting WHILE touching, one item per one number counted (yes, this is a taught skill). Students worked together with me to practice. From here, I differentiate as best as I can. Students who find this task easy, are encouraged to count from 10, to 20. Or they are asked to count them in Spanish/English after. Students who find this quite difficult switch to 3 or 4 Bingo chips, and I work with them on doing a few at a time.

Because we do not encourage a full day of screen time for our 5 year olds, I only meet with them live for two 20-minute chunks. The remainder of the day, for me, is spent preparing take-home packets and materials for them to further deepen their learning. It is also spent planning the upcoming week, meeting with my supervisor, meeting with my assistant, photocopying take-home work (dominican photocopiers make the job take HOURS), recording videos for student learning, and contacting parents and students. Outside of our Literacy Live Call and Math Live Call, I record instructional/musical/modelling videos for each subject area. These videos are NOT just “delivering information,” which makes them challenging, but closer to best practice. These videos prompt students, question students, read to students, etc., so that THEY are then motivated and inspired to continue their own learning.

Matt’s day looks different, yet similar. Because High School is a different world all to its own, he spends many hours recording instructional videos, explaining assignments, and communicating with students. He also teaches online live, for 1 hour at a time. His “free time,” when not on Live Calls, is spent planning for upcoming weeks, assessing, communicating with students, explaining, and researching content.

In addition to “regular online teaching,” we fight hard to integrate and centre our teaching on Biblical concepts. We teach perseverance, faith, humility, honesty, and compassion through each lesson. We guide students in daily devotions, learn scripture with them, and challenge students to dig deeper into their faith journey. One of Doulos’ primary goals is to disciple children, even online. We have loved watching our students grow in their faith and in their relationships with Christ.

We both try very hard to LEAVE our work here, so that we can fully parent when we get home. This is HARD. We have agreed that this is our most difficult parenting season. We come home HOT, exhausted, and mentally drained. Our boys meet us at the door also HOT, exhausted, and mentally drained. Matt and I have tried to develop routines of heading to our favourite Smoothie stand after school, walking to the Colmado, or hitting up a river or pool for some family FUN.

Weekends are spent WITH OUR KIDS– trying to do FUN and intentional activities with them to just help them relax, rest, and be free.

We are so hoping that in one week we can welcome my sister and her husband to the DR for a 2 week visit!!!! They have been having as much difficulty booking flights as we did, as they keep getting cancelled.

Thank you all for your support and encouragement along this journey. I will post pictures under the Photos tab soon! XOXO Lisa.

We are grateful for our vehicle, this love-gift half donated by the most generous people, and we don’t take it for granted. Climbing the mountain roads, up down around. There’s no pattern. No set swirl of a road that wraps tight round the mountain. It’s high roads that swerve to the right, left, down again, and suddenly gravel. Trees tower high above us, vines draping low, and tin houses firmly tucked into the mountain’s curves and jags. Our world is so vastly different than the worlds of the ones we pass on this road. For a moment in time and a brief location in space our worlds intersect… but our lives.. vastly different. They are tin walls with dirt floors and a tiny little spot with chickens and goats roaming free. Clothes hang on barbed wire wrapped round trees. Another tin house crawling with people- kids, grandparents, parents. They sit in clusters, hiding in the shade. Some in white plastic chairs, others laying on the dirt ground, others squatting beside. And it tugs at me, makes me miss home, and I want to say it’s familiar- I want to say it is how I grew up but it’s not. I didn’t have a tin house or dirt floor and I didn’t live with my extended family but I look closer at these people before whizzing past and it’s their faces that look so familiar. What looks like a dad and a daughter hover over a phone, laughing wildly with each other. A mother and a grandmother sit holding hands, grandmother in the rocker hunched over. A teen is on the ground with her feet crossed, and a toddler is crawling all over her. This is what is so familiar to me, this communal living I’ve longed for .. remember. Their world, so different from mine … but similar… kind of.

I remember these tin houses from my childhood. My sweet Mama and I took a trip with a few adults for a few days, up to the Bolivian mountains and I’m not sure why they let me skip school for this experience but maybe they all knew it would change me, the way most moments do. We sat on her dirt floor, I remember it so clearly. She was elderly. Her grey hair tied tight – braided down her back and her skirt covered the way she squatted next to the fire that kept her tin home warm. And she was weaving. She weaved bags to sell, but I’m sure she sold them for next to nothing and just savoured the friendships that came along with it. That’s how people are here: un-entitled and built for each other. I remember her asking if she could weave me a bag. She told my mother to bring me back at dusk, my bag would be ready, what colours do I want. Write your name in the sand, she added, I will weave your name into the side. Purple and orange, I whispered, and I slowly crafted my name into her dirt floor. Mom took my hand, and after drinking the only tea and eating the only bread she had that week in her home, we parted ways. And that night mom returned, gathered my personalized bag and this woman’s heart, paid her an amount I’ll never know, and left. That’s what I love about my parents. They gave big, but they gave quietly. I’ll never know the extent of what my parents did for others but I could always tell from their faces- as I was tucked behind their legs waiting patiently for the everlasting conversations to end.. I could always see it on their faces- tear stained and gawking. Grateful. Humble. Always humble.

We whiz past more tin houses, dirt floors and toddlers playing catch outside and I can’t help but feel this sense of HOME. This sense of familiarity that these are the families that know where it’s at. They’ve lost members to cancer and covid alike- lost cattle in famine and entire walls of their homes in flashfloods. And these are the families weaving bags to make friends not food, and who spread grace the way we spread butter/ all thick and generous. Variety, I think, is a luxury of the rich. I’m learning this again and again, trying to grasp this entitlement to variety we carry. Variety in regards to the food we buy, the schools we are able to choose from, the shoes we wear today, the church we attend, the friends we have, the events we participate in, the toppings on our ice cream, the flavours of pizza, the shampoo brands + tv shows + smart phones. The less variety we have, the more upset we becomes reflecting innate entitlement. And by “our” I mean mine.

I am learning that variety is a luxury of the rich, and maybe, if I want to learn from this culture, I need to eliminate my innate desire for variety which might lead to gratitude or at best,

Contentment.

Maybe this would lead to contentment.

Is this why she offered me a bag, with no expectation of money in mind? It was contentment in this simplicity – this absence of variety- bent over fire with these white people asking her how to live better and love greater and maybe this was her

Contentment:

Spreading life lessons the way we spread butter: all generous and thick.

The world is spinning around me, and I turn the AC higher, straight to my face, and I push the car sickness down lower, as if that’s a thing. My three year old won’t stop questioning and on a normal day, it my favorite quality about him: his curiosity, his ability to wonder, his constant quizzing. But my stomach pinches, the sweat beads drip and I squeeze my eyes shut.

Hayden. I snap sternly. It’s rest time.

Mom, what’s rest time? You always say rest time, but you never tell me what that means.

It means we are quiet, I reply. And already I am thinking about my words, wondering why and how and what…

he is three and he is absolutely right. To expect him to obey + to understand this concept of rest when he has never explicitly been told what this might look like.. we do it constantly. Expect our toddlers to obey, to understand based on context and vocabulary and commands we’ve never actually ever explained to them.

It means quiet, I whisper, and I wonder if that’s true.

Does rest really mean quiet? Is this why I struggle to rest? What if I remained quiet, in my rest? He obeys, now that he understand this concept I’ve demanded of him,

And I respect him more for all that he is. Maybe this is another part of this culture I’ve so longingly admired. The rest.

There is no better place to be than right here, always. For all of them.

The family in the front of that tin house, all laughs and rest and communal living, maybe this is what I’ve been waiting for. This lady, with my mother, weaving by her fire, nowhere different to be. No events to attend or meeting to run to.. she was just here. Present.

We make it to the top of the mountain, stop to watch the view. We stand there, drink it with our eyes. I attempt a video, but the three dimensional mountain scape does not transfer to a two dimensional phone- the depth perception is lost and I quit trying. We put the kids down, kneel low to the ground and point to the vast valleys and hills that reach to the sky for miles.

This. This is where God asked us to be. This.

And this means we learn to live a little different.

We adopt some values, drop some values, learn some values. We learn and we grow and that means that we begin to shed the entitlement of variety- the luxury of events to attend and time to “own.” It means we learn to rest. Quietly. Right here. And it means that little things, like wearing pants in public or masks outside our home or washing our hands before we eat are habits we continue because we know that it isn’t always for the benefit of ourselves.

It might never be.

And that’s love.

When you have to actually feel the sacrifice, that’s when you know it’s love.

It’s déjà vu as a missionary kid.. the Lord leads on, and I can see Him, So Long as I count the gifts he bestows. I always seek a mantra, a returning point, A HOME. Maybe that’s what this is for me, seeking home for myself in a world I’ve never really been able to identify Where that is. And the Lord leads on-
That’s my home, now, and probably always has been but I’m returning
Again + again To his grace + his face + the way He moves me forward. 
If you’re an acquaintance, and you’d ask how our transition is going, I’d say 
hard, but amazing, And I’d mean it. But if you were anyone else, I’d breathe deep and say 
HARD, and I’d wait a while, and then whisper, But amazing. This place is déjà vu, + I cannot thank my parents enough for paving the way.
The language comes quick + the culture, Familiar.
I’ve forgotten the insects over time, + mom says she learned to just 
Coexist, The way the sand + the sea share the salt, i must learn to share space With insects but more importantly, That which symbolizes discomfort because it’s in the friction— the tension— the halts + the pauses + the choked up moments where Christ exists + makes us home In him.
He kills another cockroach, I empty a gecko out of the laundry, and we roll our eyes + tonight, we laugh. 
Because parenting has been our mountain today, and The Lord leads on. I can see Him, So long as I count the gifts He bestows. 
We settle into hot sheets with fans lining the walls And I chant to myself, in this flashback of a season, 
He is my Home. Always.
I want to take hold of this culture and squeeze it like a lime, flaws stinging open wounds but the beauty- 
Refreshing. Tasteful. I want to pack my backpack full of every experience to prove my capabilities, conquer deep fears, overcome obstacles, but covid keeps us Near, Keeps us close, 
Keeps us having water fights with neighbor kids through fences + empowering smoothie makers through masks and always showing our children that it’s ok to 
feel afraid and be brave 
At the same time. 
Covid keeps us weirdly unified if we allow it, keeps us small. Small is better, sometimes, and less is more. 
The Lord leads on, + I can see him, so long as I count gifts He bestows.

Everything is the longest process here and no one cares about getting anything done at a certain time. It’s as though clocks don’t exist here, only people and relationships. It has its pros and cons, for sure. We sent our car to the shop for a new belt and it could be days or weeks till we see it again. So we trekked up the hill to the better fruit stand where they hang the fruit from the ceiling instead of dumping it on the ground in the sewer. And we bought our daily fruit, and trekked home (trek videos in my stories). We’ve been hit with a minor tropical storm, which means it hasn’t stopped raining since last night. Our neighborhood is at the bottom of the river, which means the sewer and debris from the “flash flooding” comes straight into our pipes, so within hours of the beginning of any rain, our water is shut off for days. Gratefully, we were warned, and had bought and filled 3+ rain barrels with water, as well as every pot and bowl in the house (leaving one for cooking). After returning home, we made dinner using barrels of water (boiled) which already has worms and bacteria in it. Ate dinner. Used more of the barrel water to wash all the dishes, because if they’re not done within an hour of eating, we have fun new inhabitant communities of ants in our kitchen. Then we soaked em all in bleach water to prevent parasites. Then the power went off. 🤣 Then we decided to get out of our chaos and head to the corner store for some mayo and ketchup and bread and fresh air because it had stopped raining. The roads are not trustworthy, nor are the drivers, so I strapped Sawyer on my back and Matt strapped Hayden in the stroller. Naturally, we made it there in the window of no rain, but walked back in the downpour. We came home, showered in the downpour, refilled all the barrels with rainwater, filled the toilets so we could flush, and sanitized after our quick outing. Needless to say. We’re ready for bed. The end.

We’ve relocated our family during a global pandemic and I’ll tell you what. I’d do it again in a heartbeat. Not because it’s fun or easy or adventurous, but because I know for a fact God placed us right here.. right now. That’s what God does, and that’s when He provides. Not luxurious items, or our Christmas wish lists, but soul food. He provides soul food.
Moving cross culturally is hard. Moving with babies is hard. Moving during a global pandemic… is another level of hard.

And I feel like I am usually careful with how I respond to “how is your transition going?” and maybe I should just be honest. But If I admit the hard, the response is usually “look for the positive. Count the gifts. Don’t focus on the negative.” And if I admit the love for this culture and these people and this place, the response is usually, “Oh, the honeymoon phase will end, just you wait.”

The truth? We know the honeymoon phase will end. We know it is beautiful and hard at the same time. We are experiencing all of the emotions all of the times. Honesty: It is hard but it is the best thing we have ever chosen for our family.

I read an article this week from a dear friend, which read, “every time there is transition, there is loss.” And it’s important to have your welcoming team of hosts in your new country ask the question, ‘What did you lose?’ “because where there’s loss, there’s grief. And when there’s no language for it, it comes out at your boss or in your marriage.”

But that’s the thing about moving during a global pandemic. There’s no team of hosts taking you in. There are no hugs, no long drawn out conversations late at night. There are no hand shakes, team meetings, community building exercises, or prayers in groups where everyone holds the next sweaty hand. There are no group sessions of cultural training, beach trips, mountain climbing, or fireside singing. There is no location where you enter in and feel instant community.

It’s lonely. There are angels, for sure. The Tammy’s and the Rachel’s and the Anna’s + Angi’s + Lauralee’s. They come quietly, individually, at a distance. And as a Third Culture Kid myself, I expected cultural training, language classes, team meetings. I know the ropes, but this time.. there are no ropes to know. No ropes to cling to when everyone wears a mask and gloves and abides by the 5pm curfew. We retreat to our homes, Zoom-fatigued and wondering why our brains are still spinning. 

It’s a real thing, this loss of stable footing and we’re all experiencing it, WORLD WIDE. Normal no longer exists, and we try to build routine on abnormal human behaviour.
My Hope here, is to begin to pave the way. To pave the way for every other family with babies moving cross culturally, during a pandemic where everyone is ready and no one is ready for your arrival. To somehow provide support for others in new ways. And perhaps that should be our vision globally. To begin to pave the way for an abnormal, new normal. What does it look like to live in a global pandemic? Because guess what. The honeymoon phase of Covid is over, and we can no longer expect to just “ride this out.”

How do we maneuver through this season? How do we give grace to those who take extra precautions, and those who don’t believe this is a real thing? How do we coexist, in the body of Christ, when we believe different things about a global pandemic?

We walk slowly. With humility. And before we repost articles about vaccinations and government conspiracy theories, we listen. We listen. We listen to the hearts of our neighbours and our families and we wait. Quietly.

Because we are souls, not systems. We were not built to be a system. We were built to be a collection of souls. That’s what Church is: a collection of souls. And we, as a family, are beginning to think creatively. We are channeling our innovation to recreate the spreading of the gospel. Because we don’t change the goal. We change the method of reaching our goal. And Covid has not changed our goal. Covid has simply prompted us to think outside the box, to recreate our method of delivery.

This week, as you maneuver through grief and loss as Covid exists globally, more prominent in some places than others, may you count gifts. But also may you admit the hard. The lonely. The loss of all that was familiar and stable. May you cling to Christ, and to the collection of souls around you. May you crawl forward, slowly, with listening ears to the cry of the hearts of others.

Hola!!!

A few updates for all of you. 🙂 We are starting to feel at HOME here!!! We are making connections, building friendships, and getting to know our neighbours and staff. Our boys have been doing an amazing job here. They are so brave, so compassionate, so aware. We are so proud of them.

This week Matt and I have had the opportunity to participate in New Staff Training ON campus at Doulos!!! This has been an incredible blessing, as we’ve been able to get our minds wrapped around our positions, our school setting, and our mission. We’ve learned about the history, the vision, and the values of Doulos. We’ve learned about our philosophy of education, our mission statement, and our common expeditions at Doulos. We definitely feel like a part of the team already.

Our kids have been staying with Nanny Angi, who is the most beautiful human. She has two kids of her own, and has brought them along to build relationships with our boys. They’ve adopted us as their own. The boys are being stretched as they train their ears to hear a new language.

Next week we participate in All Staff Training, but because many staff are returning from holidays in a variety of places, all staff training will take place online while everyone quarantines. The next two weeks we will be at home, online, while parenting. We will let you know how that goes! 😛 Angi will definitely come over to play with our kids and help us out. 🙂

We have currently been placed under another state of emergency for another 45 days. This means we have 7pm curfews (5pm on weekends), and all rivers and beaches are closed. Our start of school is still to be decided, and we will know more when our new president begins.

I feel like not even a book could include everything we have learned, grown in, and experienced!!! Thank you for all your prayers and support. Please don’t hesitate to email, text, FaceTime, or check in anytime. Love and hugs, Lisa.

PS> Pictures of campus included under the Photos tab!

His head is in my lap, and I want so very badly to take it off. His tears and my sweat, there’s no difference now.. he is wailing, weeping, sobbing into me and we love to the tile floor for the sake of my sanity and body temperature. 

I breathe deep with my teeth clenched, and I lift my arms high in the air trying desperately to just be what he needs me to be in this moment. His transitionary overload has collided with mine. He keeps shoving his head onto my lap, again and again, his feet kicking the cold floor and I say nothing. Just hold him, and wait. I watch him sob and it’s déjà vu, flashback to exactly 20 years ago today— summer—

Me on the tile floor, wailing into my mamas  lap, her stroking my sweaty hair. I imagine what it was like to be her, 20 years ago — fresh to South America with no internet, phones or wifi. I wonder about her loneliness, her sanity.  I remember her disposition so clearly. 

Patient. And not the kind of patient people are in a line at a bank. No. The kind of patient your great grandma is when baking bread or listening to someone speak. 

She was collected. Nurturing. Respectful. 

I channel my inner Mama and I put my hand on my raging 3 year olds back. I don’t say anything, because that’s what my mama did. I know enough to know it’s not really the food or the way his brother looked at him or that his Nana hung up FaceTime before he did. I know enough to know it’s not the itchy bites or the a sense of his “pedal bike” or all his favorite books back home. 

I know it’s the deepest level of being uprooted from everything he’s ever known. I know it’s the loss of his favorite people, of everything predictable, of his whole world being absent. 

The adventure phase is over, and it’s time to hit the ground – crawling. 

He lays in my lap, sobbing, feet hitting tile floor and I listen. I listen to his cries and his breathing and I know we will get through these meltdowns because everyone does and I did, we just have to do it RIGHT. 

He finally breathes deep, settles. I pull him up into my arms, put my face right into his, the way his love language desires and I tell him 

I know, Buddy, I know. It sucks, I whisper. It sucks to lose everything we loved and no amount of toys or furniture will bring that back because it’s not the material items we’ve given up that make any difference. It’s our people. Our routines. Our family + our world as we knew it. 

I love you, I tell him, over and over again and he listens. 

And then he proceeds to blow his nose into my shirt and scampers off to the laundry room to find his mini sticks. It’s hard, this journey of deciding what to care about and what to let go of. It’s a constant battles deciding the snot in my shirt matter nothing, but the patterns of our soul matter .. everything. The power going out for the 8th time today means nothing but the way I respond to the slight inconvenience matters everything. The suitcases + the mess + the ants across the house matter nothing, but the trip to the river to refresh our family as a whole matters everything. 

Continued from yesterday!

In addition to learning about local milk, we are on day 2 of no ants covering our kitchen counters!! We knew this was pretty normal, but the amount of ant armies was a little outrageous.. hahaha. We figured out the trick!!! We now wash every dish instantly, rinse in bleach water, and then air dry so there is no trace of sweet crumbs OR scent!

We also learned that it is a part of respectful Dominican culture to always wear pants in public, as well as be clean and presentable. While it was our instinct to think, “they don’t know us, what do they care if we wear shorts? That’s how WE do it” .. we were careful to remember that we are here to minister, to love, and to live like the Dominicans. While wearing shorts is considered normal for OUR culture and beliefs, we reminded ourselves that it is also important to be respectful of the culture around us if we are here to represent Christ. SO– we wear shorts around the house, but switch into long pants to head into public!! The sweating is a small sacrifice.. and such a good reminder of the IMMESNE sacrifices Christ has made for us. Matt has also reminded me that LOVE is not LOVE without some sort of SACRIFICE. If it is easy, seamless, and thoughtless, it is not authentic love.

We have heard of many great churches in Jarabacoa, and would love to join, but due to COVID children are not allowed to attend church until further restrictions are lifted. It is so much harder to adjust to a culture and a community with COVID. It’s so hard not to get frustrated at the global pandemic that affects daily life for humans everywhere. We aren’t able to greet our neighbors, invite them over, or participate in community activities. Our kids aren’t allowed in stores or public areas, and we are required to wear masks if we leave our property– the consequences could be a fine: 10% of our yearly salary.

COVID numbers are rising here as restrictions have been eased, so we are taking extra precautions. New staff training this week will take place outdoors while social distancing and wearing masks/gloves, etc. The remainder of our entire staff training will take place online, and the first semester of school is yet to be determined (whether it will be online or with many precautions).

Today we will participate in our church back in Winkler, online, and then take the day to rest and prepare our hearts for the week ahead! Thank you again for your investment in God’s kingdom. Praying with you. Lisa.

We learned how to pasteurize our own milk today! Most of the stores sell milk in a carton on the shelf that isn’t quite real 😝 so we found a farmer who brings in warm milk from his own cows in the morning to sell! We bought a few gallons and brought it home, where our dear Tammy taught us to pasteurize!

Today we bought meat from the butcher, got more familiar with our town and driving, and played outside with the kids. We are almost finished unpacking! Last night we were invited to some fellow missionary’s house for dinner, where we ate next tot he most beautiful view! Jarabacoa is filled with greenery, rivers, and mountains. 😍 It was so refreshing to connect with another family who understands our position in moving, transitioning, parenting, learning, and discomfort. We made sure to lock them in as friends! 😉

Thank you so much for checking in on us, praying for us, and walking with us. God has been faithful and has held our hand through this first week. Next week we look forward to new staff training. 💕 My heart is tender as I leave my boys with a “stranger” so early on, even while I trust and love them! As well, we are nervous about this next step of learning and growing. While we know it will be GOOD and FULL and God led, it is still hard + overwhelming + a bit painful. We are so grateful to have each other and our boys and the Lord walking us forward. Xoxo. Lisa.