Jimani, Dominican Republic

A Makarios and friends team of five just left Santiago to drive to Jimani, Dominican Republic, a town on the Haitian border with a hospital receiving patients from the earthquake. Charlie and I are in Santiago for the weekend and helped load the two trucks headed to the border with medical supplies, water, granola bars, peanut butter, milk and other items that the hospital's director requested. Please pray for the hospital in Jimani as they receive more patients to treat; pray that the supplies would abundantly meet the hospital's needs; and for the safety and security of the two trucks as they travel to and from the border.

Thank you for all the donations and prayers that helped buy the supplies heading to Jimani! We are so encouraged by the support of our family and friends. Love to all!

Haiti Relief

Makarios has been raising money today to send supplies to Haiti - thank you to everyone for your e-mails, prayers and donations! A small team will be traveling to Port au Prince tomorrow to deliver medical supplies, food, water, blankets and clothing. Please pray for safety and that the supplies would meet those in need.

For more information on giving to Haiti, see Makarios International.

A meeting of missionaries is taking place in Santiago this afternoon to discuss how we can most efficiently and effectively serve the needs of those in Haiti. Please pray for guidance as we determine how best to help!

Praying for Haiti

I apologize that this is the first post of the new year but wanted to let everyone know that we are okay after the earthquake that hit Haiti today. We felt the aftershocks in our apartment here in the DR, but we are safe! We, of course, are praying for Haiti, specifically Port-au-Prince, and for all of the Haitian families that Makarios works with here in the Dominican Republic. And ask you all to join us in doing the same!

We will post updates on relief efforts and needs as we get more information.

"The righteous cry out, and the Lord hears them; he delivers them from all their troubles. The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit." - Psalm 34: 17-18

Meet La Clase de Profe Kim

I can't believe I haven't posted a class picture sooner! Where do I even begin? Friends and family, meet craziness. Craziness, meet our friends and family. In all seriousness, these children are my loves. Every morning we are greeted with unconditional love when they jump into our arms to smother us with hugs and hellos. Who wouldn't want to start their day like that?

As Christmas break approaches and we return to the States, I am realizing just how much I am going to miss each little booger! Come January, I'll be dying for Anidelis screaming "Profe Kim!!" in what we call an "outside voice" and will feel like something is wrong with my day if I'm not changing Elijio's clothes because he couldn't wait for the bathroom break...Well, I'll almost miss that...

Settled and Celebrating

As the weeks go by, we have been slowly acquiring furniture and knick knacks for our apartment. As you can see, we are still without a couch, but cushions on the ground have done the job just fine!

First stop for furniture - Dominican estate sale. I have never been to one in the States but obviously we randomly found one here in the Dominican classified ads. We were a tad nervous to start our journey into the mountains of Puerto Plata to retrieve our furniture – especially when the guy e-mailed us again to make sure we didn’t want to consider purchasing the pistol he had for sale. Ummm…but no worries, we made it up the mountain and back down again with a wooden breakfast table with four chairs as well as a bamboo coffee table and two matching side tables for what we Americans would call a DEAL.

Charlie has also become quite the craftsman here. He made us a wooden table to increase our kitchen space as well as two wooden side tables that we affectionately painted orange. The paint appeared to be light orange but settled into a burnt orange. That color follows us everywhere we go – but we’re not complaining.

In addition to celebrating our home, we celebrated Charlie’s birthday in the apartment…

And at our new favorite getaway spot a few weeks later…it’s the Velero Hotel in Cabarete (a beach town 45 minutes or so from where we live). We celebrated both of our birthdays there and basked in the air conditioning, television, pool and delicious food...ahhh.

Oh, Rats!

It was a normal night. The girls had just returned from dinner, the boys were having Bible Study. Anne went home to her apartment to enjoy a book and an early bedtime; Erika and I were at the Mak Staff House, checking e-mail and chatting on the phone. Anne called – she had unexpected visitorS at home...the three of us soon found ourselves here.

Chasing rats. Anne found the first one in the bedroom when she got home and locked it in there. She then called us for reinforcements. We sadly don’t have this kill on video (the movie above documents our second friend), but it went a little something like this. Anne had 2 crutches to use as weapons – one for her and one for…Erika thankfully volunteered promptly. I was, can you guess, terrified. I couldn’t even go into the bedroom to watch them stomp it with the crutches. I instead opted to stay outside and scream in unison with them and hold a bottle of 409 (not joking) because for some reason, I thought it would be the appropriate weapon to use…when the rat opened the bedroom door itself to come into the kitchen/living room to attack me??? Still not sure…But in all honesty, it’s probably due to the fact that since coming to this country, I have used 409 to kill all ant trails I find in our apartment (which were many in the beginning but few to none now that we have set up trusty ant hotels from the States).

Erika stomped it with her crutch in the corner of the bedroom (sidenote: rat blood splatter was later found on Garrett and Anne’s mattress…sick).

Girls: 1

Rats: 0

Erika and I returned home to tell the medical group visiting for the week of our rat TAIL. Get it? Ha. Phone rings again. Anne on the line. “I found another one…in the oven.” Erika and I thought it was a joke. Erika actually thought Anne had baked us cookies for our help, and we would open the oven to find perfectly golden brown chocolate chip cookies. Again, ha. Just in case though, we brought a group member to witness and film.

As you know, and saw above in the film, ANOTHER fuzzy friend was living in Anne and Garrett’s OVEN. This one was FEISTY. It jumped, not even kidding, 2 feet in the air to escape the death trap of the crutch at every attempt. I had no choice but to be in the same room as the rat this time, so I chose to sit on a tiny ledge and film (thus, I am BEHIND the camera, filming poorly – many apologies – and commenting obnoxiously).

I was soon enlisted to share in taking the rat’s life. Assignment: throw a notebook at the corner of the water heater to scare the rat into harm’s way. My feet obviously needed sufficient protection for this hefty task (sarcasm), so I decided to put on Garrett’s size 12+ work boots. Outcome: failed miserably.

My throw was weak because I was too concerned in jumping up to the pull-up bar above me to keep my feet off the ground when the rat came pouncing out...

Long story short, our husbands came home and saved the day.

People: 2

Rats: 0

Codetel Blues

Long time no talk. I blame it on this country. We have been in our apartment for over a month, had Internet installed soon after, but don’t be fooled, we don’t actually have a connection. Just an ugly modem and telephone sitting in our living room that daily reminds us that Codetel (the beloved Internet company) is sucking us dry financially and not providing any sort of service at the same time. Loveliness.

On a lighter note, I will catch you up! Time is literally flying by here. Halloween has passed, Thanksgiving is quickly approaching and Christmas is already all over this country. Dominicans love them some Christmas décor – starting in October. I was still recovering from last Christmas when I walked into the grocery store here and Christmas trees and garland had thrown up everywhere. Feliz Navidad!

Speaking of holidays, we did indeed celebrate Halloween here – a weekend early. We had a medical team in town for doctors’ visits for the students and their families over the real Halloween, so our team threw down a Murder Mystery Dinner the weekend before. It was hilarious. The theme was 80’s island, so obviously I was in heaven. Anne, Robin, Holly and I visited what is a REAL clothing store here to find our costumes. Our finds should give you a glimpse of Dominican attire.

The premise of the game – everyone is e-mailed a character and information about the storyline through the murder mystery dinner website. For example, Charlie was Jamie Buffett (our specific game was Margaritaville - clever). Notice his costume was manmade – clearly, he kept it for less than 12 hours. So, you enter into the game knowing little and you are handed cue cards and scripts to lead you in what to talk about with whom to hopefully discover who the murderer is. The whole night was right up my alley, and I secretly loved how everyone was forced to stay in character. Made for many a laughs. Which are good for my weary Codetel soul.