Monday, November 28, 2005

I'm Back!

Wow! What a great trip! I'm so thankful to all of you who encouraged me and prayed for me! Jairo and I had a great week in the Dominican and had a wonderful time with his family.

We arrived at 11:15 pm in Santo Domingo (the capital), 15 minutes after our car rental place closed. We had to catch a cab to our hotel which ended up costing us 35 bucks and when we got to the hotel it was horrible. we booked it on hotel.com and were all excited because it was supposed to be this all inclusive resort. instead it was almost deserted, dirty, and just plain icky. we were going to stay there and chill all day on sunday for our anniversary but we couldn't handle being there that long so we left around 8:30 sunday and paid another 35 bucks back to the airport to pick up our rental. Things got better from there.

Sunday we drove out to Jarabocoa and met up with Jairo's family. They were all so happy to see us and it was great just hanging out and showing them our wedding pics. The language barrier was kinda tough but his 5 neices have been learning english this last year so they helped translate a lot.

Monday through wednesday we hung out with family and met up with some old friends in the area. it was great seeing everyone again and i got a lot of nice pictures. if i figure out how to post them on here, i'll show you some!

Wednesday afternoon Jairo and I drove up to the north coast to a little town called Cabarette aka the windsurfing capital of the world. we checked into an all-inclusive (very nice) for the night and enjoyed our time of relaxing, swimming, eating, and watching movies. we fell asleep by 9:45!

Thursday afternoon we drove back to Jarabacoa and went over to the house of our Canadian friends Bob and Victoria Lawlor-McLain and their 5 kids. Bob had been a teacher at Escuela Caribe, the school where i was for a year, for about 3 years and had just recently left to open his own counseling center in town. That night Bob told me about the many dramas that were unfolding at the school, some were very concerning. Apparently, a former student named Julia Scheeres has come out with a book called "jesus land" and has documented her entire experience at Escuela Caribe as abusive and damaging. This book is on the New York times best seller list and has been praised by the Washington Post and the like. I don't doubt that everything she says in this book is true. There were some horrible things happening when I was there, but I know some very good people who also work at the school and I'm concerned for them. There are major changes that need to be made at Escuela Caribe, it may even need to shut its doors, but I pray that there is no permanent damage to the well intentioned, committed, and loving staff. Personally though, some of the staff, particulary, the administration, is not so well intentioned, committed, or loving and they need the boot.

Anyways, Friday, Jairo and I took hist 5 neices to the pool for the entire afternoon. It rained all day and it was kind of chilly but they seemed to have fun. Friday night Jairo and I along with some friends of Jairo's drove in to Santiago (DR's 2nd largest city) and say a movie. Lots of fun!

Saturday we said good bye and now here I am back at work! What a week!

3 Comments:

At 11/29/2005 12:13 PM, Blogger MOLLY said...

I'm glad you had such a good time! And that everything went smoothly.
It's sad about the school you worked at, but you made the right decision leaving- always good to have more confirmation even after the fact!

 
At 12/01/2005 5:06 PM, Blogger Abundant Lifers said...

I am glad that you are home safe. I am also glad that things got better after that crummy first couple of days. So sad about the school - keep praying for them. It doesn't surprise me that someone's book with Christ's name on it and damaging effects made it to a top sellers list...that is what Satan wants. But Praise Jesus He is the ultimate Judge!

 
At 12/13/2005 12:30 AM, Blogger She Rah Bowling Queen said...

Not sure what all is going on with Molly's "I love you" guy....she has been quite vague about it even to me. Though it might have something to do with the fact that there is probably a bunch of other people in the computer lab when she is typing.

-katy

 

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