Un fin de semana fantástico

Hi friends,

Okay, so it seems like I've been updating this a lot lately, but that's only because I have. We've had a lot of down time since the group left Saturday, so I've just been hanging out with my housemates, exploring a little, reading a lot, etc., etc.

Tomorrow starts literacy camp at the Makarios School, for which I still don't have a particular job description, but I'm confident whatever I will be doing has been purposed!

My first full weekend here has been one of the most restful weekends I’ve had in ages. Friday was the Austin Stone youth group’s last day here so they took a trip out to Cabarete (“the beach”) to swim, hang out at LAX, a coffee house on the sand, and eat dinner/break bread (oh, Christian lingo) for the last time. Marissa, Katy (which I like to pronounce Cot-E, the Dominican way), and I took a gua-gua (aforementioned Dominican mini-bus/large van that squeezes in an average of 20 passengers) met up with the group around 2:00. The gua-gua that picked us up at the front of our neighborhood appeared to be full, but the driver’s assistant, the man who arranges us just so in order to pack us in and then collects our pesos, assured us that we could sit on one another’s laps. The gua-gua rides are always fun because you make around 7 stops before reaching your destination, at each one shifting around to a completely new seat so that the newest puzzle piece can occupy its optimum position. Anywho, the ride there was fine, got a great accidental picture of the man below riding his moto the opposite direction. I meant to take a picture of the fence behind him, but he sped on into the frame just in time. Look how he’ stylin’!

The beach was fun—buried some high school kids in the sand, got buried to look like I was being eaten by a sand fish (not pictured), learned how to float on my back, bought a coconut from a lady with a gold tooth in her mouth and a basket of fruit on her head, and saw some live sand dollars. We all ate together Friday evening at Casanova where Marissa and I had some nasty pizza. Lesson learned! (We’re making a list of things to remember not to get next time.)

Saturday, those of us who are left in the house were supposed to take a trip out to 27 Waterfalls, a local place wherein you climb up and slide down 27 waterfalls (genius). However, it has been raining every day so we figured it may be safer to leave it for another Saturday. Instead, we slept in a little, I did some leisurely reading, and then Marissa and I each took a little jog down the malecón (boardwalk). The malecón is a red brick sidewalk that runs in front of our neighborhood on the autopista, and if you just keep following it (much like the yellow brick road), it takes you to paradise/the Atlantic Ocean (pictured below). During my lengthy walk/jog I took a few photos of the ocean, a man painting the red brick road, etc. It was awesome. I ended up at La Sirena (Puerto Plata’s closest thing to a Target), was unsuccessful in finding what I was looking for, and ended up just taking public back home (by that time I was sweaty and tired…and hungry). After Marissa and I got back and Riley woke up from his nap the 5 of us went to lunch at Cafesíto, a local restaurant owned by a Canadian man and his wife, which serves American food (yummy!). THEN (yes, there’s more) the rest of the afternoon and evening the five of us hung out with/watched tv and a movie on the computer and projector with some other Makarios staff and a cool art co-op creator/missionary from Canada named Rachel and her foster son, Jonathan.

Sunday morning we went to Dominican church, where I took communion with wine for the first time, did some worshipping and listening to a sermon en español, and met some awesome people. This afternoon the 5 of us housemates have just been relaxing, sitting in our sweat, doing laundry (wherein we have to dry it on lines outside with clothespins, which is cool/borderline enchanting for me because I haven’t had to use a clothespin for anything but a craft since I was like 5), reading, updating friends and family, etc. I got to talk to mom and Cody and Sarah on Skype!!!! :D :D :D It was so fabulous. Cody has been doin’ a little assisted walking, which is SO exciting! I also just got to have a really good conversation with him. It’s so obvious every time I go a while without seeing him, and now without talking to him, the progress that he makes in the meantime. God is so faithful at continuing to heal his mind, body, and most importantly, his soul.

So, between starting and finishing this entry, I got a phone call from one of the teachers, Robin, who needs to be with a friend in the hospital tomorrow, asking if I could take over her responsibilities at literacy camp tomorrow. Yikes! Bikes! (That was for you, Molly.) Please pray that my Spanish will suffice. Though I’m not confident in myself or my abilities, I’m for sure confident in what God can do through me. Example of his faithfulness: I’ve been praying that my time here would not be in vain, and then this morning I was read these verses in Philippians (Phil 2:16) where Paul says to “hold fast to the word of life so that in the day of Christ I may be proud that I did not run in vain or labor in vain.” Did I take that as an answer to my prayer? Yes. Kinda like last summer when I had the same prayer and my Zambian partner Morgan told me on day 1, without me having said anything about wanting my time to have not been spent in vain, “Audrey, as long as we are working in the Spirit, our work is not in vain.” So, priase God for answering this prayer so obviously two summers in a row.

Alright, I’m gonna stop apologizing for making this so long all the time because if you don’t wanna read the whole thing, you can do a little thing that I like to do: skim.

Below are pictures of the Coca-Cola sign that marks the front of our neighborhood (you tell the gua-gua drivers "Coca-Cola" in order to get home) and a man reading a book on a horse in our neighborhood.












Our neighborhood sign








The main road in our neighborhood.

















Our street <3











I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ—that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings…Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect…But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead. I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Philippians 3:7-14