One Week In

Hi Everyone!
Thanks for all your prayers and support, because I am now back in Jarabacoa! It has been a week since I left Chicago and it feels great to be back! My first night here I must have already felt at home, because I slept straight through the heat, the noise and the power outages..Gracias a Dios!
For those of you who aren't aware, my two house-mates, Amanda and Melisa, are both fellow Bethel 2010 grads. It has been such a blessing to already know these two girls prior to arriving. Amanda is already here with me and Melisa does not arrive until Sunday, so please pray for her safe travels.
Being back in Jarabacoa has been an adventure. There will obviously be cultural adjustments as I arrive back: like power outages, no air conditioning, language barriers etc. But they are all not difficult. For example, Mandy and I discovered an avacado tree in our backyard the other day!! And any of you who know Dominican avocados know that they surpase American avocados in both size and flavor! (and price because they are free!)
Mandy and I have kept busy between moving into our new house, exploring town and visiting friends. One of my concerns in returning to Jarabacoa was being disconnected from the true Dominican culture that I was immersed into 3 years ago. Having the school so close to my house I could see how it would be easy to let this happen. However, I must have forgotten what true Dominican culture is like: welcoming! Once you have stayed here, you are family forever! I have been to see my host family twice now and seeing them for the first time was more emotional than I thought it would be! I had heard through some people in town that the oldest daughter of my family had just gotten home from the hospital from having a serious case of Dengue fever. For a while they were very concerned for Vida's life, because her case was so bad. So needless to say when I saw her, especially, I tried not to get TOO emotional. God is so good. She had only been home for a day when I first went to their house and the whole family was praising God for her health. The second visit to their house consisted of a true Dominican meal-rice,beans,chicken and avocado(que rica!), Dominican jokes(which I actually understood!),lots of laughter and shared memories. It was by far the most enjoyable evening I have had since being back.



It has also been great to see the beautiful scenery of this city again! Jarabacoa is in the mountains and has so many beautiful places to explore. A group of us JCS teachers went out the other day to the Salto Jimenoa, some waterfalls not too far out from the city. I had been only to the lower waterfall when I was here before, but this time we made the great hike up to the upper fall. It was absolutely gorgeous! I also discovered that two of the other teachers are fellow explorers and we went out looking for cliffs to jump off of! We found some great spots, but because of the large amounts of rain the current was too strong to go as far as we would have liked. (Thanks for the pictures, Elissa)(Hint, you can click on the pictures below to see a larger image!)




Here I am talking about all this fun stuff, but I haven't said a word about school! We started new staff training today and all staff training will start Monday. And just so you know classes begin August 19. I will have more to post on this later!

Thanks again for all your prayers. Post comments, e-mail (jolynne0610@gmail.com), or Facebook me. I would love to hear more about whats going on the home-front! I can't promise an immediate response since I do not have internet at the house yet, but that is soon to come!

Peace and Blessings,
Jo