A White Christmas

JCS ended classes on the 21st of December and I was finally home for Christmas on the 22nd! This meant that I had one day to unpack, do laundry, and do some last minute shopping before our family celebrations started on the 24th!

Luckily my family "took off" the 25th from Christmas craziness and we had a day to work around the house. It was actually very nice to not have to do something that day. That evening we ordered in Chinese and went to see a movie. How American are we :) It was actually one of my favorite days of break. We relaxed and enjoyed each other and that is just fine with me.

I got a new camera for Christmas..yeah!! (All my blog pictures since November have been stolen from various friends' computers).

My two and a half weeks home were so so great. It was just what I needed after a crazy first semester of teaching overseas. I don't think I realized how much I missed my family, friends and life in the States until I was actually there after a 5 month absence.

Here are just a few highlights of my trip...

(Melody, I totally stole some of these from your facebook. I guess I am still in the habit even with my new camera.)

Christmas with the family

(I have decided that my family needs to take more pictures...)

Christmas cooking with Melody

Friends in Chicago

Brothers! Way to go Andrew.

Gingerbread house with my two best friends! :)

Thank you for all your prayers for safety and transitions as I have been traveling back and forth!

Peace and Blessings,

Jo ♥

Christmas Crazy

Well, I am very overdue for an update so I am going to chunk everything into a few posts.

Before I begin to tell you all of our 1st grade Christmas activities, I should remind you of the way most kids are right before the holidays-hyper! So our normal energy level was heightened...just a little.

Christmas Program

Every year JCS has a Christmas program in which each class presents a Christmas song, dance or skit. Of course, as over achieving 1st graders, we decided to perform two songs: Donde esta Santa Clause? and Rudolph. Kristin and I combined forces and worked hard to coordinate music, costumes, and of course, the children for the performance. Our first song went as planned... for the first 30 seconds, after which our music went out. But the kids didn't miss a beat. I was so proud of them. They kept singing as loud as they could. And so did I :)

Snap shots from the girls' dressing room while we were waiting to go on stage...

Here is a little of our version of Rudolph. If you listen to the end you might notice the "Dominican-ized" ending. Usually where we would add "like George Washington", we said "like Pablo Duarte", one of the Dominican founding fathers.

That night Kristin and I also performed a dance to Joyful Joyful ( Sister Act style of course) with our dance class. 3 songs back to back made for a crazy night but it was so much to fun to enjoy it with all the kids.

After the program with my roomies :)

Christmas Party

Kristin and I also joined forces once more for a Christmas party at my house. We had lots of crafts, cookie decorating and a short Christmas-themed gospel presentation. A very fun day, but I am still finding glitter in my house!

Christmas cookies!

Christmas Banquet

That night JCS held its annual Christmas banquet fundraiser at one of the local hotels. It was a very fun evening with lots of food, merengue dancing, and visiting with my students- three things that make for a very happy Johanna :)

A few of my boys all dressed up. It doesn't look it, but I promise they were very happy to see me! C'mon boys, smile!

Amanda, Allison, Me and Anna

Dominican-style Christmas is a lot of fun! Crazy, but fun. However, it never really felt like Christmas in 70 degree weather. I actually started missing the cold and of course, snow! Who would have thought. Needless to say I was ready to be home, cold and all, with my family for Christmas.

Feliz Navidad!

Peace and Blessings,

Jo ♥

Thankful

For my November update I have decided to go with the Thankfulness theme. Original, I know.

A little over a week ago my mom called me asking if I had seen any specific ways God had answered prayer since being in Jarabacoa. There were a few things that came to mind right away, specifically in the area of provision. God had provided me with the position at JCS, the finances to get here, and friendships to encourage me along the way. Everything has been so exciting and amazing. But to be honest, once I got here I think I lost my drive to pray. While I still pray, it has not fulfilling. I have not been relying on prayer anymore.

When my mom called me I felt convicted right away, because I knew I hadn't been relying on God through prayer like I should. The verse Phillipians 4:16 came to mind after I talked to her. It says:

"Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, in prayer and thanksgiving, present your requests to God."

When Paul wrote about prayer, he wrote about thanksgiving. Do I pray with thanksgiving? Do I live with thanksgiving? Do I live everyday thankful to God through prayer?

Honestly I had never really thought of prayer like this before, but it is very striking.

If I am thankful for the blessings and even difficulties in my life, I would let God know that on a daily basis. I would give thanks. Its not simply saying the words "thank you", but submitting my everyday thoughts and actions to him, because I am thankful. I am thankful to my Father that he has given me a life to live: both physically and spirtually. And the best way to to say "thank you" is to give it back to him.

Here are some ways that God has truely blessed me -in both good times and bad.

-Health: I surprisngly almost made it through November without getting sick! Those of you who were tracking my life here three years ago may remember an infamous spider bite that started out my semester. Well, the same type of spider...or whatever it was...decided to leave its mark on me once more, only on my leg. Long story short I was out of school for the three days before Thanksgiving break. Only a bite, you say? Well the bite turned into an infection and walking was very painful. Not to mention the fever and vomitting that came along with it! Fun!

Thank you God that my infection is gone, that I am walking again and keeping everything in my stomach! :D

Friends: This brings me to my 2nd item on my list. I have never felt so popular than when I have been sick! I was so thankful for all my friends who took such good care of me and came to visit me. Melisa and Mandy: you are such good roomates. Thank you for keeping track of all my pills and keeping me hydrated! Jim: thank you for driving me all around town to find a doctor and an open pharmacy. Joan: thank you for walking back to the pharmacy in the rain after I left my perscription sheet at the pharmacy...I would! Mellissa: Thank you for being my "mom" :) Kristin: thank you for making our 1st grade Thanksgiving play happen in my absence! You are an awesome teacher and friend and I am so lucky to know you!

Thanksgiving Break: I was a little worried that I wasn't going to be able to enjoy my Thansgiving break to the fullest after getting sick. But no worries, I was able to eat all the yummy food that we had at the JCS fauculty dinner on Thursday. Dominicans don't celebrate Thanksgiving so I was very grateful for the fact that we actually had a turkey for the dinner!

Mandy and I also had our own Thanksgiving dinner with some Dominican friends from church. We wanted to expose them to the wonders of Thanksgiving food! So we spent all day cooking Friday with our friend, Jim. It was our first Thanksgiving meal on our own so we were pretty proud of ourselves. Even though we had to roast a chicken instead of a turkey, I think they were thourougly impressed.

10 hours of cooking and baking!

Amanda's new found calling: roasting chickens My new found calling: baking pies

The power would go out!

On Saturday some friends and I took a day trip out to Santiago, a larger city about 45 minutes away. It was my first time driving in this country. SO crazy, but so fun . Kinda reminded me of Chicago actually. Just even more intense! We took full advantage of our time there and packed our day. We spent the day site seeing, shopping at La Sirena (a large department store) and the mall, seeing a real life movie in the movie theatre, bowling, and eating at a resturant. Essentially we spent the day in the United States. Ha! Those things might not sound special to you all back home, but it definetley felt like I was living large!

Photo shoot at the statue Friends

So fancy... and so classy!

A visit home: While I have only been out of the States for 4 months, I am so grateful for my upcoming visit home at Christmas. It really gives me a sense of comfort as I finish the semester. Christmas just does not seem the same with 70 degree weather and palm trees. (Not that I am complaining-at all!) Thank you so much to everyone who have given financially to make my visit possible!

Answered Prayers: Help with Brian

In my last blog I wrote about one of my students, Brian, who just started at JCS this year. Since I last wrote the 2nd grade student teacher from Taylor Universtiy started working with Brian for an hour everyday on phonics. She is a huge blessing! I wish she could stay forever! I have also seen improvements in our tutoring sessions. I actually look forward to these days alot. I am able to give him the attention he needs and make activities a more exciting than his everyday school routines. Please continue to pray for Brian's transition into school. While I am very grateful for his improvments, he is still light-years behind the other students in many areas. He is not at the maturaty or academic level as the rest of the students and this acounts for some pretty difficult days.

Well. That sums it up for now. I can garauntee that December's update will be even longer due to all that is coming up!

Thank you all for your prayers. They are so appreciated.

Peace and Blessings,

Jo ♥

A very overdue update

Friends and Family,

I am so sorry that it has been so long! I apologize to any of you who have sent me emails or facebook messages that went unanswered. My life has taken off since the end of August and I have been in and out of internet access since then. However, as of yesterday afternoon we finally have internet in the house!

So many things have happened since my last post, so I will try to summarize my life as best I can.

Since then I have...

-Started School!

Yes, I am finally a real life teacher! 1st grade keeps me on my toes at all times, but I absolutley love my job. I only have ten students in my classroom, but I am not complaining! Here is a little backround on my students:

Many of the families at JCS are local business owners, politicians, doctors and lawyers. Because our school is bi-lingual and American based, families send their children there for a quality education, not because it is a Christian school. This differs from alot from Christian schools in the States, because a good percentage of the families are not believers. As a friend pointed out to me, most of them will follow in their parent's footsteps and become local leaders. So as Christians we JCS teachers have the incredible oppurtunity and responsibility to share God's love with both the current and future leaders of Jarabacoa.

JCS starts in Pre-K 2 and goes through 12th grade, so most of my students have been attending the school for 4 years already. Their minds have been immursed in english since they were 2 years old, but language development is still a large focus of my teaching day. It has been fun trying to find ways to teach english vocabulary throughout the various subjects of the day.

A normal day includes Calendar, Bible, Reading Groups, Snack/Recess (of course!), Math, Phonics, Specials (Gym, Art or Computers), Lunch/Recess, Read-aloud, Handwriting, Spanish (praise the Lord-I don't teach this!) Social Studies or Centers.

As you can see we keep very busy, but we have lots of fun! I have a GREAT group of kids who are hardworking, sweet and absolutley halarious. They wear me out alot, but I am so lucky.

We just finished our firefighter unit this Friday. We ended it with a JCS FD ceremony were they were awarded their badges and hats for knowing firesaftey!

Here are more pictures!!

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2032693&id=62401310

Teaching 1st grade wouldn't be as fun without my fellow teacher and friend, Kristin DeYoung! I am so lucky to have her guidance as I venture in my first year of teaching. She has also become a very close friend and I am so so blessed to have her in my life!

Kristin and I at Parent Night

-Moved Houses

In the middle of September my roomates and I moved down the road into a new house. A number of factors went into the desicion, but in short, we are now in a little more secluded (meaning, safer) and quieter part of the neighborhood. Our landlord, also our nextdoor neighbor, has been very helpful with the move and is Mr. Handyman himself. I am so glad he is around! We are the first renters of this place, so we are pretty blessed!

Amanda have already set our creative minds to work, but don't have much fruit from our labor yet. Photos yet to come!

-Found a church

One of my goals upon coming to live in the DR was to remain closley connected with Dominican culture by getting involved with a local church. Teaching at a English speaking school and working/living with fellow American teachers has given me plenty oppurtunity to stay connected with my own culture, but has made it too easy to remain closed off from Dominican culture. My first Sunday here I visited a church only minutes walking distance from my house called Amor a Quesquia. My roomie, Mandy and I have been going there since then and I know I have found my Dominican home church. Within my first few Sundays we met a group of people our age that we have loved getting to know. They have been incredibly welcoming and supportive of us being here. One of the things that I admire about the church is their closeness and obvious love for each other. After each Sunday service we head into town and usually eat a cheap meal out or pitch in to make a meal together. I am so excited to spend more time with these people that have made my transition that much easier.

We love to play Uno-Dominican style! Even when the power goes out!

-Joined a Bible Study

I have also decided to join a small group through Amor Quisqua. This has been a great way to know other people in the church that I might not get to know otherwise. It also gives me another oppurtunity to practice my Spanish!

-Started a dance class

Kristin and I have started an excersise/dance class for girls Grades 3-6. Each week we do a mix of kickboxing, zumba and yoga stretches. It has been so much fun to learn dances with these girls because they know how to move better than we do! Kristin and I thought it would be an excellent oppurtunity to encourage excersise through dance (something all Domincans know how to do!) that is both fun and edifying!

-Started Tutoring

While most of my students come from well off families and have been learning english for a few years now, I have one student who is in his first year at JCS. Bryan comes from a very poor family and has never been in an educational setting before, let alone a full day English speaking school. He is a VERY high energy little boy and obviously has an especially hard time adjusting to the langauge aspect of school. So we have started tutoring after school on Tuesdays. This gives me a chance to know and understand Bryan better as a child, not just as a student. We have so much fun doing different games and activities that I otherwise would not get to do with him. He is very fun and is always looking forward to "playing with Miss Craig" on Tuesday afternoons! ;)

Believe it or not, that has been a short summary! I look forward to hearing from people and being able to respond! Thanks so much for all your prayers thus far. It is a blessing to know that I have the love and support from people back home!

If you would please continue to pray for

-energy througout the week

-love for my students, even when I am tired!

-tutoring sessions with Bryan-that they would be benificial and productive, but also enjoyable for him!

-continued postive relationships with church friends

-improved Spanish skills. I am getting plenty of practice, but sometimes it is tiring!

Peace and Blessings,

Jo

Bookshelves!

Disclaimer: This post was written last week, but the power went out before I could post it. (Meaning the internet went as well.) Because I am some what technologically incompetent, I could not find the post after I had power once again. My blog page is also half in Spanish and I am not up on my blogger Spanish vocab, so please forgive me.

It has been quite the adventure to get there, but we finally started school on August 23. The original plan was to start Thursday August 19, but there were several loose ends that needed to be tied up before doors could open to students. In my American mind it at first seemed crazy not to start school when it was originally planned for. But when I am honest with myself I was extremely grateful for the extra time to plan. You can't always complain :) We also didn't get all of the curriculum and textbooks until after school started. Again, very strange in an American mindset, but for some reason it wasn't!

Much of my time has been spent in my classroom. I quickly learned that when I am there it is one of the few times that I don't mind being alone. Most of you who know me well know that I can not stand being alone, no matter what the situation. Apparently things are a little different at school. I have fallen in love. Organizing, arranging and decorating consumed my thoughts and time for the week and a half before school.

It was also fun to be creative and resourceful with the random materials I had. For example, I only have one set of cubbies in my room for storage. These are to serve as students' lockers and storage of my own. Having brought several large boxes of materials and discovering MANY more boxes upon my arrival, I was at first very overwhelmed. But thanks to Mother Necessity, I got to work. My favorite thing that came out of this whole experience was my "bookshelves". Cinder blocks and wood are my new favorite things. I now wish I had documented the process.I think it would have been entertaining for you all to see me first describe a cinder block to a Dominican hardware store employee, try to find cinder blocks with the store employees in the back garage (of course they wouldn't know where they were) and then purchase and load the cinder blocks into my friend's trunk from the garage in the middle of a forceful rain storm. Then of course, there was me searching through the school's huge scrape pile to find suitable (and safe) pieces of wood for the shelves, finding a random bucket of paint on my house roof and finally going to town with the paint in the middle of the JCS soccer field.

Needless to say, these kids better loooove their library bookshelves!

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

My Support Letter

May 2010

Dear Friends and Family,

Many of you have been closely following my life over the last four years as I have been studying at Bethel College. I have been blessed to have been across the country and around the world in pursuit of my Elementary Education and Spanish studies. This past year was my busiest yet as I completed classes, student taught, worked part time and began the lengthy and in-depth process of job hunting! Well, on May 2 I finally completed my degree and received my diploma from Bethel College! I have been so blessed to have been able to have such a rich educational experience and have supportive people, such as yourself, in my life.
So, whats next for me? Some of you might have known of my desire to live and work overseas. After spending a semester in the Dominican Republic, God had confirmed my desire to use teaching as a means for international ministry. So, starting this last winter I spent my fair share of time filling out applications and interviewing for several schools around the world. Despite my own efforts, it was God’s plan that prevailed over my own. While my trip to the Dominican strongly shaped and influenced my desire to be overseas, I never expected to return to teach. However, God had different plans. With that said, I have accepted a 1st grade teaching position at Jarabacoa Christian School (JCS) in Jarabacoa, Dominican Republic.
JCS is an independent, non-profit, college preparatory Christian School in Jarabacoa, a beautiful city in the mountains. While the majority of students attending JCS are Dominican, a few expatriate families send their children there. The school is ten years old and was started as a gift to the Dominican people. The school’s primary purpose is that each student would come to know Christ as his/her personal savior and receive a quality Christian education. I will be teaching a first grade class and am very excited to begin my school year in August.
Jarabacoa is the city where I spent a semester on my first trip to the D.R. During that time I lived with two different host families, took classes, worked at a preschool and made deep friendships with neighbors in my community. When I return I will be living in a Dominican neighborhood with two fellow teachers, only minutes from my first host family. I feel so blessed to be able to return to the city and people that were so influential in life. I look forward to building relationships with my students, their families, fellow staff members and neighbors. Please keep me in your prayers as I enter this mission field in Jarabacoa.
I have been directly hired by JCS for two years and will be receiving a salary that will pay for living expenses while living in Jarabacoa. However, the salary will not cover extra costs, such as travel expenses and start up costs for our house. All JCS staff members are recommended to raise about $2,000 for their first year of service to cover these extra costs. If you feel lead to minister to the people of Jarabacoa by financially supporting me you can do so by giving to Village Bible Church. You may write checks to Village Bible Church (address below) with JCS in the memo line.

Village Bible Church
600 Kuhn Road
Carol Stream, IL 60188

I greatly appreciate your prayers and support as I begin this new and exciting part of my life!

In His Love,
Johanna Craig