Sometimes I am a slow processor.  I think about things for a while.  Things come to me later.

Last Sunday was our first "hard" day.  After being here for 9 days, we were all anxious and ready to move into our rented and hopefully "furnished" house.  I say hopefully because after looking at some other supposedly furnished houses, I'm learning what the Dominican definition is.  So, when our contact called and said the house would not be vacant and available until NEXT weekend, there was a bit of disappointment in the air.

Hmm...what to do, what to do.

Call the owner of that other house we almost took!  The second choice!  What?  Can't reach him until later this afternoon?  That's ok.  We'll wait.  Surely that one will be available.

What?  Not available.  Hmm...what to do, what to do.

Let's look at some other options.  We look around a bit.  Get a break on the Villa we're already staying in.  Decide to wait.  It's a good house, good neighborhood, good distance, good price.  We'll wait.

At church on Sunday a guest speaker, still in Spanish,  talked about our esperanza, HOPE, the hope of our life.

As I've been thinking about that verse. I realize that HOPE is our anchor.  It's all we have.  Hope in Christ, hope in the future, hope in His plan.  I think that's why we can say as Christians, that any circumstances that surround us, that sadden or threaten us, don't rob us of our hope.  We're looking to the future, to the next unfolding of life.

So on Monday we were invited by our American friends, Darrell and Sandy, to their host home to do our laundry.  And they have a dryer!  A rarety here.  So blessed by their hospitality.  The grandmother and her grandaughter host many families.  We had good food, lots of laughs and spanglish conversations while that laundry was washing.  New friends with new possibilities that wouldn't have been made had we moved into our OWN place with our OWN washer (and probably no dryer.)

The first day of 11th grade might seem a little anti-climactic after going to college.  Unless you're Emily and starting at a new school for the first time in your school career and it's in a foreign country.  Luckily and blessedly it is a bilingual school that is taught primarily in English.  Hooray for the best of both worlds. 

Max begins the second half of 8th grade not ever having completed the first half.

"What in the world are we doing" you might ask...

Doulos Discovery School is an amazing place where one-half of the students are on scholarship.  Doulos is a US non-profit and all of the teachers and staff from North America raise their own salaries in the form of support.  Giving the poorest students in Jarabacoa the ability to receive a private, Christian education would be fantastic enough.  But there's more!  Classes are taught in English, so all of the students become bilingual.  95% of the students are Dominican and the school's mission is to educate and equip their students so they can impact the DR.  What a great thing!  AND it's an Expeditionary learning school, which is an exciting way to learn.  If you want to know more about all of this, check out their website here.

We're privileged to able to serve here this semester and work alongside the amazing staff.  What a great group of young, smart, and enthusiastic people who love Jesus and followed the call to the DR.

So Emily will finish the11th grade and Max will join the 8th grade class (or possibly the 9th grade class because of his math level) and then who knows where they'll go from there?  Only God knows for sure.

By the way, the high school students start school at 7am!!!

After hiking and repelling, and more hiking (and lunch) we headed down the mountain through the coffee farm and had a little tour. 

Spirit Mountain Coffee Plantation has been operating for about 6 years on a long farmed piece of land where coffee farming was abandoned after a hurricane in the late 90"s.  Replanting and developing new methods for growing coffee are high on the priority list here!

The ripe coffee bean on the tree is called a cherry and can be eaten.  The red pulp is thin like a cherry and tastes like a mild pepper to me.  But is a little sweet.  The coffee seed or bean is inside.  You pop it in your mouth and spit out the insides like you would a cherry.  There are 2 or 3 beans inside each one. 

We're in the middle of the harvest season when workers pick the beans as they ripen and they go to the processing area.  The beans are de-pulped in this contraption before being washed and dried.

Here's the work team from Cuyahoga Valley, Ohio.  They've been great workers and a great group of new friends.  More pictures to come of the work they've been doing at Doulos.

And the wonderful Wallace family!  They're an inspiration and excellent example of impacting a country for Christ through education, business and love.

One of the farm workers who lives at the plantation has caught a few wild boars and now has some piglets too.  They're loud and stinky and....BACON!!!!

Back in the truck for a chilly ride home.  I guess the long sleeved shirts were a good buy.  It's been a lot cooler than we expected.  They say it's only going to be around for a few more weeks, but we'll take it!

A few days ago, our second day in the Dominican Republic, we visited Spirit Mountain with the work team from Cuyahoga Valley Christian Academy in Ohio.

Jarabacoa is a mountain town where city folks come to get away.  It's surrounded by more mountains and Spirit Mountain is atop one of them.  As an ecological reserve and coffee plantation, the scenery is fantastic and the views incredible. 

Getting there was an adventure itself!  First we crammed in a truck and drove out of town, crossing rivers and driving on roads worthy of any 4x4.  Yes, people gladly sit in the back of trucks.  It beats walking.

The rest of the group was in a taxi van, so they had to hoof it up the rest of the mountain.  Whew!  I got a seat in the truck.  Best husband ever made sure I sat in the front seat.  Didn't want me to barf all over new friends.  This gave "over the river and through the woods" a whole new meaning.  This is the river we crossed.  In a truck.  It's not very deep.  Really.

So we gathered at Camp Discovery, where kids from Doulos and summer campers experience views that are incredible, and birds galore!  Anyone a bird watcher?  There are 20+ bird species found only in the DR and many are found here on Spirit Mountain!

From camp, we hiked to the "Rock" for some repelling.  Here's a shot of the "Rock" from camp. Sorry, I'm not adept at any form of Photoshop, or I'd put a little arrow or something to point out the spot.  It's up there toward the top, almost dead center in the shot.  It's the big grey rock.  See if you can pick it out.  It was a decent hike, especially for one who doesn't hike often.  But the trail was good and the incline wasn't very great.

And there's Camp from the Rock.  Same story as before.  See those little white roofs over on the right?  We hiked from there!

At the Rock the kids all repelled.  I did avoid this certain unpleasantness.  There was pressure, but I prevailed in my need for self-preservation.  Surely they didn't want to carry me down the mountain?  Injured on my second day in the country?  I don't think so.  Smashing into a mountain was not going to make it a good day.

Emily loves it.  Max did it.  Last.  There he goes...over the cliff.

Some people like it...Darrell and Sandra...

Some not so much...

That's Lawrence from Germany.  He and 2 other Germans are volunteering at Spirit Mountain.  He was NOT so excited to be on the literal side of the mountain!  He's a great guy - we had dinner with him the next night.  Traditional German spaetzel (sp?) - it was delicioso!  Max's favorite meal in the DR so far.  German food!

And another shot of the amazing view!

Look for another post about the second half of our day (I know, right?!?!) which was equally as gorgeous and educational.

We've been here in the DR a little over 48 hours!  We've been SUPER blessed by the love and warm welcome we've received thus far. 

Our home for the next 7 days is a 2 bedroom apartment in a "villa" complex, where the short teams normally stay.  It's only a few blocks to the school (Doulos) and lots of little eateries and super-mercados.  It's cozy and we'll be staying here until we move to the our rented house next week.

We had a one hour ride from the airport (after arriving about 2 hours late - some guy trying to board the plane in NY couldn't find his passport, so they held the plane while they looked for his bag and got it off of there).  Our brief time at JFK airport in NY went smoothly with just enough time for Max to get his pizza.  For breakfast.   Lovely Sandra met us at the airport in Santiago in a taxi and got us safely to our new home in Jarabacoa.   Sandra coordinates the short term teams and she and her husband, Darrell are Aggies from Texas and have just been here a few months.  They made sure our first meals were good and not eaten alone.  Love them already!

Our first day, Joe had staff training at Doulos at 8am.  The kids and I slept in - Max won by waking up at 10:30!  He apparently was a little tired.  Ah, my baby is a teenager.   Joe met his co-workers and got familiar with his assignments.  He's really looking forward to getting started on Monday with a high school group from Ohio that arrived Friday.

We got a local telephone, and we're working on getting Joe's iphone to work here.  Skype works and we have other apps like viber.  So call us or let us know how you'd like to communicate (if at all)  PLEASE communicate!

This sweet girl, Sarai, is the assistant to the Executive Director of Doulos, and she showed us all around the town (we walked).  She also the local house hunter!

Our second day was incredible - but that story will have to wait until tomorrow.  Lots of beautiful pictures to come!

We made it! Here we are at the Santiago airport. All the bags made it too. Even the guitar which had to be gate checked. Emily was worried for a few minutes when it didn't appear at baggage claim, but then there it was sitting on a different carousel. Hooray!