Tuesday, February 5, 2013

Birthday week!

This last week has me feeling like I am completely back into the normal routine of life here in the DR. Ever week has some different things going on, but it general things have been rather normal.  The highlights of the week were a surprise b-day for a friend, a day of seeing other ministries around Jaraboacoa, and an evening grilling out with friends (veggies of course).  
Yesterday we had a professional development day and spent half of it touring the other ministries here with the people involved in them.  Our first stop was the local YL camp (Pico Escondido) which I have had the opportunity to go to many times before.  After Pico we went to Caribbean Mountain Academy, which is a sort of reform center for children who have been sent by their parents because of a loss of control.  If you dig into CMA you will find lots of dirt from the past, but a lot has been done recently to fix the problems there and I am hopeful that it is only a place of healing now.  The third stop was at the Students International base.  SI has a lot of local ministries here but their main one is occupational, with the goal of educating, training, and finding work for people so they can support themselves.  We only visited their base but SI has different sites all over the city.  The fourth stop was the Ark and was by far my favorite of the day.  The Ark can be best described as an orphanage, but it is by no means what you would expect of an orphanage.  Kid's Alive runs the Ark and have implemented a system that is one of the coolest things I have seen.  At the Ark they have multiple building/homes that are the homes of the kids, but the kids do not live in the homes by themselves.  Each home has a host family (with their own biological children) that lives there and are the parents of all the kids in the home.  All of the kids also have the opportunity to go to a local private school run by Kids Alive called ANIJA until they graduate form there after 8th grade when they go to another local school.  The final stop of the day was at Doulos, which is our school!  During the tour of the school the people from other ministries watched this video...
Upcoming fun...
I turn 30 on Thursday!
Running a Trail Race near the capital on Sunday!

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