May 3, 2007

I am now back in the states for a little more than a month and trying to get rested up from the last few weeks, which were a bit busy! The first weekend of April, our church had an Easter pageant that covered Christ’s birth to His resurrection, and the children in my drama class were responsible for the first part of the presentation, which was our culminating activity and took the place of them doing a presentation on their own for the church. Additionally, both my English classes wrapped up with the students taking an exam – which they asked to take! I was also able to complete my observations and reports for the year and host a second Teacher Appreciation event on March 25!

The students in the Drama class were very interested in and excited to be a part of the Easter pageant, and it was fun, though at times a bit exhausting, to direct them! They presented the birth of Christ in silence while I sang “Silent Night” (in Spanish!), and we ended the scene with a “tableaux” of the manger scene. Casting was a bit of a challenge, since the class on that day was almost all girls and they all wanted to be Mary, and initially we had three Queens instead of three Kings, for the same reason. However, the girls did some recruiting, and we ended up with a Joseph and Mary, three Kings, four angels, and four shepherdesses (instead of shepherds) who all did wonderfully!

Behind the scenes pics: In the picture on the left, the angels in the pageant patiently wait for the program to start, and in the picture on the right, I help the three kings prepare to go onstage. My roommate Jen took these pictures, and she helped me organize the children backstage - I could not have done it without her - thanks Jen!

The students in the English classes asked me toward the end of March if they could have a test to determine their progress, and though I had not initially planned on giving one (which I am sure is a shock to my SHA students!), I prepared one and gave it to them in the second to the last class so that I could return the tests and answer any questions the students might have in our last meeting. This kept me from completing the curriculum I had planned for the twelve weeks of the class, but based on the results, I think it was a good change. In my adult class, each of the 15 students who came regularly also came to take the test, and they all passed, with half of them getting “A’s”! The results were a bit more varied in the class for adolescents in Hoyo del Bartola where 14 students took the test, but only seven passed. There were a few “A’s” in this class as well, and in each class, there are two or three students whom I think are potential assistants for the ministry in each church. At the last meeting for each class, I also had the students introduce and describe themselves to the class in English, and they all did well. This showed them that even if that had not done as well on the test as they had hoped, they had learned enough English to have a basic conversation with another person, which was the primary goal of the class.

While I love teaching and am very grateful for the opportunities I had to teach the Drama and English classes over the last few months, I also enjoyed my time working at the school with the teachers. This month I was able to wrap up my observations and reports, and by the end I was doing better on the translating, though I still had the reports checked before giving them to the teachers. When I return to the Dominican in June, I will be meeting with each of the teachers to go over the reports and make sure my suggestions were clear and see if any of the teachers have questions for me. I will be using this time as preliminary training for the next school year and to get a better idea of the needs of the teachers as I prepare future training sessions.

Before I left Santiago on April 28th, I was able to host another Teacher Appreciation on April 25th for the teachers, teachers’ assistants, and administrators at the school, and it was a fun event! I bought gifts of chalk holders, chalk, and stickers for each teacher, colored pencils and stickers for the assistants, and small gifts for each of the administrators, and I was surprised when several of the teachers brought me gifts as well! We began our time together with prayer, thanking God for all His blessing and for bringing us all together, and I then thanked the teachers and administrators for welcoming me into the school and being so open to my ideas and suggestions, and I thanked them for all the work they do for our students. I also told them that one of my goals is to help the school through working toward having every student supported through our G.O. Kids program so that we can have the financial support needed to make significant improvements in the school. If you would like more information on the G.O. Kids program, you can check out the blog that the program coordinator, Audrey, keeps updated. The address is http://www.go-kids.blogspot.com/.

Perhaps the most exciting thing for me about this part of the afternoon was that I said all of this in Spanish without the help of a translator! After I was finished, I passed out the gifts and then we all enjoyed some refreshments and a great time of fellowship with one another. The principal then thanked me for the work I had been doing at the school and asked if any teachers had anything to share, and a few of them also shared their thanks for my suggestions and said that they had helped in their classrooms and with improving student behavior.

I was grateful for all they shared with me, and even more grateful that when one of the administrators closed our time together with prayer, she gave glory to God for all He was doing in the lives of everyone involved with the school. It can be very easy to get caught up in being the person people go to for answers to problems or questions, and I hope and pray that the focus of this ministry as well as the English and Drama ministries continues to be God and that His light, His power, and His glory will shine through anything that is accomplished through them!

The next few weeks will surely be busy ones, but I will try to update my blog at least once before I return to the Dominican, and I hope while I am in the states I will be able to see as many of you as possible to share more about my ministry and life in the DR and all that God has been teaching me!

At our recent Partnership Conference that G.O. hosted here in the Dominican, I was reminded on one of my favorite verses, and I wanted to share it here as well. It is Isaiah 43:18-19, and through it God says to us:

18 Forget the former things;

do not dwell on the past.
19 See, I am doing a new thing!

Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?

I am making a way in the desert

and streams in the wasteland.

I cannot truly express how grateful I am for the opportunity to live and minister in Santiago and all of the "new things" God is doing through G.O. Ministries and in the lives of the people of the Dominican, and I thank all of you who support me in this!

Dios te bendiga! God bless you!

Con el amor de Jesucristo,
Catherine