Summer Schedule (and lots of pictures)

Bare with me, I know this is a little long but it's a good update :)

I can't believe another week has already gone by since I blogged last. Here's a little recap... I have really enjoyed being on a different schedule compared to the school year. At the beginning of the week my roommate Jenilea returned from a visit home along with 16 summer interns. The interns were all in Jarabacoa for training for the summer programs and are now dispersed throughout our ministries in the DR. There are five girls here in Jarabacoa and three of those are with me at Anija.

Taking the interns out to eat on Friday night for pastelitos!

The interns checking emails and watching a movie at our house.

Before our two days of official training I helped with other preparations, organizing binders, etc. (stuff I like to do). We had 2 days of training where all the people involved with our summer programs at all our ministry sites came to Jarabacoa. It was really neat to see everyone! Then we spent a couple days preparing our classrooms and reviewing materials for next week.

Training with the Directors of each site before the two day training.

Anija summer program teachers.

Michel, Shawntel, and myself at training.

I will be teaching kindergarten ("preprimario" in Spanish) and I'm really excited! I will be the main teacher and will have a Dominican helper whose name is Ruth. She speaks a lot of English so that's nice for our communication. Then in the afternoon I will be tutoring 5th and 6th graders in math! Yay! I don't have any materials or anything so we'll see how it goes... I will also be helping with one other class in the afternoons but I'm not sure which yet.

My classroom for the summer!

We are studying Europe.

Ruth is helping me this summer. She graduated from Anija and use to live at the Ark.

Here's what my week will look like during the summer.

First, we have summer program Monday through Thursday. Fridays are preparation days. We begin the day with devotions at 8:30am. The younger kids from the community come to Anija at 9am and end at 12pm. We will all eat lunch at Anija. We start the older kids program at 2pm and it ends at 5pm. Tuesday nights we have Bible study with the interns, Thursdays night I'll be having dinner with whatever work team is here to give a sponsorship talk, Friday nights are date nights with the interns, and Saturdays are some sort of fun adventure (hiking, waterfalls, etc). I'll also continue tutoring a couple people in English as well and I'm hoping to spend a little time out at the Ark, maybe playing soccer with the kids on Fridays.

A couple of the kids that live at the Ark. It was so good to see them after being gone for almost a month!

Last night's sunset.