Books!

This week I happened to take a lot of pictures of books, which is understandable seeing as how I'm a librarian.

Usually I'm the one reading a book to the first and second graders but this week I brought in books for them to read. I've been teaching them how to take care of books so they will be ready to use the library next year (at least for the 2nd graders).

All the books were short stories from the Bible.

And the best part is, all these books were donated! I already had copies of these particular stories so I gave them to the second grade class to keep in their classroom.

These are some of the new books I bought a couple months ago. Since each book has a lot of great stories in them, I've decided to keep these 4 in the library instead of loaning them out (I don't think I'd ever get them back). These girls like to come during recess to read them.

Here is a book that one of our fellow Kids Alive missionaries, Marcie Cooper, wrote and got published! It's a great book to help kids learn the 'teen' numbers.

You can purchase your own copy at http://marciecooper.tateauthor.com/.

Home Visit Pictures

Here's a few pictures of the kids we visited today. Please pray with us for guidance in who to accept for the next school year!

(the view from the picture above combined with this picture is their whole house- this is the house I referred to in my previous blog as 'smaller than my bedroom')

Thoughts for the Day

A lot has been on my mind this evening.

Library classes went well today although not as planned. The Directors of Anija had a meeting that they used the library for so one of my classes got shifted until tomorrow. I had also planned on bringing in one of the first and both second grade classes into the library (usually I go to their classes) but forgot it was being occupied so I changed plans last minute and it worked out.

During recess I noticed that one of our students had large burn marks on the back of her knee/leg area. This same girl had burn marks on her knuckles last week. Sadly I found out that an uncle put her knuckles (and this week leg) on the hot muffler of a motorcycle to discipline her. Someone talked with her mom about it and she thinks it's fine to punish her like that! Please pray for her.

We went on home visits this afternoon. We are now in the process of choosing students for the next school year. We've received about 300 applications for 15-20 spots. One of the new applicants has a brother that already attends Anija. I had never been to his house before. It (the whole house) is smaller than my bedroom. There's no fridge or sink, bathroom (there's a community bathroom outside), and there's one bed that the parents and two of the kids share (the third kid sleeps at his gramma's house as you can imagine there's not enough space for him).

After getting back from home visits, I saw one of the fifth grade girls hanging around, which was strange as school was over 3 hours earlier. Apparently she usually gets a ride home (which is fairly far away) with another student but today she was left behind. She called family members and basically was told, "Figure it out on your own." She said she was hungry so we walked down to the Colmado (like a Circle K) and I bought her a snack. I had plans to pick up a friend from work and hangout and later had dinner plans so I didn't end up taking the girl home. I knew she wouldn't be left at Anija but I'm still thinking about how she got home.

I'm so grateful for the home I grew up in, for my parents and family, for hot showers, always having more than enough food, everyone who has ever looked out for me, and everyone who continues to pray for me. Lord please keep our kids safe and thank You for letting us be a part of their lives by feeding, teaching, loving, and looking out for them.

A Glimpse of Preschool at ANIJA

Here's a video we took of our preschool class ('kinder' in Spanish) in the afternoon. These are mostly Haitian kids who don't have the opportunity to study in a public school. One of our main goals for them is to learn Spanish this year. This is an example video that we included on the CDs we made for this year's Easter project to send to sponsors.

If you speak Spanish, you'll hear them greet you with "adios" instead of "hola." I still think it's strange but that's the DR for you!

Library Maintenance

A glimpse of some daily library tasks- laminating books, gluing envelopes in new books, printing out labels and note cards for new books, marking books with 'Anija' stamp, and fixing books with loose pages, torn pages, etc.

Usually I work alone...

but this particular week I had help!

stamping...

laminating...

and the biggest blessing- receiving lots of donations for not only the library but for sponsorship as well!

Some Cute Kids and Other Random Pictures

Here's a couple of pictures I took while doing home visits to potential students for next year...

What a cutie!

He was very playful.

He was a little shy.

Hiking to a waterfall with my good friend Deanna.

Deanna and I ran cross country and track together in college.

Another sighting of 'the lizard'

What's Been Happening

Wow, I can't believe the month of April is over! If you've been keeping up with my blog, you'll remember that April was a month filled with visitors, 8th grade camp, my birthday, semana santa, my roommate's wedding, and more! Everything went smoothly for the most part, although there was an unexpected change in our housing situation.

As we had been praying for months about a place to stay come the middle of May, God provided an opportunity to stay in a house that Kids Alive has been renting. Here's what's happened in the last week and a half-

A little background- we last paid our rent in January, which would cover the rent for Jan-Feb and then told our landlord we would like to use our 3 month deposit for the last three months of living in this house, which would put our move out date in the middle of May (Feb-Mar, Mar-April, April-May). When we asked to use the deposit there seemed to be no problem or even mention that our 6 month contract ended in March so we figured it wasn't a big deal to stay a couple more months.

Now Katie (my roommate who got married) moved out and into her new house in the middle of April. A few days later when I was getting back from the beach, there was a Dominican woman (who I didn't know) sitting at our front porch with her little dog. She told me she was our landlords wife and was waiting for him. I thought that was strange but went inside and continued unpacking. Our landlord arrives and tells me he is going to put up a fence in between our yard and the neighbor's yard behind us so he can keep his dog there. As I was about to ask why, the big dog from the backyard bolts around the corner and attacks the small dog. After chasing the dogs around the house and throwing a couple of patio chairs at the dogs, the landlord finally got the dogs apart and we continued our conversation.

Basically, the landlord thought we had all moved out April 19 when only Katie did. He was planning on keeping his dog at our house and already had a client who was interested in the house. Once I told him we were still living there until our 3 months deposit was up he said he'd talk to the lawyer to find out the exact dates. The next day after picking up my friend from the airport, we arrived back at my house at 10PM only to find the lawyer waiting for me-at 10PM! I told her the same thing I told the landlord and she seemed to understand.

Monday and Tuesday, the following week we got calls from the lawyer saying that this needs to be figured out and on Thursday she threatened to sue us! Apparently the lawyer had a really big problem with us staying over our lease and she also thought that we were paying at the end of each month so to her, we were staying past the 3 month deposit. Remember, this is 2 days before Katie's wedding! Basically we agreed to move out (by today) without getting the rest of our deposit back (only 2 weeks) and we weren't going to pay them anything.

In the end, several missionaries helped us with moving and now we see that it's a huge blessing to be in this house, it's HUGE! :)