Greg is here

Our friend and supporter, Greg Schwab is visiting for a whole week. I think it's a good experience for him because he's not just doing the normal tourist stuff. He got to see the country, people and way of life. He also helped us paint . Our house is a work in progress hopefully in a couple of weeks we can show pictures of it finished.

Bugs and Birds

These pictures don't do it justice. Within 5 min of our first night i killed 6 cockroaches, and 2 enormous spiders. Our land lord lives upstairs and they have about a dozen roosters and they all start with their noise at around 6 am. but they don't quite till around 10am. Once the first one starts then every single rooster within a 5 mile radius starts in too. It's pretty ridiculous. The mosquitoes are also really bad. The first night we stayed in Monte Llano at the team house we both got about 2 hours of sleep because we were being eatin alive. We sprayed ourselves until we were about ready to pass out from the fumes and still they wouldn't leave us alone. We now have a fan, and a net which allows us to sleep at night anyway.

New

So i bought a bike. its a honda 125 dirt bike. its awesome. most people don't have dirt bikes because they are generally for rich people. But i got a heck of deal on this one from a missionary that is going back to the states. It's also really old, but if anything goes wrong, labor is really really cheap here. A dirt bike will also suit me better because of the condition of the road, or lack of a road, that goes out to the school. We also found a place to live! I think we are in the nicest nieghborhood in our little town. monte llano is a quaint little town in the Puerto Plata area, (the beach). This is a picture of our street, and our house. We are on the bottom part.

A day with the Kids

we arrived in the DR the first of the month. For the first 2 weeks, we spent at different sites around the island. We spent a day at Palo Blanco, where caitlin sat in on some classes, and I helped Jon with sports class. Jon has done a great job. He said when he started the kids had ablsolutely no idea how to have an organized activity. You really don't know the importance of organized activities untill you are in a culture that you can see the effects of the people in the way they interact with each other and how they live their lives. It's pretty interesting to watch the change in these kids lives even in something as small and seemingly unimportant like P.E. class.

Caitlins B-Day

yeah, i figured out how to put the pages to english!

Caitlin turned 24 May 14th. We spent the day hanging out with friends. Micah, Vic and Leslie's daughter made a cake (Vic is the island director). Later we had dinner at Jon's house with his roomate Angel, 3 of their dominican friends, and some of the other missionaires. Jon's house is about the size of your average american garage, so it was a bit packed.

no habla espanol

ok so we now have internet access in our house. oh yeah we moved inot our house. We have so very much to catch up on. so we have internet, but take buckett baths, no car, concrete floors, lights for half the day, and running water is scarce. but, we have internet! alright so its been awhile since I set up this blog, which was the last time it was updated, and i forgot the password. no big deal you just follow intructions and have it emailed to you right? well not if you don't read spanish. I searched for an hour to try and get the blog pages in english. no such luck. i finally figured it on my own and now im able to update again, except wait, oh yeah, the pages are still in spanish. So right now i'm just guessing on what to do. You might have to bare with me either untill i learn the language, which could take awhile, or untill shows me how to get the website in english. ok im going to try and post pictures, it may or may not happen. I hate not knowing the language here.

Ok, so not all of it was training. We did have time to spend with friends and family. We have so many pictures of the mountains. They were awesome

It snowed 18 inches. Crazy.

We got really close to the missionaries at our Training, (Mission Training International). We also got close to the elk. We met some life long friends and had experiences we will never forget. The training was the most amazing learning experience we have ever had. It was basically how to effectively minister to people in a different culture. But, it was also awesome marriage counseling, a great time of fellowship and rest, conflict management strategies, patients building, and extremely humbling for any and all American citizens.

Hello friends,
This is our blog! Forgive us for we no nothing about how to create a blog so if this is absolutely aweful please give us grace and put the stones down, I'm sure we will catch on.
WE ARE LEAVING THE US!
Our good friend Aaron Roth threw us a wonderful going away party. There were old people at the party too, they are just on the other side of the room. We love old people they are our friends as well.
We Have some wonderful praises. After 18 months our house is now under contract!!! We are set to close July 1st. The buyer wants the furniture too. Pretty crazy. We also sold both our vehicles, and my trailor, along with every single one of my tools with the exception of my tool belt and trusty Eastwing hammer. A man doesn't ever part with his hammer.
And now....

We're headin West