Disculpame!

Forgive me, to any of you who have been checking, for not writing an update for so long. Two and a half weeks ago we finally moved into our apartment. That was over a week after my last saying we were moving in on "Monday". But hey, we're here!

View out our living room window

The word "unfurnished" takes on new meaning here. It means no stove, refrigerator, toilet seat, or bathroom mirror. Anything that can be removed is removed. So it's taken a lot of time and energy the last two weeks to figure out where to buy things, how to transport them, and to ask enough different Peruvian friends to come with us different places and at different times to not completely exhaust anyone in particular. Thankfully, it's all worked out and life is returning to normal. A new and better normal, actually. One that includes sleeping in the same bed. :)

Since pictures are worth a thousand words and I'm a little short on time, please see the pictures below. We've had a really great week of meetings with different churches and ministries to talk about the savings program and try to figure out where and how it could best meet needs here.

The savings group at a church called Faith in Action that we visited on Sunday

The church above hosts one of the five current savings groups in the program. The pastor (light blue shirt, middle of the photo) heard about the program when it was first starting up over a year ago even though his church is not affiliated with the church in Comas out of where the program is run. He thought it sounded like something that would help his congregation so he started a group there.  We heard testimonies from two women about how hugely beneficial it has been for them. One said, "When we heard 'savings' we thought, 'Save what? I don't have any money to save'". To me it sounded a huge benefit of the group in her life was the she had an attitude of poverty - that she expected not to be able to provide financially for what she wanted and needed - that began to change as she saved.

Feeling empowered to achieve your goals is no small thing. These women were most definitely empowered as they spoke with conviction about the things that their savings have helped them to do. One paid for her daughter's wedding. The daughter is now saving and using it to pay her way through college to get an education degree. She shared that although she thought she had nothing, she's realized she has more than she thought...it was just being ill-spent as a result of believing it could never amount to much anyway. 

The house where the church, Faith in Action, meets

I don't want to incorrectly represent people here though. A good part of this community is what I would consider "middle-class". Most of Comas, I believe, does not have an attitude of poverty. One of our goals though is to find the people that could benefit from the problem, and it seems that there are many.

Also, a quick answer to prayer. I spoke with a doctor and nurse at a clinic today and will start volunteering with them in some public health projects focused on children in the community on Thursday. Thanks for praying with us!

Sometimes You’re Just Wrong

The neighborhood

This apartment search had really got us down. Maybe that sounds stupid, but it’s the truth. We felt like we were making the right decision by trying to live in the immediate neighborhood of the church and in a first floor apartment. So we chose the less nice apartment, for a higher price, that had a lot of things needing to be fixed/cleaned in order for it to be a comfortable and well-functioning place to live. We went on Saturday with Roberto and Maria to talk to the owner and see if he could make a few improvements to it before we moved in. We all agreed that Maria’s contractor friend would meet us at the apartment on Sunday afternoon to give an estimate for the work, of which we would pay for at least half. Thankfully, on Saturday we noticed some things about the apartment that we hadn’t noticed before. We thought it needed a new paint job, but only realized on Saturday that it looked that way because the paint was peeling as a result of moisture and mold. Yes, mold. And it smelled like it too. Something we had noticed before but assumed it was just as a result of being closed up, or the smell of the cement floor, something like that. Maria and Roberto agreed it could cause health problems, but also wanted to be positive and told us it could be treated.

On Sunday I met a nurse in the church, Norma, who volunteers on Sunday mornings in a little clinic in the church that gives out free medication to people who bring a prescription from their doctor, does basic exams, and gives over-the-counter medicine to those who need it. We sat together and she taught me. It was wonderful. We had quite a bit of time to chat so I told her about the apartment and about the mold issue. She said if there’s a little it’s okay, that you can treat it, but if there’s a lot we shouldn’t live there. On further examination on Sunday afternoon, there was a lot. Not only that, but the owner didn’t like the contractor we brought, and wanted to find her own, meaning that the apartment wouldn’t be ready for at least two weeks. It was disappointing. We just wanted to be able to settle somewhere, unpack our suitcases, and get on with why we came.

On Monday night there are men’s and women’s groups at the church. Roberto is the Men’s Ministry Pastor and Maria, his wife, leads the women’s group. Maria shared Philippians 4:4-7, 

“Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God which transcends all understanding will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus”. 

I shared this with Steve when we got home. It was the first time in about a week we really felt at peace with the apartment search. Turned out we had turned it into one big drama, assuming it would dictate so much about our lives here, it would make or break our effectiveness, and wanting to make sure everyone thought we were making the right decision.

There was an apartment that we’d seen last Sunday that was perfect. It was a well cared for, new building with a very clean and perfect sized apartment. It was a little less expensive than, shall we call it…the moldy one. The only “problem” with it was that it was a twenty-minute walk to the church. Yes, not far, but father than most everything else we’d looked at.

Sometimes decisions seem so daunting. And by sometimes I mean always for me. I have got to be one of the worst decisions makers ever made. I don’t even know where I got it. My parents aren’t like this and my brother definitely isn’t either. It doesn’t matter where it came from though. What matters is that I’m learning that everything doesn’t have to feel perfect, everyone doesn’t have to be pleased, and “buyer’s remorse” is just a way of letting ourselves out of being content in the situation we’re in. Life is too short to let stress rob our peace and joy. I write, “Sometimes You’re Just Wrong” because that was the only conclusion I could come to when we finally decided to go with this other, “farther” apartment and heard from the owner when we called that it was already taken. I thought, “We were wrong and now we have to live with the consequences. No reason to sulk, but let’s at least admit we were wrong and learn from it”. Thankfully, our telephone Spanish skills are hit-or-miss and we were actually wrong about the apartment being gone. And Lord willing, we’re moving in Monday!

Rock Band for Jesus

If you’ve spent much time in church, really in certain kinds of churches, you probably understand. And if you know anything about Redeemer, you know that it’s not one of those churches. Sometimes Jazz Band for Jesus, but that’s as far as it goes. And that’s totally fine. Jesus said in Luke 19:40 that, “If they (referring to his disciples) keep quiet the stones will cry out”. He means the rocks will cry out to worship him. That our praise of him matters, but he's saying here “I will be praised no matter if you do it or not and if you acknowledge me or not.  If you don’t, the rocks will.” So if the rocks will, I am fairly certain that it is irrelevant what type of music we use to worship him. We don’t need music at all. But if we are going to use music, I prefer the rock band.

Yes, emotion and depth can be expressed quietly, but it makes the most sense to me for them to be expressed loudly - with voices and with instruments. In the DR we went to a church that sang several songs that were originally written in English and translated into Spanish. The congregation might not even know that and it is really irrelevant anyway, but it at first really bothered me. I wanted to say, Spanish-speaking people can write beautiful music too! Why are you relying on things imported from the U.S.? It made me annoyed at my country that exports culture in every way possible and “ruins” other cultures. Annoyed for about 10 seconds. And then I thought, “I love this song. And it’s an awesome song. How cool that we can all sing the same words to God in different languages…and how cool that I actually understand this song!” Ha! And it became really beautiful to me. Beautiful because I know that language and music don’t matter to God, it’s the worship from our hearts that he wants.

Okay, so take a song translated from English, add 400 Peruvians singing with their whole hearts, and a rock band. It equals pure joy. Do you know the song, “You Never Let Go” by Matt Redman? If you do, here it is in Spanish. Sing it out loud. It just might give you joy in your heart, too. 

Aunque yo esté 
en el valle de la muerte y dolor 
tu amor me quita todo temor... 

y si llego a estar en el centro de la tempestad, 
no dudaré,porque estás aqui. 

Y no temeré del mal 
pues mi Dios conmigo está 
y si Dios conmigo está 
de quién temeré? 

No,no me soltarás 
en la calma o la tormenta 
No,no me soltarás 
en lo alto, en lo bajo 
No,no me soltarás 
Dios nunca me dejarás. 

Puedo ver la luz 
que se acerca 
al que busca de ti, 
glorioso Dios. 

Y terminarán los problemas y mientras llega el fin 
viviremos conociéndote a ti 

Y no temeré del mal 
pues mi Dios conmigo esta, 
y si Dios conmigo está 
de quién temeré? 

No,no me soltarás 
en la calma o la tormenta 
No,no me soltarás 
en lo alto, en lo bajo 
No,no me soltarás 
Dios nunca me dejarás. 

Puedo ver la luz 
que se acerca 
al que busca de ti 
y terminarán los problemas. 

Mientras llega el fin 
voy a alabarte, 
voy a alabarte solo a ti. 

Y puedo ver la luz que se acerca 
al que busca de ti 
y terminaran los problemas. 

Mientras llega el fin 
voy a alabarte... 

No,no me soltarás 
en la calma o la tormenta 
No,no me soltarás 
en lo alto, en lo bajo 
No,no me soltarás 
Dios nunca me dejarás.

And in case that made no sense to you, here it is in English.

Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death
Your perfect love is casting out fear
And even when I'm caught in the middle of the storms of this life
I won't turn back
I know you are near

And I will fear no evil
For my God is with me
And if my God is with me
Whom then shall I fear?
Whom then shall I fear?

(Chorus:)
Oh no, You never let go
Through the calm and through the storm
Oh no, You never let go
In every high and every low
Oh no, You never let go
Lord, You never let go of me

And I can see a light that is coming for the heart that holds on
A glorious light beyond all compare
And there will be an end to these troubles
But until that day comes
We'll live to know You here on the earth

(Chorus)

Yes, I can see a light that is coming for the heart that holds on
And there will be an end to these troubles
But until that day comes
Still I will praise You, still I will praise You

(Chorus 2x's)

Apartment Searching

We arrived safely in Comas on Thursday night and have had a packed last five days of getting to know the neighborhood, the church, the people working with the savings and credit (SCA) groups, the food, the transportation, etc etc etc. Would have loved to give a little update sooner, but we haven't had much access to the internet. There are many things I'd love to write about, but the thing most on my mind right now is finding an apartment. So here you have it.

Apartment Searching

Something that at first was completely daunting, then just tiring and difficult, is now my favorite thing to do in Comas. The thought of searching for an apartment in a country (and continent!) that you’ve never even visited before with language skills that leave something to be desired was a bit overwhelming before we arrived here. On Saturday, Roberto picked us up in a borrowed car to drive around the neighborhood looking for an apartment. There is no craigslist here, no newspaper listing, nor a place to go to find out about all of the vacant apartments. You search by driving or walking around the neighborhood looking for hand-written signs in the windows or doors.

Once Steve and I figured out how the system worked, we decided to venture out on our own and walk the neighborhood on Sunday to see if we could find more options. There is a street a bit north of the church that reminded us a little bit of home. Maybe just because there are a lot of people and a lot of food? Anita, a woman working with the savings and credit groups also lives over there and we wanted to be close to her, too. Either way we wanted to see if we could find an apartment closer to there. As we walked the neighborhood a woman yelled to us from the second floor of a house under construction. She was in the savings group that we had visited the previous night and asked if we were looking for someone. We told her we were searching for an apartment. She told us we were looking in the wrong area, that her street wasn’t safe, and offered to walk with us to a better area to look. Five or ten minutes after we parted ways with her we heard someone yelling after us and turned to see her running to catch us. On her walk home she’d noticed a sign and wanted to take us to see it. So the three of us went up to see an apartment. As we followed behind the owner and her, she turned around quickly and said seriously, “You are my family”. I’m pretty sure we weren’t going to fool the owner into thinking that we were related, but it was sweet anyway.

Turned out to not be a great apartment. Once we were back on the street with the door closed behind us, she turned to us, and in English, said “I don’t like it”. That probably doesn’t sound funny to you, but we find it hilarious every time someone whips some English phrase out of nowhere when we didn’t know they knew any English at all.

So that was Sunday. On Monday and Tuesday we also walked the neighborhood looking for apartments. Yesterday we decided that maybe the best way to find one was not even to look for signs, but to just asked people on the street, shop owners, etc. So we did. And we ended up meeting a lot of people! This must be the easiest place in the world to meet people. We’re leaning toward a first floor apartment that we saw on Saturday for that reason. We want to be part of this community and know that some of that is just being on the street.

So we’ll let you know how it goes with this one! Today we are hopefully going to see it again and see if we can negotiate some improvements. By “we” I mean our friend Roberto, one of the pastors of the church, who has worked in the business world for many years and is just a kind, likeable, and funny man. He will negotiate on our behalf. There are many other things I could write about right now. This has been a packed last five days. But that will have to wait until another day. Pictures to come soon!

Much love. 

American Time

Just a quick little story for you...

So we're about to leave for a baseball game with our "Mom", "sister", and "brother" and our Mom just asked Steve what time we wanted to leave. He suggested 6:30 since we are meeting a friend there at 7:15 (the game starts at 7:30). She was fine with leaving at 6:30, but was concerned that we were meeting our friend so close to the start of the game, "7:15 is really late to be meeting your friend. 7:15 turns into 7:30 and 8:00 and 8:30". Steve casually responded with, "Oh, he's American". To which our Mom replied, "Oh, OK, nevermind."

Lol.

As an update: our friend was late. And our "Mom" said, "Told you so." We told her he must have lived in the DR too long.

Us with two of the kids and our host Mom. Obviously, they are more interested in the game than the picture!

Starting Over

I've never fired anyone before. It's a strange feeling. I guess it's more like firing a consultant though, not an employee.

It just wasn't working out. There is some chemistry needed between teacher and student who will be together four hours a day, covering the equivalent of practically a year of high school Spanish a week. Without chemistry it is an insurmountable challenge. Put more simply, wanting to cry every day of class is not the best emotional environment for learning.

When I told my 16 and 14-year-old "sisters" tonight that I don't have school tomorrow because I have to wait until Thursday for a new teacher, they were particularly supportive. The 14-year-old launched into a sassy make-believe dialogue of what I should have said to my teacher, adding at the end, "with respect of course". Then she excitedly ran and told her Mom that I'd be home tomorrow. I wasn't sure what to make of that - if they'd be happy to have me around or sad to not have more alone time. Sometimes I have to remind myself they're teenagers though (but they're so smart....they speak Spanish) and to not over-think their actions too much. Either way, their kindness meant a lot.

You know how a lot of people travel for a few weeks somewhere and come back saying, "The people were so nice. They were so wonderful."? And you think, "are they really that different from everyone else in the world? Probably not." I think it's because as an outsider you don't expect kindness and grace. You expect that you will feel like an outsider and stranger, and when you don't, because of someone's small act of kindness, you feel like it was a HUGE act of kindness.

I know we feel that way every time we take the bus here. Buses here don't have "stops". You just have to yell when you want to get off. But oftentimes you're standing and can't even see where you are to yell that you want to get off. Add to that, that for a long time we couldn't figure out what people were saying when they wanted to get off - so you can imagine the pickle we were in. So we'd just say the name of our neighborhood to someone near us or to the cobrador (the man who hangs out the door of the bus, yells the bus route, and tries to convince people to get on) and hope that they would remember us even with the seeming chaos around us. And you know what? They always do. Even when you're in the back of the bus and have to climb over everyone to get off and you think, "they all hate me. I am slowing everyone down", the cobrador gives you a hand to help you off the bus and then a thumbs-up when you say "gracias". It's times like that I find myself saying the same thing..."These people are really nice".

Being a stranger makes me think of Hebrews 11, the chapter of the Bible where it talks about people of the past who had great faith and who were strangers in this world. It's not so bad to be a stranger. Verses 13-16 say, 

" All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance. And they admitted that they were aliens and strangers on earth. People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own. If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return. Instead, they were longing for a better country—a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them." 

I welcome being a stranger and "alien" here in Santo Domingo...and in New York...and in any place that I find my home to be. Because really it's only a temporary home anyway. It won't last forever - 60 years at the most, right? So I will look forward to that heavenly city and pray that God will give me grace to live by faith like those men and women in Hebrews 11.

Life in Santo Domingo - Part 1

Five weeks is a short time to understand what life in a city is like. Ours for sure isn't a typical life in Santo Domingo, but it also it not at all the experience of a tourist. For the most part, we live like our family here - the kids go to their school and we go to ours.

Again, our goal in being here is to learn Spanish. Or at least as well as we can in five weeks. Whether it's talking with our host family, taking taxis and public transit, or taking classes, this experience of immersion is helping us immensely. It's giving us a strong base for which to build on when we arrive in Peru. It's a head start to learning there, with the hope that we will be more useful there faster than we would have been without these five weeks. To give you an idea of what a typical day is like, read on.

When we get up around 6:45, our little "sisters and brother" have just left for school. Yanelis, the Mom, sets breakfast out for us and makes coffee. Around 8 AM we call for a taxi. The first few days she would call for us, but now we call and she provides "back-up" when our Spanish fails us. Usually it works out. It seems like they know us now - the Americans who call at 8 AM and say, "¿Como?" a lot . The last time I called and said (in Spanish of course) "I need a taxi at Don Greggorio" (our neighborhood), the operator said our address before I could say it. I just laughed.

We head to school in a taxi since it's only $2 more than taking public transit, which would involve a lot of walking and take a lot longer. On our ride to school yesterday we had a conversation with the driver about how wonderful rice is. We seriously talked about the wonders of rice, i.e. rice with beans, rice with milk, rice with corn, plain white rice, etc. etc. for five minutes before moving on to other Dominican food we like.

For four hours each weekday we have Spanish class. We were told before coming here that four hours is considered "full-time" since you can't absorb much more than that. It is definitely true! Four hours is almost always completely exhausting.

At 1PM, class is over and it's lunch time! Our favorite place is a little comedor, a simple, no-nonsense lunch spot. Minimal decorations, plastic chairs and tables, and a small counter where the food is served from. We get the bandera, a typical Dominican lunch of a mountain of rice, habichuelas (the most popular type of beans here), meat in sauce, and a side salad of pasta salad or cabbage and other vegetables in a vinegar base. It's about $3.50 per person, huge, and delicious! $3.50 per person for a meal here is not at all typical; we've been surprised to find the food to be very similarly priced to food in the U.S.

To be continued from 2 PM on...