Dominican Republic, first week update

Hello from the Dominican Republic, it's actually been over a week since we've been here but nevertheless, Dick and I arrived here safely on saturday the 22. I spent the night in the Miami airport with a 15 hour lay over but I found a pretty comfortable place to get some z's. Dick and I met up in the Santiago airport and Scott (the missionaries' son) and Vaden (whose house I'm staying in with his wife) came to pick us up and drive us up to Sosua where we are staying and working.

We chose Servant's Heart Ministries (SHM) because it gave us the liberty to create our own projects while also participating in the work in which they are already involved. They work in construction, medical missions and local ministries so they do various construction projects (such as medical clinics), have developed these clinics and host medical mission teams and do local ministries in churches and vacation bible schools. For me and Dick, this was a pretty good fit for the variety of things that we are interested in.

The first couple days that we were here we were taught how to get around in public transportation and we met several of the people that we would be working with. Three days we have painted a missionary house in Nazaret that SHM has constructed and will be using to house missionaries as they come and work with four girls from New Finland who picked out some super bright colors for the two bedrooms in the house. Nazaret is a really beautiful town in a lush hilly part where the missionaries have done a lot of work not far from the caost.
We've met up with a lot of people from a church in Cangrejo where we've begun an evangelical mime skit that Dick has done in his church. We are goin to have a special night with music and food, a small sermon or 'talk' and the skit to invite more youth to the church which doesn't have much of a youth base. We met a middle-age couple the other day who does the kids program at the church on sunday mornings. The couple really liked the ideas that Dick mentioined so we will be meeting up with them to help them get their creatives juices going about ministries they can start in their church. I've begun talking with women in various parts near Sosua about starting girls groups to talk about abuse or prostitution and about feeling their value as children of God. I have been looking for women who would be willing to continue this ministry long after I've left.
There is a street here in Sosua which as one of the higest concentrations of prostitution in the country, the missionaries' son went on to say that it's arguably one of the highest concentrations of prostitution in the hemiphere. When we go out at night it is so sad to see these girls, 13, 14 years old with old white men who are here for vacation. Most of the tourism in this area nowadays is prostitution-based tourism and it's absolutely disgusting. The young girls clearly are bored with these old dirty men but they keep doing it to help their families. Of oucrse some of them do it because it's lucrative but some are there because they need to support their families or because they have been abused at home and feel numb to it. One of the girls I lvie with was at a cafe the other day and there was an old man who was talking to a young girl and her losing her virginity the night before. He didn't think that the girl I live with could understand because she's really dark skinned (but speaks perfect english and could obviously understand what the man was saying to the young girl). After listen to this guy for a while, she was so sickened by him that she literally went to the bathroom and threw up. at the nd of the conversation between the man and the girl, he asked her if there was anything else she wanted and she asked for a can of pringles, which is not even much money but it's way out of her price range. It's just so sad to see it happen, i want to yell at these men who take advantage of girl in these situations. I can understand why a girl would become a prostitute (don't interpret taht as having ever considered being one myself) but I cannot understand even for a minute a man taking advantage of a girl in that way, especially when they are 60 years old men with a 13 year old girl, and it's really really common here.
Another thing thats common are girl who have boyfriends at 12 or 13 years old and have a child with him. A fair number of girls are wed before they are 20. We met a woman the other day, a very successful accomplished woman who married at 14 and was having children shortly thereafter. Her brother is already a grandpa, several times. It's jut the way things go around here. They don't necessarily consider it strange to be raising a kid while they are still kids themselves. Girls here, especialy, grow up really fast, they are in charge of their younger siblings, life is hard and they just grow up.
Things between Dick and I have been overall good, it's been hard adjusting to a new place, a new lifestyle and just being together in person is different than our relationship set up for the past year, so there's a lot of adjusting to do. We've been able to talk about a lot of things concerning missions and what we like and do not like about certain styles of mission work. We've been able to really talk about a lot of things about our relationship and where we think it's heading and in that way it's been amazing to be together, even if we don't always agree on everything. Donna, the woman I have been talking to in the months leading up to the trip, hasn't been here in these first two weeks which has made it significantly more difficult for us since she is the heart of the organization. She would've known who to set us up with and would've helped us a little bit with thep acing of starting our ministries. But it's ok, she'll be back to tomorrow though, and we are really excited to meet her. I'll post some pictures later, there are some on facebook right now too.

Czech students and Creation Fest 2010

Students from the Czech Republic came to PA, hung out with our youthgroup and stayed in our houses. We had Katka and Iveta in our house, Katka spoke pretty good english and we had a lot of fun hanging out. They all went to Creation Fest and thought it was absolutely burning hot there (since the Czech Republic is pretty far north in Europe and doesn't get quite this hot). I took them up to the lookout on top off the 'mountain' and I showed them how to jump around at the concerts, they weren't exactly sure what to do hehe.



From the lookout, that's only one section of the camp sites, we were in a totally different part which was just as large. There are usually about 60,000 people there and sometimes pikes to 100,000 for the saturday night show

The main stage with Mr. Sullivan off to the left heheh



Elysa gave me a tatoo of a cross and rose which says "mi jardinero"

They spray painted everyone's hair, even their beards

heheh roarr

We had a praise service for them and they shared a big presentation about their country and town, this is with my step sister Elysa who is one of the youth leaders and my mom and stepdad

Katka and Iveta at Christina Loscalzos' and we spontaneously created a dance routine because some of the girls are on really good dance teams back in their country

Adela and Katka, these girls are sooo funny

Aunt Carol's surprise 60th birthday party

Dad and I drove out to Ohio to surprise Carol for her 60th birthday party, she sorta caught on that people were going to have a special event for her birthday but she had no clue that Dad and I would be there. The drive went by really fast as we conversed and laughed the whole way (a good 6-7 hours)and then suddenly we were there. It was nice to see my extended family after a while of not seeing them.


Aunt Carol with Lizzy and Rae Rae laughing at the ridiculous card Aunt Marcia bought her


Jen with Grandma


Lizzy, Rae rae me and Gwenny, Gwen is always attached to my leg hehe


A and Matt

Carrie and Gwenny, hehe I love her smile

Dad giving Carrie a back massage

hehehe

We were all acting silly

Rae rae

Baseball with the Astronauts

All of the staff at the Goddard Space Center that worked on the Hubble Service Mission were invited to an Oriols game with the astronauts so Ken invited me and I invited my dear old buddy Timmy to come. Ken showed Tim around the space center and we toured the Goddard facilities and saw the clean rooms. We met Mike Massimino first in the center and Michael Good (nicknamed Bueno) came shortly after. The others didn't make it until way later because of a flight delay from Dallas and missed most of the game. If I had met them about 10 years ago, I probably would have considered pursuing being an astronaut further because at one point in time I really wanted to be an astronaut. I was really struck by how physically fit they were and how bright and friendly as well. I was honestly impressed at how they were not cocky or "too cool" to be meeting us. I got all of them to sign a baseball that I have in a case on my shelf :)


Timmy as an astronaut


This is a picture of them taken in space, notice Megan's hair floating hehe

Ken showed us the Goddard Space Center and this is a huge amplifier in a room which tests the instruments and equipment to see if they can endure the sound of the takeoff

This is Mike Massimino, he was super friendly and one of my favorites

Although.. Megan was baisedly my favorite, being the only woman on the team. She was the one to capture the Hubble with a mechanical arm, I told her that it takes the finess of a woman to be able to do so.

This is John Grunsfeld, captain of the team, he considers the Hubble his baby.

Sailing the Annapolis Harbor, May 30 09

Ken's boss at the Goddard Space Center, Joe, has a nice sailboat on the Annapolis Harbor and he invited us to come with him for the weekend. I was able to invite my longtime buddy Matt since sailing is just about his favorite thing to do. It was the first time that I had actually gone sailing before, we slept on the boat and ate on it, we didn't raelly go swimming though (the water looked a little iffy). It was a very peaceful trip and Matt and I did a lot of catching up.


The weather was basically perfect.. the one day there was basically no wind however


Beautiful sunset just after dinner


"helping," I'm really not very strong anymore and Joe had to intervene hehe


Matt enjoying the sea

Mom and Ken

The wind was strong so Joe angled the boat to catch the most wind, the boat was heavily tilted

The houses bordering the bay

Me and Matt after docking

Beth's Wedding May 23 2009

My really close friend Beth asked me if I would be her maid of honor in her wedding and naturally I said YESSS without hesitation. I planned her bachelorette party that ended up just being me and her. The game was to pull an envelope out of a stack of envelopes that said what her or her friends would have to do. We had a good timerunning about in the mall, as you'll see in the pictures. That night, however, while setting up the tables we discovered that the yellow table clothes that the wedding planner ordered turned out to be safety yellow, the kind that construction workers wear... needless to say, Beth was pissed. She went out with her fiance Scott to cool off and when she got back we had prepared a spontaneous spa session for her in the cabin we were staying in. We soaked her feet in hot water and Kat (her musically talented friend) played quiet guitar music in the background. I gave her a foot massage and back massage and then we went to bed. The next day we went to get our hair done (paid for by the wedding planner that messed up on the tables clothes) and afterward we got everything else ready. The wedding was absolutely gorgeous and after the reception, Kat and I went to Pittsburgh to the incline and the Cheesecake Factory, it was a beautiful day all around :)





Beth having fun at her bachelorette party




More fun memories from the mall that night



Beth looked so gorgeous for her wedding

She let me pick out whatever dress I wanted

Beth with Scott looking over her dad's shoulder. Her dad was crying through the whole ceremony..he made me cry even

They had these girls sign during the ceremony, it was really adorable

Walking for the first time as husband and wife

Cake! She didn't hit him in the face

The wedding started at 11 and they left by 2:30 or 3... I think they wanted to be on their honeymoon already

Kat sang at her wedding, then we took some extra pictures afterward

Visiting Grandpa

Since I was in the area and didn't know when I would be able to see grandpa again, I decided to stay in Florida a few extra days and head over to Naples to grandpa's house. Despite a bit of resistance on Peggy's part, I arrived at grandpa's on tuesday. On the bus I met a young chap from England who worked as an architect in Valencia, Spain and had just traveled litearlly all over the world, spending time in Asia, Africa, South America and finishing out his trip in Florida heading north to New York. He had been traveling for over 6 months and only ran into trouble with theft in anywhere but Lima, Peru of course.. everyone get's stuff stolen from them in Lima.. Unfortunately I lost his name and he never friended me on facebook, it would've been cool to meet up with him in Europe sometimes.

Grandpa and his assistant, Debbie, picked me up and we headed to Spanky's restaurant for lunch. I think that Grandpa was really happy to see me because he was acting really silly, he had lamb chops for lunch and as he was eating he said he felt bad for the little baby lambs that he was eating and then began baaaing in the middle of the restaurant. It cut me off guard because I had never really heard him say something so spontaneous and silly before and I laughed hysterically. Peggy put up with me visiting but it clearly was not what she would've preferred. Either way, Grandpa and I spent the next several days eating out and lounging about on the lanai, we both took plenty of naps. My favorite part of the trip was a chess game we played with his fancy chess set, he was pretty sharp for the most part but forgot what some of the pieces did, trying to have pawns move in all directions like a queen and so forth. Eventually I moved into a position so that he would be able to 'beat me' but he didn't win for real of course. We called Lauren in Germany for her birthday and since we couldn't get a hold of her, we sent her a video saying happy birthday that we recorded with my webcam.

This would be the last time I would see him and I would be the last one in the family to see him while he was still doing well.

God bless you Grandpa, may you rest in peace