Day One.

Hello Friends and Family!

Update on last night:

So last night was awesome. Yanet was wonderful, so welcoming and just a sweetheart. She picked us up and took us to the orphanage’s church. On the way we made two pit stops. The first was at the boys' orphanage (a 3-bedroom building that houses 40 boys) and they were completely adorable and so happy to see us. They were all fascinated by our watches and Chanel’s silly bands haha, I wish I had more to give them...We then continued on our journey, but were hindered by a road-block: a reggae tone boy band taking their glam shots in the middle of the street haha. So what do we do? Of course join in the photo shoot. Yanet and the four of us climbed out of the car and glamed it up for our moment in the spotlight haha. Then off we went to the church.

We finally made it to the church only to find that the service was all in Spanish, so all of us were completely lost for most of it haha- we later had Yanet translate for us and the message sounded great: from 2 Samuel 9 and Matthew about how prayer is our strongest connection with God and other great words of wisdom. Overall it was a great first day and first impression of everyone. We were excited.

And then today happened....

So today we were off to an early start. Because we decided to leave all of our watches and phones at home, we were without alarm clocks and any sense of time for most of the day. Luckily, Leslie decided to go for a walk earlier in the morning and was kind enough to be our personal alarm clock. I speak for Katie and myself, when I say that we woke up completely disoriented, so rushed out of bed in a panic haha. We quickly got ready in 20 minutes to meet Chris downstairs, who then picked us up so we could get IDs for our home-stay location. Immediately after, we met with Yanet for our drive to the orphanage. Once we arrived we were instantly welcomed and adored by the 60 girl orphans in the orphanage. Needless to say, we had our hands full for the entire day. We had the kids split up into teams of 4 (one for each of us: Katie, Chanel, Les, and Mai). We also were quick to figure out that few of the children spoke English, so we struggled through the day with our broken Spanish and Italian haha (Maile was great at commanding attention with her fluent speaking skills). But, we definitely were handicapped with our linguistic abilities, however the repetition of the same key phrases (“Que occurio?” And “No entiendo”) helped us get through most of the day :)

We started the day with chaos. Maile and her group played baseball (half of the time with a bat, half of the time with a plank- don’t worry rusty nails removed by Jorge and Luis), Leslie played volleyball, and Katie and I headed for the library with our kids to read and color. We then broke into two groups for English lessons; Leslie and I were in one classroom with our kids, and Maile and Katie in the other. Our lessons consisted of numbers, letters, Jesus trivia, Simon says, famous landmarks (we were just thinking on our feet haha) and math games. It was definitely a challenge for us as our Spanish speaking skills were definitely being stretched to the max, so you can only imagine our translations haha. We all then congregated an hour later for lunch and a tour of the orphanage. The orphanage consists of a kitchen, dining room, first aid room, a laundry room, and several bedrooms. A humble home for wonderful kids.

Later, we continued with the fun by “organizing” dance time (I use the word “organize” loosely because let’s be honest, there’s no way we can totally control the kids haha). The kids were GREAT dancers. I need to emphasize “great”. Putting the four of us to shame. Apparently we thought we were good dancers, but may need to reconsider that truth haha. We then had a talent show between our four groups. This included choreographed dancing and break dancing. The kids then insisted that the four of us do our own dance for everyone, so in our spontaneity, what did we pull together? The electric slide/renegade stomp and Miley Cyrus. Classic. They loved it, although recommended that we work on our originality haha. We ended the day at the orphanage in Yanet's office, planning for the next 2 week's activities, which include many arts and crafts and field trips. Fun times ahead.

Finally, Chris picked us up and happily took us to the grocery store so we could stock up on food. We cannot even tell you how amazing this man is. He is always so happy and willing to help and his presence is such a great comfort in this foreign country. He's awesome. We also have a housemate- Luke (his assistant) and he has been so awesome by helping us with tasks all around La Romana as well.

So much has already happened and we can't wait to see what else is in store :)

We are now about to break for shower time, dinner, and a small Bible study of our own. Tomorrow we'll hopefully have more time to update you with some pictures, video clips, and more details.

Until then...

(P.S. We have all been contributing to this blog’s joint message. But as a side note, I am so grateful to have these girls here with me. This experience is amplified by their presence, wisdom, and grace that they impart on all of these children. Watching them with these kids makes me so incredibly happy- they are wonderful people and if you don’t know them, you have to meet them- they’re awesome. Such an amazing blessing.)

Paz y amor,

Las Chicas