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| This is a "thank you" picture for my sister who sent a bag of Skittles for my class. |
For example, the people of the DR are demonstrative. The loudest, most aggressive and pushy person gets their way. You see it when you drive, you see it when you try to order a pound of ham at the deli, and I see it in my classroom. My 12-year old students have difficulty standing in a line and can hardly contain themselves if I ask them to raise
their hands. They shout “Mrs. Carli!” and then slap their hand over their mouths when they see the look on my face. And they simply MUST wave their hands in the air and whimper as loudly as possible. It’s a struggle every day and I have to constantly remind myself not to reward the “unwanted” behavior. But, then, am I hurting them? They need to survive in this country and the way they do things in this country requires them to be demanding. So am I doing them a disservice? I doubt it. I think I’m helping them learn some self-control and respect for others. But take some other cultural difference, maybe something I’m not even aware of, and I ask myself
Working at the school has been one of the biggest challenges
of my life! And I don’t say that
lightly. I love a challenge. Love. And I am so tired but so rewarded. I see God
in my life, giving me resources, ideas, energy, compassion, forgiveness and
empathy. I’ve never relied on Him like I do here and that requirement to rely
on God is good for me. Living in the states, I didn’t really rely on God as
much. I relied a lot on me. And I’ve learned that I’m not that strong.
And what is Scottie doing?
He is working with Praying Pelican Missions. (Look them up, too!)
They partner with local
pastors around the world to build and grow God’s kingdom through short-term
mission trips. Scottie gets to lead about a dozen trips here each year. Some of them are construction projects, where
a group comes and builds something. Others are youth groups that do some kind
of youth ministry, sports camp or VBS. The most recent was a health clinic
group of nursing and medical students who teamed with local doctors to help
treat those in need here. He also gets to host a group of people from Feed My
Starving Children (which you know is close to my heart). Each group that comes
gets connected to a pastor that is already ministering to people here and needs
some extra help. And the model fosters long-term connections and help. Teams often come back each year to the same
host church all while having contact with them throughout the year.
There are other full-time missionaries from PPM living in
Belize, Costa Rica, Haiti, one family moving to Jamaica soon and another en
route to Sicily to help the Syrian refugees. But there are also full-time trip
leaders that live in the U.S. and travel to different countries and lead trips
all year long. We had an opportunity to spend a week in Florida at the end of
April at a mission conference with them. It was amazing!! To get to know people that have loved us
through their actions and prayers this year, even though they’d never met me.
It’s awe-inspiring. We got to worship in English every day, learn more about
the vision and goals of PPM and how we fit into that, bond with some new
life-long and long-distance friends, and get some rest. And of course, I went
to Wal-Mart, Dollar Tree, Starbucks, and a few other places I’ve been missing.
If you feel led to financially support our mission, please click the link below and find our names on the staff list (toward the bottom) to make a donation. Thank you!
Make a Donation Here
He spends as much time as he can with Pastor Mede in La
Romana and the bateys, too. He is teaching English classes, connecting
resources and organizations, and becoming another voice for the hungry and
hurting here. He is working to get a well drilled in a remote area and install
home water filtration systems, too. He has been working on his language skills
and spends a good amount of time managing our house, which I am ever thankful
for.
[We also got to visit with some close friends of ours that
now live in Florida and work with another mission organization that sponsors
children around the world. Familiar friends with a new baby. I love them.]
I’ve got to admit I was a little worried about how the kids and
I would respond to being back on U.S. soil. We hadn’t been back in 8 months and
I’ve heard from other missionaries that the first time they returned they had
some reverse cultural shock. (Like the one that said she had an anxiety attack
in the cereal aisle at the grocery store from so many choices and had to leave
the store.) So I was fearful for two
different things. (1) I wouldn’t feel comfortable or be able to relax and feel
overwhelmed or (2) we wouldn’t want to leave once our time was up. Growing up I moved quite a few times and I
think that helped me learn to transition between cultures because we were all
fine. And, thankfully, we were ready to return home once our week was up. But when I got back here, it got me to
thinking about that fear. And fear, in general.
Sometimes it’s bad enough to deal with a hard situation but
when we’re fearful, we become irrational and don’t help the situation. So let
me tell a story. Actually two
stories.
My friend, Julia, who lives 4 streets over from me, generously
picked us up at the airport when we returned. On the way home from the airport,
she told me that her truck had been in the shop while we were gone. Why, you
ask? Because a tarantula had built a large nest in her engine and it shorted
out the entire electrical system. <insert icky squirm and ssssshiver
here>.
Fast forward a week. Friday night and I’m going to take the
girls out for chicken wings. There’s a new place here that just opened and is
run by a nice man who spent 20 years in the U.S. Air Force. Ashley sits shotgun
since Scottie’s not here. Bella and Lexie sit in the backseat. I pull up next to the curb on the busy street
and just as I park, Ashley lets out a horrific scream. I turn to see her with
her hands pressed over her face…..like REALLY pressed. And she is kind of
shaking. So I yell, “what’s wrong?!?” and start looking out the windows, like
maybe she’s seen someone with a gun pointed at us or a dog got run over by a
car or some other life-shattering thing has happened. And after I say “what’s wrong?” 3 times, she
kind of whispers, “my knee…….” I look down to see a 2-inch long bug crawling up
her knee. But really it looked more like
a rhinoceros. Seriously. A rhinoceros. Here's a pic.
Turns out it was a rhinoceros beetle. Whew. Just a rhinoceros
beetle. I reach over and open the
passenger door and whack it with my wallet and it flew off like a pterodactyl.
And we all laugh and cry a little and shake all over. I asked her why she covered her face and she
said, “I thought it was a tarantula like the one in Ms. Julia’s car, crawling
up my leg because I just saw it out of the corner of my eye. And I didn’t know
what to do.” And over the next week, that keeps coming back to me. How many times have I seen something scary
out of the corner of my eye and just covered my eyes because I didn’t know what
to do. Literally and figuratively in my
life. Isn’t it instinct to shut our eyes and hope it goes away? And does that work? Sometimes.
But wouldn’t it be better to face the scary.
Parenting is a lot like this for me sometimes. Scary. If you’re
a parent, you get it. It is so easy to see someone else’s situation and think
you know the answers and solutions or the way to do something. But when my own
kid is throwing herself and backpack down on the dirty sidewalk on the other
side of the wall at school because her pop tart bag ripped (which, by the way,
was the last pop tart we had brought back from the U.S.) and her pants are
still wet even though they were hanging on the clothes line for 2 days, and she
doesn’t want to go to this stupid school or walk this stupid far and doesn’t
care if that stupid bus of kids is pointing at her!……and I feel lost. And it
would be so much easier to put my hands over my eyes, carry her into school and
drop her in her classroom and hope she’s better by the end of the day. And that’s
what I did. I gave her a hug, handed her
my Coke (yes, 7:30am and I gave her my Coke) and said that she’d gotten all the
bad stuff out of the way early and her day was gonna be better. Hands over eyes. Problem will resolve itself.
Crisis averted.
I went up to my classroom. And she came tearing through my
classroom door 20 minutes later with tears streaming down her face and her
shirt covered with water. Apparently, when she threw her backpack down on the
curb outside, it busted her water bottle and all her papers got wet and she
didn’t know it until she we to open it….over the homework basket so the whole
class had wet homework papers now. She was embarrassed and upset and angry. I
don’t blame her. Crisis not averted. In fact, crisis made worse by ignoring it.
Bummer. I wrapped her in my arms and just held her. And racked my brain about
what to say and do. We’ve just got to get through the next hour, ok kiddo. I’ll
dry you off, we can use these clothes pins and yarn to hang up everyone’s
papers, your teacher isn’t mad at you, I’ll go with you to apologize about the water,
come on babe, we can do it together, let’s pray and ask God to help us through
this bad day, okay?
She nodded her little head and we started downstairs, and God
sent me a little angel. Lexie’s friend, who knows what it’s like to have stress
in her life, just happened to be in the hallway that morning and stopped us to
ask what was wrong. She wrapped her little arms around Lexie and gave her the
biggest hug (which is something Lexie has been doing to her since we got here)
and gave her the words of encouragement that could only come from a 9-year old.
That’s when I broke. That’s when I cried. And I had to walk into the 2nd
grade classroom with my makeup all over my face and explain that Lexie was
having a bad day and we needed some help getting through it.
We made it. It’s Sunday. Election Day in the DR. Which brings
more fear. Even though the sitting president is pretty much a shoe-in for
reelection, they expect some protests and rioting. So we are going to head to
church this morning and then spend the rest of the day at home, safe and sound.
I’m still learning to turn to God for the help I need. It’s not about squeezing
my eyes shut and pretending that my problems are going away but rather, taking
a full-long look at my problems and then handing them over, laying ‘em down at
the foot of the cross.
Isaiah 41:9 “I took you from the ends of the earth, from its
farthest corners I called you. I said, ‘You are my servant’; I have chosen you
and have not rejected you. So do not
fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will
strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand. ‘All
who rage against you will surely be ashamed and disgraced; those who oppose you
will be as nothing and perish. Though
you search for your enemies, you will not find them. Those who wage war
against you will be as nothing at all.’”
Though you search for your enemies….not close your eyes to
them. Not cover your face so you can’t see them. Even those rhinoceros beetles.
Even those emotionally-wrecked children of yours.
Love to you all. Carli
If you feel led to financially support our mission, please click the link below and find our names on the staff list (toward the bottom) to make a donation. Thank you!
Make a Donation Here
