Construction Update

As usual, it's been awhile! I wanted to share this link to Brian's blog, a Kids Alive missionary who spent the summer with us leading work teams. He gives a great overview of all the construction and other work the teams did this summer!

If you would like to receive my email updates (or think that you do receive them but didn't get one this week), you can email me at emily.jamison@my.wheaton.edu and I will add you to my list!

Check my facebook page for lots of pictures of our new playground!

Slip-n-slide!

We set up a slip-n-slide for the kids with a team one day - it was hilarious to watch and the kids LOVED it! They still ask me when we're going to do it again!

Erica!

I was blessed incredibly by visitors this spring. To top it off, Erica, my best friend from Wheaton, came to visit for 2 weeks! Since she's a teacher, she has the summer off. We had a blast going to school, hanging out with the summer interns, relaxing on the beach, talking about music and life. We even did some sight singing (yep, we're music nerds)! It was so much fun to have her here and to show her my life - we talked a lot this year, so she had heard all about the people, places, and things in my life and now got to experience them firsthand!

The pictures, clockwise from top left: relaxing. eating frozen yogurt at La Sirena. erica documenting the tarantula hunt that Lauren and I went on one night. beautiful beach. "water games" day with the kids! world cup excitement...? and erica spending the day with lauren and meeting some of the kids she works with.

Katy's Visit

After a wonderful birthday celebration with my North Coast family (and Molly, who surprised me by coming up a day early!), Katy came to visit! She got to stay for two weeks, which was incredible. We had a lot of fun, a lot of beach time, and a lot of sister craziness time! The three of us hadn’t been together since January, so the sister time was definitely needed!

Katy and I went out to Playa Grande, walked around Montellano, and spent a few days at school. We forded the river and sat in the team house drinking coffee with Junior and Francina when the guagua broke down one morning. She helped me write almost 100 of the kids’ progress reports, and she came to the Mother’s Day extravaganza (See Facebook for pictures). The three of us got to go to New Life, my church, together, have lunch at La Sirena with Sariel and Holly (and eat some delicious frozen yogurt, of course), and relax around the apartment. We also spent a CRAZY afternoon re-writing “Welcome to the 60’s” from Hairspray, choreographing, and recording a video of us singing and dancing as a Mother’s Day gift!

We went to Jarabacoa for the weekend, but it rained a lot and then the elections sent us home a day early (we didn’t want to be traveling on the day they announced the results). So (thanks to Mom and Dad’s generosity) we went to the resort a day early and got to spend 3 lovely days there together. Wave pool, water slides, delicious food, weird shows (have you ever heard someone sing The Stars and Stripes Forever on the words “Here we go”???!), dressing up, ocean, beach, the usual… right!

It was sad to see Katy go. Spending time all together was so refreshing and wonderful. At one point in our lives, if you had put the three of us in a room together for even two days, we would have killed each other! So it’s sort of amazing that we spent two weeks together and loved every minute of it! (At least I did… haha!) I have been so fortunate to get to share my life here with my entire family – a rare blessing for someone on the mission field.



We tried to take jumping pictures... Molly's a frog! Keep scrolling to see the best jump.

Adios, Holly

On May 23^rd, after a joyful celebration at the Mak House and tearful goodbyes in the apartment and at the bus station, Holly moved back to Texas. It was a really hard goodbye, after sharing a room for the past four months and living life together here. Holly is one of the sweetest, gentlest people I know, and I learned a lot about humility and serving others from her. We miss her soooo much!

These are some pics from Holly’s goodbye dinner. Check previous posts for more pictures of our adventures together!

Worship Team

Not having a musical outlet in my life has been the most frustrating part of living here for me. Well, that is no longer the case! I recently joined the worship team at New Life Church, an English-speaking church in Sosua. I sort of joined on a whim – Dustin, who leads worship, said, “So when are you going to sing with us?” And I said, “Um, how’s next week?” So now I am playing keyboard and singing with four guys. Yes, for those of you who have analyzed the gender distribution of chapel bands, I am the token girl. But I play keyboard, so it’s a little better… Let me tell you, this band has been a stream in the desert for me, and the guys I play with are great! I leave rehearsals and church feeling refreshed and fulfilled. Music is POWERFUL! Because of how much I am encouraged by being in the worship band (and because we have met some wonderful people there), Lauren has agreed with me that we should call New Life our church home – she’s such a good, loving, supportive roommate!

The Bible is full of commands to "sing a new song" to the Lord, to sing joyfully, to sing God's praises, to declare his love and goodness in song, to proclaim - when you sing, other people hear you! May God always fill my heart and mouth with new songs of praise. May he truly be my song.

The LORD is my strength and my song; He has become my salvation. Exodus 15:2 (Also Isaiah 12:2)

He put a new song in my mouth, a hymn of praise to our God. Psalm 40:3a (read the whole chapter - it's one of my favorites!)

Blenders

I have never really appreciated blenders as much as I do now. We bought a blender in the fall, and it has become a staple appliance in our kitchen! This week I used it every day, some days twice! The thing is, it's so hot here, anything you can make with ice in it is wonderful! My favorite thing about the blender, however: you can run a blender off two car batteries (our inverter). Also, the blender uses more power than the washing machine. Food for thought, or a picture of the ridiculousness that is Dominican washers!

So, for your reading pleasure, here are our favorite things to make in our blender:

FRAPPUCCINOS! These trump everything else. I could have a frappuccino every day (maybe I will this summer, hmm...). Frozen coffee (it takes some forethought), milk, hot chocolate powder, and a dash of hazelnut creamer.

Smoothies. A close second to the frappuccino. Frozen fruit - usually strawberries - and yogurt. Plain and simple. Sometimes we add a little vanilla whey protein powder.

Hummus! Yep, that's right. We eat hummus in the DR! At least once every two weeks we have hummus wraps with fresh veggies. Mmm! Our hummus recipe: 1 can of chickpeas/garbanzos, 1 clove of garlic, 1/4 cup olive oil, 1/4 cup lime juice (they don't have lemons here). We also make black bean hummus.

"Frostys" Milk, ice, and hot chocolate powder. It ends up a little thinner than a real Frosty, but still delicious! A good option for when we didn't plan and don't have any frozen coffee.

Lately, thanks to Katy, frozen Chai tea lattes! (Think Caribou style.) This is like a frappe, but with chai mix, milk, and ice. Mmm good.

Please send me any delicious recipes or food ideas that you like to make in your blender!