Picture Update

Pictures!

A cute baby at The Nest. They were so silly today!

The coolest birthday cake ever! This was for two of my boys' double birthdays.

Happy.

My two roommates on one of their birthdays.

Outside my house, which is also the admin building. Here are some of the flags representing where all our students are from.

Awesome HUGE kitchen.

Living/dining room. Yes, it is round.

This is the painting I received from my school in the DR when I left. It is now hanging in Africa :).

On the volcano with the lady I student taught with three years ago.

Beautiful.

Jambo!

Here is the email I sent out last week. If you are not on my email list, leave me a comment and I will add your. Or email me.

What's going on in my life? I can't believe how much has changed in just four weeks. Four weeks ago today I was sitting in church in Dubuque and being prayed for in front of the congregation. Today I am sitting in my room in Nairobi, after going to church and holding babies at an orphanage nearby. And what about the time in between? Let me just tell you, a lot can happen in four weeks!

Well, for starters I moved to Nairobi, Kenya! That's a pretty big life change! I am living and working at Rosslyn Academy. I live with two awesome female teachers, Emily and Jennifer. We have had a great time getting to know each other and getting used to life here in Kenya. Emily has been here one year so far, and Jennifer is new.

I started my fourth year of teaching! And it is also my first year in second grade. I have 17 great little blessings. 11 of them are boys, so just imagine what second grade at Rosslyn is like! But they truly are great. I love seeing their little personalities come out. It is also neat having so many different cultures in my class. They are from different places and some speak different languages at home. It was neat to look on the map and see how we truly do come from across the globe! We have had 7 days of school so far, plus a Saturday Open House. It has been super busy but also super great! I love working at a school where some kids have never heard the gospel. I have been telling them the story of Moses. They are mad at me for stopping and not telling them more! One little boy who is from a Hindu family said, "PLEASE tell us more! I have never heard about Moses before!" Wow. Please pray for open hearts for him and for the others in my class. I am so thankful for the opportunity I have to share the best news in the world with them!

Moving to a new place means meeting many new people. I am excited about the new friendships I am making, but at the same time missing the friends I no longer see as much. But I know that God has great things in store for me here, and I am excited to see all the different people He brings into my life.

I love the one-in-a-lifetime experiences that God puts in your path. I hope one like this is to be repeated, but it definitely was unexpected and amazing! We as a staff went hiking at a volcano about three and a half hours away. Well, it shouldn't have taken that long, but roads in Africa can be...umm...interesting. Anyways, after hiking, some of us stayed and camped there. When everyone else left, our guide for the hike asked if we wanted to go to a Masai village. This was not a tourist trap or a place where a lot of white people go. There happened to be a ceremony going on that day and the next, so people from a lot of villages were there. It was incredible! We were able to see inside their mud and straw huts. The kids also sang and danced for us. One of the coolest parts was seeing warriors dressed in their traditional clothing, with mud paint on their legs and everything! They chanted and had a jumping contest for us. I have never experienced anything quite like that. The kids were fascinated with my sunglasses and took them off my head to wear them. Then I would take a picture so they could see themselves. Let's just say I have quite a few pictures of village kids with sunglasses! And many times the sunglasses were upside down! Words cannot even express how cool that was. I hope more opportunities come up like that soon!

So the question is, can Mindy go somewhere and NOT find the babies? You probably all know the answer to that question. NO WAY! I have been able to go back to the baby orphanage I visited last time I was in Kenya. Three years ago they had six or seven babies. Now they have over 20! I am still trying to learn their names. It's even harder when they put the boys in pink clothes! There is not enough space for all of them in the building where they are now, so they are in the process of building a new building. Let me know if you would like more information about the orphanage. The smallest baby is almost three months and under 6 pounds! I have really enjoyed being able to hold as many babies as I want as often as I want! I haven't made it over there as much as I would like simply because teaching is taking so much of my time right now. Hopefully soon things will slow down so I can!

I have posted a bunch of pictures on Facebook if you are friends with me there. You can also send me a friend request if you are on Facebook.

Thank you for praying for me! Here are some specific requests:

-Knowing how to best reach my students. I want to meet them where they are, and help them as much as I can. Please pray for wisdom.

-Working with new co-workers and getting used to a new school and new ways of doing things.

-Knowing how to best use my time and energy. I want to help as much as I can both here at Rosslyn and at the orphanage. Please pray that I would know what that looks like.

-Please keep Kenya, especially Northern Kenya, in your prayers. The drought and famine there is really bad. A guy shared at church today about a village he visited where all but 9 of their 200 sheep died out of lack of food or water. Please pray for rain and an end to this famine. Where I am in Southern Kenya things are ok, but keep praying for rain!

I hope to post pictures soon. I wanted to post some from the Masai village, but am going to wait for now. My facebook has a lot though. I took some good ones of the babies today. We had a day off school. You will never guess where I wanted to spend it :). It was great!

The beginnings...

Jambo from Nairobi! I have been here a little over a week already. In some ways I feel like I have been here forever and in other ways I feel like I just arrived. I am excited and overwhelmed, sad and happy, and so much more, all at the same time. School starts a week from today, so it's been crazy trying to get everything ready for that. We started new teacher orientation on Monday. Talk about overload! But the information was all really good, especially the stuff on transition and working with third culture kids. For those of you who don't know, that means kids who have lived a significant amount of their lives in a country that is not their passport country, to put it simply. Most of my kids will be third culture kids. I can't even say half their names! But that will come. Right now I have 17 kids, which is the smallest class I have ever had! I am kinda excited about that. I have been busy trying to get bulletin boards set up, desks arranged, and all that kind of stuff. It's weird to be in a new classroom. I definitely am missing my kids and friends in the DR, but I also am excited to see what God will do in my life here.

Other than school, I was able to go back to the church I went to when I student taught. I loved being back there! I think I will just stay there since I have friends there and know it's a good church, but we will see. Two of the new teachers came with me to church and then after church we walked to the baby orphanage I also used to go to. When I left, they had 6 or 7 babies. Now they have more than 20! It was so great to go love on them for a little bit. I have already gone back two more times--Monday and Wednesday! Can you tell I love that part about being here? :)

Tomorrow we are going to a mountain to go hiking, and some of us are also camping there. I have never gone camping in Africa, so we will see how that goes! We will come back Saturday afternoon, and then it's back to getting ready for school! The new staff went to a tea farm last week, and that was a lot of fun. I am really enjoying getting to know the new staff here. I love hearing everyone's stories and what God is doing in their lives.

I am so glad God has brought me here, even though some days are difficult. I love that He has me in a place where I can spend time with both school aged kids and babies. I know there will be trying times ahead, but God is bigger and stronger and I am so excited to see what He will do in my life!

ABCs of Jesus

Have you ever gone through the ABCs, naming a character/quality of God or Jesus for each one? I was doing that as I went to sleep last night and meditating on those things rather than fears or worries. I need to work on doing that more often! Anyways, A, B, and C were all pretty normal for what I have thought of before. I think I said Awesome, Beautiful, and Compassionate or something. Then I got to D and my mind all the sudden said "daring." I realized what I thought and was like "No, that doesn't fit." But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that my Jesus is indeed daring. Dictionary dot com says the following for daring: "audacity, bravery. 2. dauntless, undaunted, venturesome,audacious, brave" I sure think that fits. My Jesus was dauntless as he came down to save a people He knew would walk away from Him. He had the audacity to do it anyway. Wow. I know I would not have been daring and died for people who would walk away from me. He was brave enough to leave perfect heaven to come to sinful earth, walk on this earth for 33 years, and then die a cruel death. Yes, I would say my Jesus is daring.

What a friend we have in Jesus! I am so blessed that He died to take away my sins, and the sins of anyone who asks Him to take away their sins. He is worth living for. He is worth dying for. May I live my life for Him!

Stuffed Suitcases

How do you fit three years of things in three suitcases? I think I am figuring out the answer...you don't. I am not going to post a picture of what my brother's room, aka my packing room, looks like right now. Explosion city. There is no way it's all going to fit. I might have to take a fourth bag, though it's very expensive and I am tired of spending money. Haha.

I leave a week from today! Woah. I am trying to fit everything in this week. I have been spending lots of time with friends and lots of time shopping. Last week my mom and I went and saw my friend who had her baby 11 weeks early. I have never seen a baby so small! But it was super good to see them and meet the baby's big sister who I had never met. It's been busy around here but good. If you live in Dubuque and want to get together before I leave, let me know!

In Transition

Well, it's been a long while since I wrote on here. Hopefully I will never go that long. Frankly, every time I think about writing I am just not sure where to begin. Leaving the Dominican Republic was very hard. Pulling a sobbing first grader off you twice and having her pulled off you another time is not very fun. I miss my kids, my friends, my life there. BUT I am also excited about what's coming. I am in Iowa for three more weeks and then off to KENYA. I am trying to get everything ready for the big move. It's hard to fit everything in life in just a couple suitcases! This summer I spent a few weeks on the west coast. Unfortunately, I took like no pictures. Sorry! My family took the train out, so that was a lot of fun (and a lot of bumps!) It was great to see my grandma and friends out in Seattle and east of the mountains. I realized that is the last time I will see my brother for a while because he is still in Seattle and won't be back until after I leave. I am not a fan of goodbyes! Oh well.

Several of you have asked if my blog address will stay the same. I am not planning on changing it, but if I do, I will make it very clear how to get to the new one. I won't be in the DR anymore, but that's okay. You all know that.

I am learning a lot about trusting God during this season of my life. It's easy to question what He is doing and what is happening, but then I realize again that He has a plan, that He is in charge, and that if I follow Him, I am right where I should be. I am blessed that I have a job. Several of my teacher friends do not, and my heart aches for them. I have so many blessings to count!

Thank you to all who have been and are praying for me. I hope to keep updating here and then also plan to send out email updates. Please continue to pray for my time in transition, especially adjusting to life in Kenya. I haven't taught second grade before, so it's going to be a lot of adjustments, to say the least! But God is good.

Here are just some fun pictures of my last few weeks in the DR.

At the beach. Usually there are swarms of people right here, but not that day. My friend Amanda and I went for the weekend. It was so great. I miss her a lot!
My crazy class on the last day of school. I miss them too!
One of my church friends on my last day at my Dominican Church.
With Angie, a kindergarten teacher, Jenn, the art teacher, and Eileen, my amazing principal, at Camp David. This is up on the mountain overlooking the city.
Field Day. We were the red team. That yellow glob is a sponge filled with water. I just LOVE that little girl's face! Isn't that awesome?!?!

Have a great week everyone! I will try to write more soon and post more pictures!

Destination: AFRICA!!!

Okay, the word is out. Most of you probably already know, but I am heading to KENYA in July! I will be teaching second grade at the same school where I student taught. I am sad to leave the Dominican Republic but excited at the same time for the new adventures that await me. I am sure life will be very different. I will really miss speaking Spanish, my kids here, and my friends. But I am excited for African church, the students there, and the babies, among other things. I am sure it will be very different than when I student taught there. It is a three year commitment, which is scary but exciting because that way I know what I will be doing, Lord willing, for the next three years. It was really tough telling my students that I am leaving. Now they all want to come visit me in Africa, which is fine with me ;). This year has been really really good for the most part. I have learned so much about God and His incredible love for me. He is truly amazing! My first graders have taught me so much about Him! I love their desire to learn about God and the questions they ask. I wish you could all sit in and hear them when we are talking about God! It blows my mind.

I will post pictures hopefully today. I only have a little more than 6 weeks here! YIKES!!!!