my growing patience

we havent started doing anything tangible yet. all we have been doing is planning. it can get a little old. so much of me just wants to get out there and start doing something. i guess thats kinda the way i live my life. i dont always stop to think and plan before i start something. so im probably growing or something...
and my keyboard doesnt have punctuation. it kills me.
this is a pic of my host brother. he cracks me up. i tell him hes crazy and he says, no, im just happy. i taught him to make a fist and say word up, but he cant pronounce it very well. its amazing.

Mi primero semana

My family is rad. My padre is the coach of the major league prep team here in Barahona. Whenever I walk in he says, "Hello" with a lot of emphasis on the o. It makes me happy. My madre works at the sugarcane factory and is studying to be a lawyer and I have two hermanos that like to play video games and seem to like it when I play with them.
I am loving it down here. Aside from the freaky hotness of it, anyway. We have been doing a lot of planning this week and we are going to start english classes next week and tutoring the week after. The other interns are amazing. It is a little funny because of the seven of us, six are very similar in that we like to talk a lot. So far its all been good though. I am super excited to see how this summer plays out.

My arrival in the DR

I made it. So far we've just kinda gotten used to the culture and haven't done anything too exciting. I'll write more once something exciting happens. Tomorrow I get to meet my host family, which I'm pretty stoked about. It should be fun. Hard, but fun.
But don't worry, I'm not dead yet, and my stomach is no more weird than it was when I left the states.

My last night in a familiar place

Tonight was pretty fun. I got to have some crazy good food with my family and just relax for a bit. Then I got to hang out with my bible study from last year. Ellie, Anna, and I went on an adventure to find pencils for Dominicans. It didn't go very well, and Ellie had to be home relatively soon after we departed, so Anna and I plugged on... First we went to the bank so I could get some money, but I didn't have my ATM card with me. I figured that's why I have a credit card, so we continued anyway. So we went to 7-11 so I could get a last minute corn dog. I ordered my three hour old corn dog, and upon deliberating, decided that I didn't in fact want to put 82 cents on my credit card, so I handed the checker my dog and said, "hang on, I bet I can find a dollar in my car." (since it was my mom's car, this was no problem) So Anna and I continued. We made it into Top Food, and I found one of the things that I had been looking for: chalk. Although, still no cheap pencils, which bummed me out a little. And we also got some Go Diego Go yogurt drink, which was amazing. So we continued on. I let Anna decide which way to go at each light, and we ended up down in U Village. Since there is a 24 hour Starbucks down there, and I had a little bit left on a s-bucks card, I decided that we were going to go in. I got a scone, and upon giving my card to the barista-type, was informed that I still owed her 85 cents. Now, as we have already established, I didn't want to put a charge for that amount on my card, so I found myself asking the barista, "can I borrow a dollar from your tip jar? I have some money in my car, I'll leave my scone here, and I'll be right back..." Cheesy, yes, but I sure did enjoy my scone, and had a good laugh about the fact that I borrowed a dollar from a tip jar.

My mommy

... is amazing,
but she doesn't feel good, and that makes me sad. apparently she's going to have to deal with spells of vertigo for the rest of her life. sad.

My sick cat...

His name is Bagheera. He has AIDS. Don't laugh too hard. I'm serious.

naturally, our first thoughts went to how promiscuous our cat was being... but then we remembered that he had no parts to be promiscuous with.
then our thoughts went to how we noticed he was so addicted to cat nip, and wondered if that had spread to other, more dangerous drugs. we were thinking that maybe he started sharing needles with other neighborhood kitties. we do live close to the ghetto... but that's just ridiculous.
then, we remembered that our cat is a bad-ass and fought a lot of neighborhood cats. so we think that there was some accidental shared blood...
and i must admit, it is a little funny.

My countdown and youth

T - 13 days and counting
I am so stoked to go to the Dominican. And I leave soon. Yeah.
Today I went to a bridal shower for someone I went to high school with. It was weird. So many of my high school friends are getting married this summer. It's spooky. We're so young? Why are they in such a big hurry to start the rest of their lives? (note: i think part (read: most) of the answer to this is sex) But I'm gonna hang out and play for a while. And I'm gonna dig it. Different strokes though. Someday I wanna settle down, but there's a lot I want to do before I wanna get anywhere near that.
I just went back over and read my old blogs and I think it's interesting that from the time I showed up in Haines I knew things weren't right. And it's kinda cool that I wanted to come back to Seattle because I kinda knew that it would help the healing process, and it has a lot.

my nose

is really, really burnt. it burned last week from the car wash, and then this weekend it burned really bad again because i was out kayaking the san juans. but this weekend was amazing. my friend jamie and i ferried out to lopez island on friday and spent the night at a little state park. then saturday morning we packed up the kayaks and headed out toward shaw island. after giving jamie a few quick lessons on paddling, we kayaked around shaw and decided that we wanted some ice cream, so we went to friday harbor. upon our arrival in friday harbor, we saw san juan brewing company, so we also stopped for a beer. :) then we headed back across san juan channel (not a super easy task) and camped on shaw island. so that day was roughly 15 miles. then sunday we got up and kayaked back to lopez where the car was and headed back to the mainland. it was pretty dang rad. a little intense for jamies first real time kayaking and my first time out on the open water, but it was amazing.

My farmer's tan

yeah, you know you're jealous. i took this with my computer, so the contrast isn't very good, but trust me, i burnt my arm real bad until about 4 inches from my shoulder.

My Memorial Day Weekend

What did I do this weekend? A lot of nothing. It was beautiful. A little car wash, a little movie watching, a little kayaking... but overall it was a super relaxing weekend. Not quite over yet, but still. It's weird that I'm going to the DR so soonish. I know that I still have almost four weeks, but that's still a fairly short amount of time. I guess with all the relaxing I did a bit of thinking this weekend about the DR and after I get back and what things I'm doing when I get back and whether I should go to Alaska or not and all kinds of other stuff. I also thought a lot about forgiveness and stuff (big surprise), and how I'm continually called to forgive time after time. Not easy. Here's the quote (from The Bait of Satan by John Bevere) that I read that stung the most...

"Jesus eliminates any gray areas for judges. In fact, he says that our attitude is to be so far removed from avenging ourselves that we are willing to open ourselves to the possibility of being taken advantage of again."

That's part of the reason why I have been thinking a lot about what is next after the DR. Am I far enough removed from the idea of avenging myself that I could move back to Haines, knowing that there is a possibility that I will be treated poorly by some people? Just one of the questions that has been going through my mind lately.

My latest non-report

Things have been pretty steady as she goes lately. Just working and hanging out with friends.
I went to see Prince Caspian last night for the midnight showing. It was good with one added plot line that made me scream at the end of the movie. Literally, I yelled, "nooooooooo" just before the flick ended and caused many people around me to kinda chuckle. Aside from that, it was really good.
I'm getting pretty stoked for the DR. I leave five weeks from today, so it's getting close. And I thought today was hot...

My Past...

>confuses me
>has been a path to who I am
>had/has a purpose
>is something I need to dwell on less
>isn't so bad

My Future...

~is up in the air
~makes me wonder
~has endless possibilities
~makes me excited
~scares me a little
~is known by someone bigger than me
~holds a few surprises
~will be amazing

My Life...

-is pretty good
-is short
-confuses me
-makes me smile
-makes me cry
-makes me hungry
-has some crazy twists
-is a reminder i'm small
-rocks my socks off
-is a blessing
-is like a box of chocolates
-is unknown
-makes this world better
-could go anywhere in the near future
-is dang good

My Version... Wha Happa?

Ok, so I've been giving a lot of thought to this whole, "what happened in Alaska?" thing. As for details, it's all just a blur, but here's the brief overview...
I went up there to make a positive impact on the people around me. I saw a change in the kids that go to camp, and I wanted to be a part of helping them maintain that throughout the year. I went up there as a part of a ministry that was the brainchild of one of my best friends, Amy. She was the dreamer and visionary I was the planner and more detail-oriented one. It should have worked out super well. But, as two people, we had our differences. And somehow, rather than work through those differences, we let ourselves become bigger than we are. It became a sort of me vs. her thing. We each kinda expected people to take sides, loosing sight of the fact that we're on the same side. (not "we were" on the same side, but "we are"...) We focused more on the ways that our views differed than on what we wanted to see get done. Rather than focusing on the positive change in the Kingdom of God that made her so passionate and that I got fired up to be a part of, we focused on ourselves and we scrutinized everything that was wrong with the friendship. In a nutshell, we lost sight of what mattered. Rather than loving the Lord our God with all our heart and soul and mind and strength and loving our neighbor as ourselves (Matt 22:37), we fought. We did not keep our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith (Heb 12:2). We let ourselves become bigger than the God that we were (and still are) called to serve. We did not bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you had against one another. And we definitely did not forgive as the Lord forgave us (Col 3:13). It's sad that things are in the place they are right now. I was about to say it's sad that it ended up this way, but the end is not yet here. I don't know what things will look like in a day or a week, let alone a year or longer, but the end is not yet upon us. God is still very active in Haines and in whatever the heck happened between me and Amy. He continues to bring healing to me, and I can only hope and pray that he is doing the same for Amy.
Although I haven't talked to her, so I can't say for sure, I am almost positive that Amy and I still want to see the same things happen in Haines. We want to see kids be affected by a week at camp away from their problems. We want to see those kids have a support system in place for when they get back from camp. We want to see Rainbow Glacier Camp grow and expand. I hope someday we can.
That's the best that I can articulate it now. Maybe in another few months I will have a different take on things or be able to say it more concisely, but for now, that's all I got. I'm excited to see how God continues to work in me.