3 months down

Wow. Its been a while since I last wrote. Things have been a little crazy around here everything from planning, grading, parent teacher conferences, soccer, YoungLife, WyldLife, and what not. So far I am loving life here. There have obviously been some ups and downs and for the most part I can't complain. I have a pretty good life around here.

One of my biggest fears of coming to Dominican Republic was the fear of feeling alone and me not being able to click or connect with anyone here but it has been the complete opposite. God has provided in a very powerful and awesome way! I love the friendships that I have made here! Its been awesome to be able to have friends who encourage, challenge, and stretch me spiritually. Even to the simply fact of being able to find a friend who enjoys the same kind of humor that I do.

Teaching has been quite the interesting adventure. This was not something that I was obviously planning on doing for a living and this was not something I majored in either so there are days when I feel like I am not supposed to be here teaching these kids. Most of my students are having a really hard time with reading and writing skills so it is very easy to see improvement when it happens but it is also very hard to try and teach when they have such low education.

I have enjoyed being able to be loved by the kids. There are days when I have a hard time loving on them but then they send me a love note in the middle of class and I realize that I am not just here to teach but also to love on these kids and show them Christ love. Most of my kids do not know what love even is.

I love my kids so much and I am only 3 months into this whole experience. I love the challenges that teaching brings but I now have a greater respect for teachers. I never realized how emotional teaching could be and how much time I spend thinking of my kids and how I wish I could fix their family issues and situations.

Please pray for my kids individually if you can. Here are the names of all my kids so that you can pray for them by name if you want!!

-Genesis

-Sebastian

-Christopher

-Cristal

-Fabianiz

-Laura

-Katherine

-Lisleydi

-Carolyn

-Jamie

-Anthony

Thanks you for all your love and support!!

We serve an awesome God!!

My Fourth Grade Class :)

Its been a really long time since I last updated my blog!! So much has been happening that it gets really hard at times to just stop and write about my experiences and thoughts. 4th week of school has come so quickly! This has been crazy.

Teaching is going as good as it could be. With the help of God and of my co-workers I think I am getting the hang of teaching a little bit better. My kids are quite the interesting bunch. They come from a variety of homes and their attitudes and personalities are very different from each other. Need less to say they all have their unique personalities which is great. The past couple of weeks have been rough and exciting.

The second week into school I started to get phone calls from parents saying that I was leaving too much homework. Funny part is that the homework consisted of me assigning 5 problems out of our math book. That was it. Then I got a phone call from a parent saying that someone stole her daughters sharpener therefore I needed to go through every kids backpack to find this sharpener which I didn't end up doing that so, then the mother decided to come to school the next day to talk to me. Our director talked to her and then this led to the director coming to my classroom and digging through every ones back pack. In the end one of my girls did steal the sharpener and she got silent detention. Then after school one of my girls that same day decided to drop the F bomb and cues the girl who stole her sharpener out which meant now 2 of my girls were in silent detention. So it was a good 2nd week. Note to self don't buy your kids expensive sharpeners for school! :)

After all the fun stuff that happened the second week and after talking about forgiveness the kids have had a little change of attitude on things. I am not saying that they are angels at this moment but they were able to keep their cards on green for 3 days which means that I will be getting a soccer ball for the entire class. It has been really exciting to see the kids take baby steps to behaving and respecting one another.

One of the greatest things that has happened since I got here is the fact that the ministry that I worked with in Indiana is also down here in Dominican Republic. Its called YoungLife I was introduced to this ministry my Senior year of high school in Grand Rapids, MI and fell in love with it. One of the YoungLife camps is actually only 10 min away from my house and Younglife started just last year at the school that I am teaching at so this past Tuesday I was able to participate and talk with High schoolers from my school and able to just hang out and have fun. This coming tuesday I will be helping with the middle school group called WyldLife and will be doing the music for me. I will be playing guitar and leading them in a time of singing songs a long with their leaders. I am super excited to be able to play the guitar in a setting like this! I taught myself how to play a little over a year ago and have really enjoyed playing for our chapels at school and now will be helping out with Wyldlife as well!! There is a lot more that I would like to write about but I will save some for later this week!!

Thanks so much guys for the prayers and support!! The ministry and work that is happening here in Dominican Republic would not be possible without your prayers and your support!!

Love you guys!!

Getting Settled

It’s been quite the experience here and today I have completed a week in Jarabacoa. It’s amazing how much a week has taught me already. The first day I got here I was pretty overwhelmed. I got into town around 10pm and made my bed, hung out with my roommates and headed to bed. As I sat on my bed I felt like everything hit me like a ton of bricks. I realized that I was completely out of my comfort zone now. The ones that I have shared life with for the past 4 years are now thousands of miles away. I am now meeting those whom I will be sharing life with for the next 2 years if not more.

Training started the next day at 8:30am. My roommates and I walked to the school and it finally hit me that I was really in Jarabacoa. Dirt roads, homeless dogs, chickens, little children walking barefoot to the store, motorcycles everywhere and then all the sudden there was the school. I met the entire staff and we dove right into things and the director started talking about what the expectations were going to be for this year. My roommate, Johanna, showed me where my classroom would be and she told me that I needed to start decorating the room. Johanna left me in my room and as I stood by my desk and I realized “I am a teacher”. This was nothing of what I saw myself doing and now God has completely changed my desires and has put me in a spot where I daily have to surrender to him and completely trust and rely in Him.

This is my classroom! Almost done decorating!! :)

I have met some pretty awesome people here and I am really excited to be able to have them part of my life for a couple of years. Things have been pretty crazy around here. This past week has been filled with meetings and with training. I have worked in my classroom quite a bit and its almost ready to go! Today we have a meeting with the parents at 6:30pm. We were supposed to start school on Thursday but now it has been moved to Monday. They have made some changes to the school and are building a new cafeteria and remodeling bathrooms so we can’t start school yet because none of it is done. So this week will be filled with preparations for the next week which is nice but at the same time I was mentally ready to just get things going Thursday. Oh well now we have time to hang out with all the teachers and relax a little before chaos starts!

Sorry it took so long to update you guys!! We have lost power about twice a day since I got here and it has stormed every day. Thanks for all your prayers and support!

For all you who are still interested in helping out financially I now have a church will be doing my finances. Any donations please write checks out to College Park Missionary Church and leave the memo part blank and mail to:

Attn: Daniel Hunter

Ref: Melisa Gomez

College Park

2014 Liberty Drive

Mishawaka, IN 46545

CRAZINESS!!

So Sunday is coming up and it seems like I have a hundred things to do before I can get on that plane. Today is my only day to pack and sort through all my things and figure out what things will come with me and what things will need to stay. Festivities for Justine and Ryne's wedding are starting tomorrow and wont stop till Saturday night therefore I have a total of one day to get things ready to go!! Please pray for me as I get things packed and ready that I will just be able to get things packed but at the same time be able to prepare myself spiritually for this trip!! I am getting very excited to get down there but at the same time getting very nervous and sad to have to say goodbye to everyone!! Hope you are all enjoying your last month of summer!!!

The Journey Begins

My parents were here for about a month and a half and time went by so fast and yesterday they got on a plane and headed home. As we drove to Chicago to drop them off I was thinking of how hard it would be to have to say goodbye but at the same time with my parents leaving it meant that my new journey was about to begin. (If you do think of my parents though please pray that their luggage comes in. They lost their connecting flight in Miami and then once they were at the Honduran airport they found out that their luggage was lost.) So here I am my first day on my own and I have started to work on some stuff for Dominican Republic and its becoming more and more exciting!

Today the school sent me pictures of what my house looks like which was a great way to start off my day!! Thought I should share them with you!! In my mind I was not expect to have such a nice house but I am being blessed with a really nice home.

So yeah, this is my new home for the next few years. I am really excited to be able to move down there and be able to decorate the house and everything!! Today finally ordered a Vonage phone adapter and started to buy a couple of things for my trip. Things are finally coming together and support is still slowly coming in but trusting God that he will provide the rest!! Hope you all have an awesome weekend!!

God is Faithful!!

I got a phone call from Dominican Republic two nights ago and was told that they had good news and bad news so thought I would share these with you guys. The bad news is that there are not enough students enrolled for the fall to have two full Pre-Kinder 4 classes and so they can't pay me full-time. The good news is that they need a 4th Grade teacher and was now offered this position.

At first this was a little bit of a shock because as soon as I heard the bad news my mind was going all over the place because I thought that I was going to need to start a plan B. As I talked with the Director of the school she made sure that she gave me the pros and cons for this situation which was huge to see her do this for me. She explained to me of how she thought that I could do this job and that I would be fine. Once we finished our conversation I went ahead and accepted this opportunity.

God has been faithful and even though I doubted Him when I got that phone call He still continued with His plan and ignored mine. I had my plans of being a Preschool teacher and I thought that this was the perfect spot for me but God is showing me that the purpose of this trip is not for me to be glorified or to teach where I want but this is about where He wants me to teach so that he will be glorified. Please pray that I will continue to listen to Him even though it seems hard at times.

Jeremiah 29:11 " For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."

Preparing to move to Dominican Republic!

So in approximately 28 days I will be packing up my bags and moving to Dominican Republic to become a teacher at Jarabacoa Christian School. Time has gone by so quickly and I am amazed of how God has been providing for this trip already. I have a couple monthly supporters and have several one time donations that have already been made. God has been faithful with the support and with providing supplies and different things that I will need in Dominican Republic.

Please continue to pray as my emotions are really going up and down. I am getting really excited to move but at the same time it has become more and more real that I will be on my own and that I can no longer just walk across campus and get food and I can no longer depend on walking from one dorm to another to talk to a close friend. Its crazy that two years ago I felt like I would never get out of Bethel and now here I am packing up my bags and getting ready to leave. So crazy how time flies.

I will hopefully be able to update all of you as things start wrapping up here in Indiana and as things start happening in Dominican Republic!! Thank you so much for all the prayers and support that you guys have given and shown these past few months!!!

Also for all of you who would like to email me please use my new email address which is:

melisagomez2010@gmail.com.