Thanksgiving

Warning: not a super duper happy post!

I have  a whole lot in the world to be thankful for but WOW holidays alone are rough. I know in the past the American group down here has done Thanksgiving together but with the recent trip to the US and crazy schedules it did not work out. It is fine because I was teaching all day until 2:45 and then had volleyball practice from 3pm until just right now (5pm). I am sitting here in my gym clothes typing this as I chat with family back home. I miss you all so much. I know that being apart will make Christmas together THAT much better so I need to stay strong. After all, I have a whole heck of a lot to be thankful for.

I am thankful for my family :) for all of their love and support throughout my life and especially of my time here in Banica.

I am thankful for Max and all of his love and strength and faithfulness. I can't wait to call you when I land and actually talk on the phone and then see you in person when you come on Christmas eve. Best Christmas gift ever!

I am thankful for my friends! You all are so amazing and the cards, postcards, e-mails and love have meant so much to me. Erin, if you are reading this, your solidarity with me as you are abroad as well has been a huge source of strength for me. I can't wait to land on the same day and go to mass and Northside Social the following Sunday!

I am thankful for my WoYA community. You are such a blessing to me! Today, on Thanksgiving, a stack of cards was delivered to me by one of the Americans who was on the trip back to the US for the 20th anniversary of Banica. I took one look at the handwriting and knew exactly where these cards had come from. When the word "Meg gave you these, didn't she?" came out of my mouth I immediately started to tear up and had to stop and go to lunch. After lunch I ran and sat in the church and read them  and just let myself cry haha...sometimes we need it. Your love and support has been so wonderful and I cannot wait to see you all in December!

I am thankful for this experience and all that God has been teaching me here in Banica. And how could I forget all of the wonderful people he has introduced me to here?!

I hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving! Eat a little extra for me and save me a piece of pumpkin pie!

The Spirit of Christmas

Yes! Christmas! Because in 24 days I head home to celebrateeeeeeeeeeee it with my family!

Every week a group of college students on scholarships from the church (they all live in or near Banica) stay here for three days (Sunday-Tuesday) and help out... A LOT! Every Monday afternoon they have formation with me. I try to keep the activities fun and entertaining so this Monday we talked about our mission -> service. So we decided that for Christmas we should (1) make a sacrifice by offering something up and (2) do something special for others. I had the college students read four different Bible verses about Christmas to start off and we got the ball rolling from there. Long story short, we are doing a clothing drive. Each student will bring in a piece of clothing or shoes that no long fits them but will still work for someone else. They are going to talk to their families and neighbors to collect more articles of clothing as well. Then, on December 13th, we are heading up to the campo of Hato Viejo to distribute the clothes along with Christmas cards based of the Bible passages we read at the beginning of our meeting.

This campo is poor, poor, poor, poor, POOR. I work there every Tuesday in their school and run sports programs afterwards for the kids in town and the poverty is something I can never get used to. Kids come to the sports hour in their underwear, in just shorts, in just a shirt, in clothing that has been worn down to threads, and not a single child has a pair of shoes. It breaks my heart! My hope it that this clothing drive will help that problem a little bit. I was able to take a ton of pictures at today's camp and cannot wait to make something out of them. You all know how much I LOVE photography so I plan on printing out all of the photos and sending them down here to be distributed. These kids do not have underwear...I highly doubt they have a photo of themselves.

If anyone would like a CD of photos or anything feel free to e-mail me at laura.schaefer1@gmail.com and I will be sure to send one out to you this Christmas.

Solidarity

Solidarity is a beautiful virtue and I am so luck to be able to have seen the beauty of it this weekend. Every Sunday after two of the masses in two different towns I have two different girls youth groups for teenage girls called “Magdalenas”. The first group is in a town called Sabana Cruz. One of the girls (Berna) pulled me aside to let me know that the grandfather of another girl (Jeli) has passed away and the wake was today. The girls decided together that instead of meeting like usual we would walk to the families house and spend time with them and pray with her. She cried as soon as we walked into the house and hugged everyone. The big group hug kind of hug. It was so great to just BE there with her and for her. Her grandma sobbed when she saw us all and my heart just fell apart in pain for her. It made me think a lot about my grandparents, particularly about my grandma on my dads side, Grandma Schaefer. Thoughts about her at my grandpas funeral came back and thoughts about her own passing flooded my head. It took everything in me not to cry all of Sunday. I am tearing up writing this so I am going to keep it short. But grandma, I know that you would be proud of me and that you are looking down on me from heaven. I love you and I miss you every day! Your strong faith in God and all of the prayers that you left behind are still in my Bible at home. One day I will get to see you again : ) so keep praying for me like you always did. 

God is Good!

I may be in a third world country taking bucket showers...but you know I found a a station airing Navy games online :) woohoo! Go Navy! Beat San Jose! They need to win this game and their game against Army on the 10th because this girl has 4th row tickets to their bowl game. If not...I will probably sell the tickets haha. Go Navy!

Drive-In Movie

...without the cars! Every so often we use the churches projector to play movies and people LOVE it. The taste in movies here is a little odd (think bad Disney movies that did not take off in the US haha) but it makes for a good time. Tonight we are showing a movie in Banica and what we do is project it either (1) against a white sheet hung over one of our larger trucks or (2) project it onto a wall at the park. We do the same in the campos and people sit on the ground or bring chairs from home. It's pretty cute. I am missing tonights movie becuase I am cooking dinner for the college kids who help out here three days a week. They are each on scholarships from the church, and I have all the time in the world to watch movies when I go home in December at nights at home with my loves, so I wanted them to be able to watch the movie. So the whirldwind that is Sunday - Tuesday begins and I must say my highlight of the week is going to be Wednesday. On Wednesday the Peace Corp volunteer, Keeton, and I are taking a group of teens out of the campos of Pedro Santana. We are going to read the kids at the one room school houses up there the story of Christmas! Afterwards we are going give out some of the donations we recently received (about 200 stuffed bears)!! These bears may very well be the only Christmas gifts these children will ever receive as a child and I bet there will be a lot of beautiful photo opportunities. We are hoping to go to two different schools on Wednesday in the campos and we are going to run games and activities with them as well :) it'll be great. Now I know some of you might be saying "it is early for Christmas" but it is not too bad haha! Keeton will be in the capital for Thanksgiving next week and I leave two and a half weeks after she gets back so it really is the only time. It should be a lot of fun!

The Price of Shoes

A little sad story for you today. I am going to keep this one short because it breaks my heart and I am too sleepy for tears right now. A boy in the reading program who is about 8 years old named Francisco did not show up for class the other day. Today, Keeton asked him why. His response...his shoes were broken. This poor dear child did not go to school because his shoes were falling apart and he did not have anything else to wear. Wow. I understand that he cannot go barefoot and Keeton and we are trying to find him a pair, but wow. Wow. It just breaks my heart. He lives alone with his dad and has very little money and could not go to class because he did not have shoes to wear. Suddenly, the day where I could not go outside for recess because my sister stole (yes, stole) my earmuffs (don't worry hehe she still feels guilty about it) seems so small. It just broke my heart to hear and very simply paints the picture of the lives of SO many of the kids I am privileged to teach.

Volleyball

Sports are pretty big here in Banica. Take a look at any GOOD MLB team in the US and they have a Dominican starting for them sooooooo baseball is huge. Soccer is pretty big too but the Haitians are better at soccer so the Dominicans tend to stay away from it (call it pride on their part...I do not like their division). Basketball is played by teenage boys no matter what country you are in. But volleyball...volleyball is where my heart is at! I was told that the local high school has a team and does not have anyone to train them sooooooo I told the girls to spread the word (because that  is what you do here) and let everyone know that I will coach at the "cancha" or court at 4pm. We met, went over the basics, and got to playing. So many of the girls picked up so many new skills quite quickyly and I was so happy. For the last 40 minutes we played a game 6 on 6. A bunch of locals had begun to watch the practice and joined in sooooo the game ended up being me and a couple of girls against local young guys (some of them..most of them.."tigeres" or young guys who think they are all that and do nothing but stare a girls and drink beer). Volleyball has always been one of my favorite sports and I played through high school. Heck, I went to MU to play volleyball originally haha! So being able to play (and to block the spikes and kills of the local tigeres) made me proud! What a fun afternoon in the sun!

Now...drinking lots of water because MAN it was hot out!