Mosiquito Nets, 9 Eleven and Montellano Registration

Mosquito nets are the most frustrating thing I have ever dealt with; more frustrating than putting up a tent, trying to fold up a pack ‘n’ play or put together a BBQ. When we get back to our Dominican house I will find a way to make the evening struggle less frustrating but for now I will spend half an hour every night trying to make sure there are no gaps, trying to make sure our skin is not in contact with the net and trying to make sure the whole thing doesn’t fall down. If you are a praying person please pray for increased patience while dealing with mosquito nets. I needed to get that off my chest. Thank you for reading on.

Sunday

image taken from another website

Sunday morning we got up and watched part of the memorial service for 9/11. It was hard to watch people read out the names of those who died especially when they were sending messages to those they personally had lost in their lives.





 We then attended a very small, (eight people – including us) English speaking church. It is weird singing worship to what is essentially a YouTube video but on the positive side the music is perfect. No bad notes, no timing issues and the singers never mess up the words . The message was on loving God with everything you have and loving “your neighbour” (the Good Samaritan story). As it turns out your neighbour is everyone else including those that don’t believe the same things you do. The principle goes as far as to say love those who hate you and what you believe because they happen to be your neighbour as well. Not a lot of room for exclusions or exceptions.

Keeleah helping get a kid ready for their sponsorship picture.

In the afternoon we travelled out to the region of Montellano (“Mont-tea-an-o”) where Servants Heart (the people we are working with while we are down here) are starting up an “escuelita” (“es-quel-ee-tah”). The small school will teach 40 of the village’s students English, Spanish and Math. These students all attend a public school during the morning and then go to the escuelita in the afternoon to get help with homework and be taught more than what they learn in school. So, on Sunday afternoon we were there registering these kids and taking their pictures and asking questions about their lives so we can get sponsors for them to attend. It was nuts. The kids were crazy and it was insanely hot in the small building and, as per usual in the Dominican, there were way more kids there to register than originally signed up. In the end we got everything we needed and made a few friends along the way. Abriel was a huge hit with the students and parents. It’s very likely in this village that most of them have never actually seen a white baby in person. She’s a phenomenon.