We only met once or twice as a team before coming to the DR together to discuss what we might be doing while there. We knew that there are constant construction type projects going on, that we would be helping in the school with English immersion activities, that we may spend the afternoons out in the nearby villages doing VBS activities, and that we'd have opportunities to connect with students. We also hoped to be able to support and encourage the missionaries on campus, especially the ones from our home church. Our main tasks were to lend a helping hand wherever needed and to love on and connect with the students as much as possible.
Once we got there, we just waited for instructions each evening to know what we'd be doing the next morning. We found that we didn't get to do certain activities due to the small size of our team, but that was fine. All of the ladies spent our mornings pulling the little kids out of their class for one-on-one tutoring sessions. Sarah took the kindergarteners, I took the four-year-olds, and Melissa took the three-year-olds. We had a box for each grade level with about 20-25 minutes of activities to review letters, numbers, colors, and read a book with basic vocabulary about animals, bugs, weather, etc. After we pulled the whole class to work on Box 1, we moved on to Box 2. We repeated the process with the afternoon classes when we didn't have another project to work on. The kids were very comfortable with the process and seemed to understand the order of the activities, always starting with letters and ending with a book, so it's a pretty well-organized system they have going with all the teams that come in to give the students a good English immersion experience. We all three had a great time and really enjoyed connecting with the littles in this way.
This is one of the kindergarten classes, including one of the MK's on campus.
Below are just random pics of some of our tutoring sessions.
Frandi working the timer
Sarah with a kindergartener
Abraham building a number order fence with popsicle sticks.
All of us working at once
Jade identifying numbers
We visited one of the local bateys after lunch one day, but our small team did not do any kind of VBS in the village. Understanding the history of the school and knowing more where the students lived really helped us understand the students we were working with the rest of the week.
Mike quickly volunteered to run the Bobcat to work on leveling out some land,
moving some rock,
and filling in some dirt.
Sarah enjoyed playing an afternoon soccer game with all of the missionaries and MK's after school one day.
We had daily Scripture reading and memorization that they built time for in our schedules. Our theme for the week was: God is there. So we read several passages to see the different ways that God revealed His presence to people in the Bible. We also worked on memorizing Micah 6:8.
John worked on building a new swingset.
After lunch, we headed back to the tutoring room to pull kids one at a time from the classrooms.
Watching Kimberly, one of the missionaries, in action as she taught their English class. She and I connected really well, and I really enjoyed every chance I got to talk with her.
Abigail was the first student I worked with, so I formed a very sweet attachment with her.
We had a chance to watch over the littler MK's one afternoon while their parents attended a school staff meeting. Melissa came prepared with a fun craft for us to make with them.
We also spent a few extra chunks of time helping inventory the supply room full of donations with one of the missionaries.
Here are the four-year-olds in class.
Raylenis captured my heart when she realized that both of our names started with RA and we even shared the letters L and E in our names. :) A very bright little girl!
Sarah wanted nothing more than to be able to play volleyball with some of the high school girls. Once they found out she was a volleyball coach, they ate up her attention and wanted her to not only play with them, but to coach them, too. They even convinced their P.E. teacher to let her teach them volleyball during class!
Our church personally sponsors the fourth grade class, so we took worksheets with questions on them for them to fill out so we can start a pen-pal program between them and our fourth graders back home. We enjoyed visiting their class during their English time to help them fill out the worksheets.
I wasn't expecting such beautiful cursive penmanship!
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This is Miguelina, so proud to send her paper with us to connect her with a pen-pal.
Mike got to help with the welding part on the swingset that John was working on.
John gave the breezeway walls a fresh coat of paint, perhaps a fresh canvas for a new mural to be painted soon.
I sat with this boy on the first day and encouraged him to eat all of his food. After that he found me at every meal to show me that he finished eating everything on his plate.
Sarah had a great idea to get a picture with both the morning and afternoon classes. Here is the morning class of four-year-olds.
These are some of the high school girls who bonded with us through Sarah's volleyball skills. I caught them after lunch working together on a project for Bible class, a small brochure they were creating over the six chapters of Ephesians.
They also encouraged us to go out to recess with the kids and continue loving on them out there. I used English to connect with them inside, but then switched to Spanish outside. We played a lot of hide and seek before they all begged me to push them. I heard a lot of "Empújame, Miss Rachelle! Empújame!" (Push me!) They were such a delight to my soul. Took me back to my days of teaching Pre-K, reminding me how grateful for all of the different bilingual teaching experiences God has given me over the last 25 years.
Here is the afternoon class. Such sweeties. :) I will never forget them.
