El Callejon

Well it's been another amazing week in the DR. We got back from our week of travel and now are moved into our new homes and working in our ministry sites! I have been given the most wonderful family and I the best job, of getting to teach preschoolers everyday. The community we live in, El Callejon is one of the more poor areas of Jarabacoa and is known as a squatter community. (Basically a place where the people weren't supposed to start building houses, but they started a little community anyways and know there is a wall that was built to not let them go any furthur.) It is a dirt road, (more like red clay) of a community, that is covered in trash and sewage. The smell is pretty bad as you walk down the road of mostly wooden houses, with a couple that are cement. A lot of the little kids run around naked and are always barefoot. It is such a crazy cultural shock, but the coolest part is that not only do I get to see this place and be here, but I get to LIVE here. My neighbors are my students, and the community is our family. I love the fact that we aren't just visiting this community for a 1 week stay, swopping into their lives and then swopping out, but that we are living with them and among them, even 8 weeks seems like it's too short. It's been really neat because the whole group is taking a ministry class together and reading 2 different books, "The New Friars" (which I encourage anyone to read), and "Walking with the Poor." These books are going through a lot of training into helping the poor and ministering effectively among them. It's been life changing to embrace what we read and then to be right in a setting to live it out.
It's been really neat be working at a school where I'm at because it is more of an outreach than anything. There are two Dominican teachers that we work with and they have such a passion for the kids and the community as a whole. The go far above the call of being just a teacher and they are like mothers to these children. Everyday they check their hands and feet, nails and toe nails to make sure the kids are staying clean, make sure they all have socks to wear, give them toothbrushes to brush their teeth, give them soap to wash their faces, bandage up any new scraps and cuts, give them vitamins, and feed them lunch. They teach them manners and discipline and share a Bible lesson with them everyday, because they tell us the kids don't get this at home. Many of the people in the community don't know how to take care of themselves or can't afford to much less their kid as well. It's just been an amazing, eye-opening, God stretching experience that is changing a lot of the way I look at life.
The family that we live with is just great and Monica and I feel right at home. There are always so many kids to play with, that it makes the time fly by. God has really blessed us, and now we are starting to feel like 7 weeks is going to go by a little bit too fast, but were ready to embrace it!
Hopefully next time I can get some pictures up, but for now if you wanna see the kids I get to work with and love on it's at the www.stint.com website and then click on El Callejon.