Open my eyes, so that I can see how You are working in me

Hi!
So it's official, I'm back in the states safely!
PTL (Praise the Lord)!
My trip back was good, I left the Orphanage at 2:30am Saturday morning rode in a taxi to the Airport in Santiago. I met a Missionary who grew up in the U.S. but had been living in Santiago for the past 11 years w/ her family working at a church there. We flew to Miami on the same plane but then she had a direct flight to Chicago and I had to go to Kentucky and then to Chicago. Oddly enough when I finally got into Chicago I ran into her again! She borrowed my cell phone and we caught up a bit about or traveling and the like. She gave me some contact info so if I feel like doing a different type of missions anywhere else in the D.R. I have a great place to stay.
Once I got to baggage claim in Chicago I realized circa 2 hours after my flight got in that my luggage had been lost. My dad and I claimed it and we took off. Stopped at an Applebees on our way home and got back to Paw Paw around 1am.
I got my luggage delivered yesterday night, pretty great reaction time I think -- I'm so blessed to have gotten it back that quickly, or at all you know!
Yesterday my brothers came over with their families and we had a fun day in the pool with the kids. My mom attempted to recreate some food from the D.R., and though it didn't really taste a thing like it... it was still really good!
Now I'm just trying to figure out what to do with my time. I might walk into town, we always take cars here and after 10 weeks of not having one at my immediate access I start to really appreciate walking and just taking however much time to do whatever I feel like doing.
Less scheduling more relationships even the one with yourself and especially the ones with others and mostly the one with Jesus.
Here are a couple pictures, because blog posts are better with pictures.
my niece Isabella and i in the pool

the fam

God bless you. The support I received before, during and now has been so great!
Love in Him
-Brooke

This past week has been great -- this upcoming week is my last and all we are doing is psending time here at the orphanage doing some structured things and a lot of unstructured things. I am excited to have a great week and then venture home... as much as I don't want to leave I'm estoked to start my more Long-term mission back home. Your mission field is what you make it. :) (Credit to Emily).



As per usual, here are some good pictures from this past week. God bless, see ya'll soon.



jose luis and his youngest sister luz maria


me with indiana and jennifer, a little whelmed





luz maria, rockin' my sunglasses and carrying around a towel, for whatever reason





this one is for izzy... and sometimes, jennifer isn't my friend





monument in santiago -- josh this lady were very mismo





view from the monument





the monument



fin

In Him

-brooke

Week 8...

This past week we had another group come in from His House and also a group from Tom's (Orphanage Outreach Director) church come in. We did two different camps and the one I was part of did a camp at the Baseball stadium just a couple blocks away and also one in a neighborhood about 45 minutes away which had never had a camp there before. It's crazy to see the difference between the camp at the stadium and the camp at the neighborhood b/c the kids who come to the stadium are so used to having camp and kind of take it for granted a little more. The neighborhood was awesome and all the adults from the neighborhood were very helpful and actually participated in camps by assisting us when we couldn't completely explain the rules to a game or keep the kids in their groups. Friday morning everyone went to Dajabon but us interns got to go to the ADMAT center which is where there is a team of archeologists working to dig up and preserve ruins from ship wrecks all around the banks of the DR. We got to see some really ancient stuff so that was pretty cool. We also got to ride in the back of the truck which is always fun. From there we went out to lunch and then when to the El Morro beach for the afternoon. The groups left early yesterday morning and now it's just us interns and a couple of 2 week girls. I'm gonna go take a shower and play with the kids a little. Here are some pictures!

Heat Lightning! An often occurance around here...


This is El Morrito Beach during the day, we usually go there every Friday


Izzy and I on the back of the truck on our way to ADMAT


A little girl at the neighborhood who when I asked to smile, made this face


Sunset from the roof...


Josh and I got a package from our friends Alicia and Mark!!!


The gang of little gals at the Orphanage... back row, Jennifer, Joanni, Nena, Piley, front row, Franchesca, Luz Maria, Lisy


Jennifer!


Praying for you all, Peace and love
-Brooke

Mi Dios es ton GRANDE

Week 7...

This past week has been really good.

We did various work projects in the morning around the Orphanage, we completely re-did most of the kitchen and cleaned up the Green bano roof (for those of you who are familiar), we also painted the outside of La Copia, the Chapel we did camp at last week. It looks amazing now.

In the afternoon we did a Reading Camp here with the kids, all of us chose 3 kids to work with, I chose Leonel (17), Jennifer (3), and Nathan Woods (Eric's Son) (6). I actually ended up reading the same books with all the kids. We used bilingual books so Leonel would read in English and Nathan would read in Spanish and Jennifer would pretty much just listen to whoever was reading or draw pictures or mimic whatever we said. It was a lot of fun. On Thursday we had prizes for the kids and a party with cake and juice. It was good to see them learning and having the desire to learn more.

Yesterday, Our day off we went to Cabarete, a nice beach/tourist town about 3 or 4 hours away. We met a girl named Priscilla who goes to the University in Mexico but grew up in Santo Domingo. We hung out and walked the beach for a long time and went to a couple shops, had some pizza. Etc. It was fun to have time off to chill and stuff, even though we missed the kids.

A couple pics...

This is Josh, half of Jessica and I at the beach in Caberete


Mi Amiga, Lisy at the reading party


Me and My Amigo Winston


This is a picture of my friends Beth, Ismelda (Izzy) and I in front of La Copia -- with a fresh coat of paint


Thanks again for everyone who reads this and supports me and prays and all that jazz -- I really appreciate it.
Love you
-Brooke

Ps... Hi Mrs. Devine :o) Kristen is doing well!

Not to us, but to Your name be the Glory

Week #6 (?)
This past week a team from His House came in, we did a camp in the morning at a Batey called La Madre and one in the afternoon at La Capia (a chapel just a few minutes from the Orphanage). They were both a lot of fun, this week I was in charge of Recreation so we played Kickball, played w/ the giant parachute, etc, it was sweet. At La Capia it is actually the church of Annalesa one of the ladies who comes in and does laundry here - she is an amazing lady with a great heart for the Lord. It was cool to see her out of the laundry room and able to play with us and all that, a very cool experience.
La Capia was also cool because a lot of the kids there were kids that I had taught my first week here when we taught english in the schools. They remembered me and I got to see how they were and meet some of there brothers and sisters and stuff. It was a really cool experience to be remembered 5 weeks later, and be able to show kids pictures I had with them at school and stuff. Jesus is cool.
It was fun to have familiar faces here, now this week we don't have any volunteers coming in so some of us are going to do a camp at the English Institute and the rest of us are going to do some real service projects around the Orphanage and town. I'm stoked for that, I really am excited to do some sort of traditional service in the ways of things like painting and cleaning up stuff etc etc.
That's the excitement of the week, I can't seem to get my images to upload this time so you'll just have to wait and see ya know.
Love you all, praying for you, God is good all the time.
-Brooke

a few photos

hey guys,
things are still going great here - the big team turned out to be a lot of fun and though i was in charge, somehow things still got done! hoorah.
i don't feel like writing too much so i'm going to give ya'll some photos to check out!
here is a picture from the top of El Morrito, a small mountain we climb just about every week to watch the sunrise and go swimming...

here is another picture of the sunrise, this one includes the cross on the top of the mountain, there are the stages of the cross as you hike the mountain and then this big one is at the top

here is a picture of me and winston from the orphanage

here is a picture of me and some of my friends who are now gone :( they are steph, stef and heather

here is a photo of me and my friend katie, who is also gone now

this is the CMU crew, my frends beth, josh and alissa

one day we went on a tour of this swamp type area, it was a mix of fresh and salt water and there was probably parasites in it, but josh swam in it anyway -- here is a photo of my friends kelly, rachelle and i on the boat (they are both gone now too, and they are also both awesome)

here is a photo of the beach we swim at, it's the same beach as you can see in the pictures from el morrito

here is a pic of my eye that was infected, sick

here is a pic of this crazy scrape thing i got on my leg somehow, (i really don't know how i got it, it just appeared the other day)

well, that's good for now,
take care, i'm thinking of you all.
in Christ
-BR in the DR

Scoobsss NOOOO

Week 4

This past week we held a VBS camp here at the Orphanage during the morning and at a Desert Batey during the afternoon. The camp here was a struggle, interesting – but a lot of fun. My friend Kristen and I were guides for the oldest boys at the Orphanage. They all actually behaved better than we expected throughout the week. It’s really touch and go with the kids here; they aren’t like any kids I have ever encountered really. They all are very different and have quirks about them. One of my favorites, Winston, for example hardly ever speaks. He’s a really shy kid, but he has a big heart. The best thing we can do here is show the kids the love of Christ through us; that’s not just the best but also the only. Some of the kids are more receptive and some are not, you just have to have a lot of patience and a lax attitude. I don’t spend nearly as much time over at the Orphanage as most people and I think that’s something I need to change – I just get nervous I guess, I don’t want them not to like me so I haven’t even given most of them a chance to. But something you can pray for me about, if you’re into that, is just that I’ll have more confidence and less ridiculous fear about venturing over there.

At the Desert there were more adults than children that came to the camp. Usually when we go to Bateys we have a few adults who usually just by stand and listen and occasionally will play an active role however, this week there were so many we had a whole group for them. Kristen and I were guides for the adults. It was kind of hard to figure out our role there as “camp guides” to people who were some 30+ years older than me but after a while I just kind of figured it out and started being less hesitative and more loving. On the last day of camp we showed the Jesus film in Spanish and then gave away sheet sets with tooth brush and toothpaste and deodorant and a few other things, baseball or jump rope for the kids. It was pretty cool to see the looks on some of these people’s faces as we gave them something like that. Indescribable. One of the adults at the Desert was actually Winston’s mom. She was a sweatheart. We brought her a card that her son Winston, and her other two kids at the Orphanage, Yulisa and Wiliam had made for her which read, “Mom we love you. You are the mother we will never forget. We love you mom.” Precious.

This week is a big week. There are people here from Georgia this week (for those of you who have been here before and know those peeps) and a few other churches as well. The Ramadas (where we sleep) are at max capacity. There is also an equal number of guys and girls this week, usually it’s just Josh and maybe like one other guy. So it’ll be different.

They placed me as a camp leader this week – so that should be interesting too. We have camp leaders every week but it is a volunteer and usually Eric and Amanda or Beth will come with us so it’s not like you’re really in charge in charge… but this week, I am in charge in charge.

So anyway that’s enough for right now, I should go change.

We are in a water drought right now, so keep that in your prayers, I just took a shower and it will be my last until Tuesday at the earliest I think, sometimes it takes a couple weeks I’ve heard though. Esta Bien.

Thank you so much for all your thoughts and prayers, keeping you in mine.
-Brooke

Ps, my eye actually oozed and bled all over and then the swelling went down. But today it developed again on my lower eyelid as opposed to my upper. So lame. No idea but keep that in prayers, thank you!