Random Thoughts from a Random Mind....

I've been here three months! Three months, a quarter of a year as I recently told a friend back home. Here in the Dominican Republic the people have already started hanging Christmas decorations and lighting up Christmas trees. Our office at school is fully equipped with a cardboard box chimney and of course an aluminum tree. It was always a tradition at my house to wait until after Thanksgiving to put up Christmas decorations, so it's odd to see them up before Halloween has even struck. Surprisingly, with the Christmas decorations I'm beginning to long for the colder weather. I miss sweatshirt weather.and hot chocolate weather and sitting on the heater with a book weather.

I finally feel like I'm acclimated to the D.R. and life here...definitely will never completely fit in what with my reflective white skin and blonde hair but I'm doing alright finding my way to the shops and conversing or at least attempting to converse with the people here. Actually sometimes when I've been (attempting) to speak Spanish for a while...I find that I start thinking to myself in Spanish until I finally remember that I don't have to, since surprise surprise...I speak English. I've also begun my own war with the ants in the kitchen. I learned that they bite...but armed with a sponge and spray I think I do alright as the powerful Goliath....

My students are doing well. They are busy little bees and sometimes I feel a lot more like a mother than a teacher...especially when I need to tie their shoes...dust them off when they fall, or convince them that shaking their butts all around the classroom is probably not the best use of their time. They love to talk, chat, scream, laugh, run and slide everywhere. Some of them have definitely mastered how to whine out, "Miss Nussbaum" and they have all gotten this amazing talent of losing every single one of their pencils. They love to cry over the small stuff and play teacher by pointing out the things that everyone else is doing wrong, while simultaneously doing the same thing. They've tested my patience in every way and there have been days when I come home exhausted. In the end though, the price is worth it. I love those moments when they finally get the lesson or when they finally do something nice without any reason at all. I love that they enjoy sharing "Miss Nussbaum" spottings from the weekend every Monday and that they really mean it when they say "good morning." Life is so much more exciting as a kid. Everything holds much greater significance from a loss pencil to a opportunity to play a game..and it has definitely caused me to open my own eyes as well.

With Christmas decorations popping up all over town and "Feliz Navidad" appearing in shop windows...I'm beginning to look forward to seeing my family for Christmas and meeting my new baby nephew. I'm looking forward to snow, Sunday homemade waffles Christmas cinnamon rolls and ping pong showdowns. I cannot believe Christmas is less than two months away and soon and very soon I won't have to peer at my family through a screen but can actually hug them in person and that is probably what I'm looking forward to most of all.

October With a Side of Honesty

I was looking through my journal and was very humbled. I cannot believe how a journal of feelings and problems going on at the time can be such a testament to God's love, wisdom and of course patience. I wish I was a better journaler because so often we can only see how God worked each situation out from reverse and by that time we are knee deep in another problem trying to find our own way out of the muck and ignoring the bridge God is pointing us towards. 

I am stubborn and sometimes I believe I know what is best for me when reality is I don't. In October of last year I became to feel like it was time to leave Will Carleton and teach abroad. Month after month...my journal entries question why God would ask me to leave a job I was good at, a place I loved and everything I was comfortable with. I tried to find every excuse to stay, but I knew I had to go, and now I cannot imagine not being here.

What would my life be like if I decided not to come, I don't even want to think about it. Yes, it is harder to do laundry, get used to the power going out twice a day and light a stove with a lighted chop stick and oven mitts, but I wouldn't trade it. I love the people I've met here and how this already feels like home. I love that I can walk to the ice cream place...run in the morning...laugh until I snort and have people in my life who are like family.

I love how we always think that we are doing God a service when we follow Him, but I hate that. I hate how people so often equate following God's will with sacrifice. Trust me...God doesn't need me...He never will.I think God has to laugh at me when I say "okay I'll do this God, don't want to, but I'll do it as a favor to you."  He chooses to use me as a gift to me, so that I become a better person. I could've stayed in Hillsdale and I would have had a great year, but I would have missed out on so much. It is almost scary to think about how close I was to not coming, how I tried to find every excuse in the book to stay where I was comfortable.....safe and in my predictable little pattern,

So I guess what I want to say is that I'm thankful and humbled. I see how different my life has become over the past couple of months and I'm so happy to be here. I think I need to realize how my own ideas of my happiness are so often clouded and limited to time. I have no idea where I'll be in a year or two, what I will be doing, but looking through my journal has given me peace. My life will not go the way I expect, the way I plan, it never will, but looking back I will be able to see how the puzzle pieces slowly fit together to make a life far more beautiful than I ever could have imagined.