Semana Santa

For the second year in a row I participated in the Semana Santa Volleyball tournament here in Jarabacoa. You may remember that last year, my team got 4th place and the first place team was awarded US$1000. This year however, the sponsors dropped out so it was a lot more low key and there wasn't as much prize money. My team, Cecilia, Jessica and I, had been preparing and training for the tournament for months and we even had team shirts made! So we were very disappointed when we found out that since there was not as much prize money, the competition would not be as tough. But, nonetheless, the tournament was great and we won first place! We were very happy to be presented with RD$12000 (US$300) as our prize. :-)

VBS

During Easter week instead of having regular class we did VBS at all the schools. All of the teachers teamed together and we spent one day at each school doing the same program everyday. The theme was based on the wordless book and the kids learned the salvation story and about what each color represented. Here's a refresher in you don't know about the wordless book.
black = sin
red = Jesus' blood
white = our sins washed clean
green = growing in Christ
blue = promise of eternal life
yellow = heaven
The kids had a Bible lesson, a craft, and game time during the day. We also provided them a healthy snack and lunch. It was a great way to end the semester of school and transition into spring break.

house cleaning

The day before I moved in to our new house, a group of friends came over and helped us clean the house from top to bottom and fix up the yard. They were such a huge blessing as it was a huge job.

Here are Nany and Jhon inside the house. Notice the hose and the floor full of water. :-)

Here is Chulo taking a water break in the shade after pulling out old bushes.

I will post some pictures soon of the house now that we are all moved in. I am still working on sewing some curtains, etc, and getting things organized.

finger paint

A few weeks ago the kids had a grand time painting with finger paint.

It started out as lots of bright colors but ended up all mixed together as brown.

I was pleased to see a few of the kids practicing writing their names in the finger paint.

Isaias has all the letters there, but they are in the wrong order. :-)

Llaves

Each week at school we study a "letter of the week". The kids learn lots of words that start with that letter, practice writing the letter, and do activities that have to do with that letter. A few weeks ago we were studying the letter "LL" and I made a puzzle activity with llaves (keys). I had a bunch of old keys and I traced them on butcher paper and then colored the tracings with bright colors. The kids loved trying to find the matching key for each tracing and also tried to find which keys would fit into the doors at the school. :-)