Hi all,

We pray that 2011 is going well for all of you! It's hard to imagine that we posted last in November...yikes! Soon after that post we had a wonderful visit from Chris's mom and then of course the holidays were in full swing. We had an awesome trip to the states where we saw many friends and family that we haven't seen in a long time.

January was a month when school was closed for many Dominican holidays, so February was finally a stretch of normal weeks. So here we are in April. Sigh! And only 30 something days left of class. Hard to believe!

We stole the following paragraph from a friend's recent blog mostly because these are the words we have been trying to coagulate.

"There are so many beautiful things God is doing here that it’s difficult to capsulize it all without losing the spiritual and emotional impact that is occurring in the relationships we have. So my challenge here is –“How can I speak to your soul?” In this age of information and sensory overload, how can this blog be more than just information of activities and events in our life, but words that can penetrate to your soul?" (Thanks Dave!)

This is our prayer and hope for this blog. That your time spent here will bring you to a new place of thinking, to make you question your status quo, to wonder "Where do I fit in the story of this world at this moment? What is going on outside of my comfort zone? outside of my everyday life?" In Romans 12, Paul calls us to this, "So here's what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don't become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You'll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you."

We have comitted to staying through to June 2012 (at least.) YAY! We are really excited about this because coming as independent missionaries (ones without a mission organization training, backing and supporting them), transition takes a bit longer. Being here another year will provide us with time to invest in the ministries that are tugging at our heart strings. Big news and pictures coming by April 9th on the ministry front, God willing. Many things will need to fall into place by then but all in God's timing!

The Dominican Republic is a beautiful island with even more beautifully hearted people and we are falling in love with them more and more each week! The video below was created by a teacher at the school who is also a graduate. Look how beautiful the Dominican Republic is!!! As we watched this video we were like "Wow! Where is that?" "We need to go there!" So, come see us so we have an excuse to go! LOL!!!

See you here again on April 9th.... :) :)