We (me, James, Rilyn, and Ella) are leaving in 16 days for the Dominican Republic! We will be staying around Puerto Plata, on the northern coast. I wanted to share with you a few prayer requests and what we will be doing there!
We will be partnering with Makarios and staying at their facilities to work at their school for the week. They are running a small summer school there, and each week they have a different grade level of kids come through. The week we are going, (which happens to be the last week of their summer school), we will be working with 50 kids entering 3rd grade and our theme will be “food”.
We are working with Rilyn and Ella to memorize John 6:35 in Spanish during these next few weeks so they can help the students memorize it while they are there.
“Jesus declared, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry. Whoever believes in me will never go thirsty.” John 6:35
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Monday-Wednesday mornings, we will be helping the students- doing crafts, playing games, etc. Then every afternoon we will be going out into the surrounding villages, meeting with the families that send their kids to the school. Makarios wants to establish a trust in the villages-that they are there to stay, and want to help them. They are sending us out each afternoon as representatives of the school. There will obviously be a language barrier, so mostly we will be playing games with the kids and adults in the villages (we were told to brush up on our checkers game!). Play is the universal language!
On Thursday, we will be having an “end of the summer school” carnival which we will be running, (when I say “we”, there will be 35 of us going from our church), and all the families in the villages are invited!
Friday is a free day/beach day, and our family will be meeting the child we sponsor from Compassion! Her name is Darianny, and she is 7 years old. What a blessing to be able to meet her!
Specific prayer requests are:
-Travel
-Team unity-35 people is a LOT of personalities (and 8 of those are children age 6-9!) Satan will no doubt try to cause discord.
-For our children, who will for the first time, experience extreme discomfort (no air conditioning, not “normal” food/beds, language barrier, seeing extreme poverty, etc.)
-Who am I kidding? All the adults will need prayer for persevering through discomfort too.
-our hearts to be softened and moldable to what the Lord is wanting to show us/teach us through this trip!
-that we will be the hands and feet of Jesus to others there whether that is serving the villagers or the staff at the Makarios school.
-no one gets sick. Especially cholera.
-and for Asher. He will be loved on by both sets of grandparents during the 9 days we are gone, but it will still be hard on the little guy (and us!).
When I get home (August 4th), I will no doubt be posting all about our trip on here!
the paquettes 
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