[Famous Last Words]

As I sit here and write, I have one day left in the DR. My time here has gone so quickly, and yet, I feel like a different person than the girl who got off the plane in Santiago three months ago. That girl was wondering if she had made the wrong choice. She wondered if it would have been better to stay in the States with her friends and her fiancé for her final semester of college. That girl thought that she might not be able to handle being away from everyone she knew for so long while trying to teach a group of students whose native language is different from her own.

However, I sit here feeling like a different person. I am a girl who has struggled while being here, who has definitely had days I wished I was home. And yet, I am much stronger than I was when I left. The night before I came, I was wishing I could turn back the clock to when I decided to teach overseas. I wanted to go back, to make the decision to stay in Ohio and do my teaching during the day and come home to friends and comfort at night. I cried while going through security at the airport (not the highest point of my life), but when I got on the plane, I felt peace. Ever since I have gotten here, I have had that peace. Through the good days and the incredibly bad ones. I knew I was supposed to be here, and I did not regret coming.

Nick wrote me a letter before I came that had a lot of positive reasons for why I was coming here to help me remember why I wanted to in the first place. That letter has proved to be true in every positive area he pointed out. (He is pretty good at helping me stay positive about things that seem terrible to me at the moment). Because I have been here, I have gained great teaching experience in both Language Arts and ESL, I have become much healthier, Nick and I have been able to grow in our relationship greatly despite the distance, and I have learned better how reliant I am on God for every need. I would not trade this experience for anything. Not even the couple of days I left school just to go home and cry made me wish I had never come. Those days were important, maybe even more important, than the days I came home feeling pretty good about myself and my teaching. It is through the struggle that we grow.  That is scripture focuses so much on suffering.

“but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint…” (Romans 5:3-4)

“for it has been granted to you that for the sake of Christ you should not only believe in him but also suffer for his sake” (Philippians 1:29)

“for his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him…that I may share in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead” (Philippians 3:8-10).

Suffering is an important part of becoming more like Christ. I think this suffering is something I have gotten only a taste of here, but it has been teaching me.  It has produced endurance in my faith, and I believe that I now have an even deeper hope in Christ. I pray that this (along with my growing Spanish skills) will not leave me when I leave the DR.

I took some pictures, and I had a lot of happy moments, but I also feel as if I suffered. I suffered while doing work that Christ had for me to do. It was hard, and it was not always fun. However, the reward I see in my life is evident. I was not here on vacation, I was here on a mission, and I like to think it is a mission that I will continue on even once I leave the DR.

        So if you ask me "How was it?!" when you see me next, know that I am not going to respond saying "It was good!" because it was so much more than that. And, despite the fact that I am getting pretty sad about all of the goodbyes I will have to say today, know that I am excited to see you (as in my family and friends) when I am State-side again.