Christmas Eve in the Dominican Republic

One day twelve years ago while I was sitting in a McDonald’s restaurant in Venezuela waiting for my wife and daughter, I absentmindedly gazed out of the spacious window near my seat. Without warning, a car with a real Christmas tree strapped to the top drove across my view. I can remember a small moment of disorientation coming over me as if my brain’s logic center temporarily short-circuited. For an instant I could not put Christmas and the tropics together in the same thought. It was to be the first Christmas spent outside the Northwest United States.

The thought occurred to me that not having the opportunity to see Christmas in another culture could be the case for many people. So a description of what happened on one day of my life here in the Dominican Republic could be appreciated by some. This year was the first Christmas that my wife and I have spent without having some of our family around us, and it felt a bit hollow in some ways. We found ourselves thinking back to Christmases past. So maybe taking the time to write this will also encourage me.

My wife and I decided to consolidate our time and money to buy one gift for both of us this year instead of buying one for each other. However, as I looked under the tree Saturday morning I noticed a couple of small gifts from her, and so I wanted to find something special also. She had some music planning to do for the Christmas service the next morning and couldn’t come with me, so I was secretly glad that I could make this a surprise.

Giving a shallow excuse to leave, and making sure I had my sheathed knife tucked handily in my front pocket, I began my thirty-minute walk to the nearest mall. The sky was deep blue and dotted with cotton clouds. The temperature was a balmy 86 degrees. Even though I’ve spent four “winters” here I still had to reassure myself that it really was Christmas Eve.

Music and conversation drifted from the open louvered windows of many of the houses and apartments that I passed. This is a party culture and it seems to me that Christmas seems to be the height of the party season. Some have told me that I shouldn’t expect much to get done in the area of services during the month of December. Many empty beer and liquor bottles were stacked unceremoniously next to the blue plastic garbage barrels on the sidewalk in front of the houses ready for self-appointed recyclers to take somewhere to exchange for a few pesos. The garbage seemed stacked a little higher which indicated that the garbage trucks haven’t been running much lately.


Parties here are usually loud and raucous. As I walked I could hear the booming beat of their beloved merengue music in the distance. It reminded me of my neighbors which have been playing their TV and music so loud for the last couple of weeks that we can’t stay on that side of the apartment if we want to have a conversation. So we close the spare bedroom doors and huddle in our own bedroom for the evening.

It also reminded me that at 5:30 on this very morning we were awakened by another unexpected event. We are a half block from a well used and noisy street called La Argentina. Looking from our bedroom window in our bed clothes through sleepy eyes we watched for ten minutes as a convoy of cars, trucks, motorcycles, and four-wheelers paraded slowly by. On the back of the flatbed trucks were speakers the size of horses! We could feel the music in our chests. As they moved along the wave of sound set off car alarms for a block on either side of the street. Lights were flashing, horns were honking, motorcycle engines were being revved, people were hanging out of car windows and sitting on hoods and packed in the back of pickups with every car playing different music, and drunken voices were yelling, “Feliz Navidad!!!” One could barely imagine a louder, more unorganized, reckless social gathering. All I could think of was a scene from an old Star Trek episode which depicted a society ran by a computer which allowed sinful debauchery on scheduled holidays called “The Red Hour”.

This “Red Hour” parade in the DR, I found out later, is a custom called the “mananita”. During Christmas, people begin their parties at 10 or 11 at night. When they finally finish in the wee hours of the morning they would sometimes sing for the neighbors. We recognize this most likely as similar to our custom of caroling. Well, today this custom has “de-volved” into a drunken early morning parade of loud music and cars designed to wake up as many people as possible. But living here, a person has to accept that this is a loud culture … especially at Christmas.

As I continued to walk, my thoughts were interrupted by the sight of an unkempt, gaunt, white-haired man staggering up the sidewalk toward me. I instinctively crossed to the other side of the street and placed my hand in my knife pocket. The man obliviously shuffled by clutching a green quart- sized beer bottle in his left hand as he sang some undecipherable song loudly off key.

Nearing the mall I passed the Tesoro Supermercado, a relatively new and nice smaller grocery store. On the top of the flat roof was a twelve-foot-tall inflatable Santa Claus which had obviously developed a slow leak over night. Poor Santa was face down with his hat and both arms hanging over the side of the two-story building. I couldn’t help but glance at his left hand to see if he had a green bottle in it. He didn’t.

Nativity scenes abound everywhere … on people’s roofs, on their balconies, in front yards, in the foyer of our apartment building when you walk in. When I finally reached the Plaza Internacional Mall my heart was warmed again as I admired the gigantic nativity “village” that was set up at the top of the escalators. It has the Bethlehem stable as the dominant feature, of course, but in the surrounding country side were sheep, streams, meadows, village people, moving windmills …. I fully expected to see a model train come chugging around from behind the mountains in the back. I appreciate this religious emphasis on the holiday.


Within a half hour I found an adequate gift and sat down in the food court to have a Whopper from Burger King before I headed home. The mall was crowded with well-dressed shoppers only a little more noisy and busy as normal, and I realized after a few moments that I was lonely. I missed my family and I missed my wife. So I gulped down the last few bites and retraced my route to return home.

In this country as you walk you see many people standing or sitting looking like they are doing nothing. To the average American pedestrian it appears to be vagrancy. But in this country, because of the weather or perhaps other reasons I don’t understand, people spend much of the time outside. I saw domino tables on the sidewalk or in the driveway with shouting men slapping dominoes on the table.


I’ve seen men squatting on curbs, sitting on waist-high walls, leaning back in plastic chairs on the sidewalk … people everywhere not in motion.



And they have no foibles about staring at a Gringo out of curiosity as he passes. I must admit, it still makes me uncomfortable to have a group of men who are loudly conversing as they sit in chairs on the sidewalk suddenly clam up as they see you approaching, look at you as you pass, and then resume talking when you’ve gone by.

Consequently I took three Chick tracts with me and asked the Lord to help me know where to place them. Since some people sit around, they might as well have something to read, right? I placed one on a half-broken plastic chair where taxi drivers sit and wait for their next fare. Another I put on a bench where people wait for the next gua-gua or concho car to come by with the right route number on it. The last one I placed on a wall near where I knew some “watchies” (private security guards) would be sitting.

We have three favorite tracts we use. One is about a baseball player … baseball is huge here since this city has a professional team called Aguilas Cibaenas (Cibao’s Eagles) … a winter baseball team that also gives several professional American players a place to keep in shape during the off season.


The other tract is about a girl who gets caught up in the party scene … and, as I have mentioned, partying is huge here. Our third popular tract shares the gospel with no words. We run into a number of people who cannot read well if at all. In fact, this is the burden for some missions here. Public schools require a certificate of birth and a uniform to attend. Because of rampant immorality and illegitimacy and poverty, many children, especially in the barrios (the poor parts of the city), are unable to go to school. So Carol and I are trying to get in the habit of leaving a tract or two somewhere when we go for a walk.

When I arrived home I placed my small gift under the artificial five-foot tree which stands on a couple of packing boxes covered with a sheet in front of our living room window. As you can imagine, on this small island that is only about ¼ the land area of the state of Idaho, a person doesn’t have the option of going into the woods to find his own Christmas tree, and the imported “real” trees are rare and cost-prohibitive. The tree decoration appears to be much more ornate here than what I am used to … lots of wide ribbons and bows and large bulb ornaments the size of soft balls rather than individual ornaments … the tree seems to be more for show than for sentiment.


It is also an interesting difference to note that virtually every store offers free gift wrapping. The need to buy your own wrapping paper and wrap your own gift is basically nonexistent.

Our loud TV-watching neighbors fortunately were gone for the evening so my wife and I took a picture of ourselves in front of our small tree to commemorate our “lonely Christmas”, then we popped “Holiday Inn” into the DVD player and pretended to be in snowy Idaho on a Christmas past.

While I was gone to the mall, my wife talked a good while with my daughter in Peru and we also Skyped with my son’s family in Japan who had already celebrated Christmas. We are very thankful that even though we are not with them physically we have a chance to have them in our home virtually for a few minutes. We are a generation most blessed in that regard, I suppose.

In our city of Santiago there is a monument dedicated to war heroes. In shape it is a DR version of the Washington monument … tall, on a hill, and centrally located. At the foot of that monument the city traditionally puts on a thirty-minute nonstop fireworks display at midnight on New Year’s Eve that is indeed a credit to this country’s reputation for celebration. In anticipation of this many people buy fireworks ahead of time. Just think of it as what happens in the US around the Fourth of July. Consequently, for the month of December, and especially on Christmas Eve, one can expect to see and hear random fireworks going off from many places in the city.


From our flat roof on top of our two-story apartment building we have a 270 degree unobstructed view of the sky from which we could have seen some fireworks. So what did we do instead? We turned on the ceiling fan in our bedroom and went to bed at 10:30. Were we trying to be fresh for the Sunday church service the next morning, or were we pouting because we missed a traditional Christmas with our family? Hmmmm, maybe a little of both, but that’s how we ended our Christmas Eve in the DR.


For this purpose the son of God was manifested,
that he might destroy the works of the devil.
I John 3:8 KJV

A Thanksgiving and a Huelga

Unless a person is somehow connected with Americans, he doesn’t hear about Thanksgiving in another country. I don’t suppose I thought about it much until I moved to the Dominican Republic. Different countries have different holidays and Thanksgiving is a uniquely North American holiday! Some of us catch on a little slower than others. But, fortunately, I am in touch with Americans here. The school where I teach prepares students for an American education so Thanksgiving is recognized and celebrated.

My wife and I also attend an English speaking church that has a tradition of celebrating Thanksgiving. So on the Sunday before the official holiday, we gathered together after church to have a potluck. The church brought the turkey and each family brought a favorite traditional dish. Each person was asked to contribute a few pesos to cover the cost of the turkey.

Attending our service that Sunday was a man from Haiti whom we knew couldn’t afford the contribution. When the announcement was made about the money, I saw one of the men lean forward and heard him whisper to our Haitian brother, “Don’t worry, I have you covered.” He thanked him and we moved toward the cafeteria where the food was set up.

As the prayers were said and people began moving through the line, I noticed that this man was standing on the outside of the group rather than getting in line. So I asked him if he was going to eat. He looked down and with a heavy accent mumbled, “I heard there was money expected.” It was then that I realized he had not a clue what “Got you covered” meant. So I explained it to him and he gratefully enjoyed a bountiful dinner with the rest of us. We Americans need to get a handle on our idioms, if you catch my drift.



This Thanksgiving was impacted by something unpredictable. The local residents that live along the road that runs in front of our school organized a “huelga”. I mentioned this term in my last blog a couple of weeks ago. The closest translation that I can come up with for this word is “strike” or “demonstration”. Two weeks ago the huelga was a national effort. This time it was a local activity designed to draw the attention of the government to the poor plight of the county road that connects the main highway to a smaller town outside Santiago. This is the road that runs past our school.

Since many of the parents of the children we teach have influential friends in high places it has been conjectured that the strike organizers felt they could get some quick action. The name of the group is FALPO (Frente Amplio de Luchas Populares). A Google search did not give me very much information. All I really know is what I’ve heard tossed back and forth in informal conversations on campus. FALPO is loosely organized, heavily armed, and quite militant.

One of our administrative leaders who has been here only a couple of years felt that we should simply fix the portion of the road that stretches from out school to the highway since much of the traffic is related to our school. We have money in the budget for community improvement. But the advice of the Dominican leaders remained firm … do not get involved with this group. So the school remained neutral and waited.

During the week of Thanksgiving, two and a half school days were normally scheduled before we leave at noon on Wednesday for the rest of the week. The huelga was announced on Monday night. FALPO dug a trench across the road, scattered large rocks and debris, and set tires on fire. School was consequently cancelled for a day and teachers were told to stay home and “hunker down” again.

When no one responded to their noise and demands, they continued an intensified effort on Wednesday keeping everyone home again. By this time the normal holiday plans for the teachers and school-related families kicked in and the campus was empty for the rest of the week. However, we stayed in touch by frequent updates via email and the school web page. The huelga, which was thought to last no longer than a day, turned out to be a weeklong marathon. It was only on Sunday that the “all clear” email came out and we were told it was safe to return to work the following day.

In the case of a huelga only three outcomes can be normally expected:
1. Demands are ignored and the organizers give up and go home after a while.
2. The group who organized the strike is either paid off, or the demands are
met by some kind of negotiations.
3. The military is authorized to take them out physically.

In this case, it was evidently handled by option number 2. We were told that some big equipment moved in and some road construction is underway. It’s odd though, because on the half mile stretch of road on our end, it is even worse now than it was before the huelga. There must be something (a lot) I don’t understand about how things work in this country.

During the same week that this huelga and Thanksgiving were happening, I was reading through I Peter. God has used this precious book in my life many times over the years. This year chapter 4 highlighted the drama I saw enacted throughout the week.

Forasmuch then as Christ hath suffered for us in the flesh,
arm yourselves likewise with the same mind: for he that hath
suffered in the flesh hath ceased from sin; that he no longer
should live the rest of his time in the flesh to the lusts of
men, but to the will of God. I Peter 4:1, 2

Two groups of people spent the week in very different ways. One group spent their time in the flesh to the lust of men. This passage goes on to explain that this is the will of the Gentiles which results in an excess of riot … very descriptive! The other group spent their time in the flesh living to the will of God by showing love for each other and giving thanks to God. It goes on to say that we all will be judged by how we spent our days living in the flesh.

That week was a good time for me to ask myself, “How do I want to spend the rest of my days in the flesh?” Do I want to be a “huelga man”, or a “Thanksgiving man”?

But the end of all things is at hand:
be ye therefore sober, and watch unto prayer.
I Peter 4:7

Fingers of Fog

Fingers of fog massaged the cool, damp earth as the sun prepared to wake up the Constanza Valley that stretched out below me. The uncomfortable bed I had endured most of the night forced me out of bed unusually early on this first morning of our school sponsored teachers’ retreat. I stealthily found my way through the dark house to the porch swing where I sat and read my Bible. A passage from Psalms caught my eye.

“He causeth the vapors to ascend from the ends of the earth.”
Psa 135:7

As the morning crept in I watched the changing panorama before me. The blanket of clouds moved into every draw and crevice of this high mountain farming valley. It gave me the feeling that I was in an airplane looking down on the clouds. Occasionally, the tip of a Dominican pine tree appeared eerily as if it were floating on a cloudy sea. It seemed that every few minutes another facet of beauty was revealed.




During the last part of my Spanish class a couple of weeks ago two colorful song birds perched on the window bars of the computer room that we meet in, and gave us a song that rivaled a scene from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Each day a bird balances himself somewhere outside my room at school and treats me and my students to the most beautiful song I think I’ve ever heard in nature. The students don’t seem to notice. It is simply part of the many extraneous random sounds of a tropical climate to them, but for some reason I’ve been noticing it lately and have felt grateful to have such beauty around me.

Unless I get carried away with too much romanticism I need to remind myself that I have this opportunity to write during a school day because the teachers were asked to stay home because of the “Huelga.” Because of the corruption and lack of accountability in government services the people of this country have developed the somewhat pragmatic method of correcting problems by organizing national strikes. They burn tires on public roads and throw rocks at cars. It is a planned day of demonstrations across this small island that can become quite dangerous. Of course, politicians don’t want this kind of unrest during their term (especially during this election year) so the hope is that they will either pay off the organizers of the Huelga or give them what they want.

Because we don’t know the language, and communication and organization isn’t exactly this country’s strong suit anyway, we are not sure what is going on. We think it has something to do with poor electrical service and the threat to raise fuel rates nearly 20%. But whatever happened in the last couple of the days the Huelga was held today and we teachers were told to “stay home and hunker down.”

This is simply the ongoing contrast that any person can find regardless where he chooses to live. It is a fact of life in a broken world. It’s just that, more recently, I’ve been seeing more of a balance in this part of the world where I’ve temporarily chosen to live.

So now when I put my sheathed knife weapon in my pocket when I go for a walk for fear of the very real possibility of being robbed, I remember the thunderstorm that made me tremble because of its intensity and power and the double rainbow afterwards over my campus later that took my breath away.


When I want to complain that it took two months to get our living room wicker furniture refurbished because of miscommunication and mistakes and lack of transportation, I want to recall the large and plentiful bunches of brilliantly colored bouquets of fresh cut flowers that can be purchased on the street any time of the year for just a few dollars.

And the next time a student asks a question about how to change degrees into radians only 10 seconds after I’ve spent 15 minutes giving examples on the board, and want answers without understanding the concept or learning how to think, and I begin questioning what in the world I am doing trying to teach in another country when I am Medicare age ......,
I need to remember … the fingers of fog.

Happy is he that hath the God of Jacob for his help,
whose hope is in the LORD his God:
Which made heaven, and earth, the sea, and all that therein is:
which keepeth truth for ever:
Psa 146: 5, 6

Loaded with Benefits

On the very day that my oldest son turned 35, I started my 42nd year of teaching. The students moved into my room like an afternoon thunderstorm period after period typical to the Dominican culture. I talked with one of the new teachers who has come here after teaching in Honduras for eight years. I asked him how he would compare that culture to this culture. After a brief moment of reflection he replied, “The people in Honduras have a talking culture. I would have to say that this is a shouting culture.” Boy, did he hit that nail on the head! It has been about two months since school has started and they are just now learning to be quiet when the bell rings, listen when I talk, and clean up before they leave. Actually, it seems easier each year I am here. My reputation must go before me … for which I am thankful.

If I were asked to rank school year beginnings, I would have to rank the start of this year as the worst in my career. Due to some administrative oversight about 30 freshmen were allowed to enroll above what our school is set up to handle. This was not discovered until the first day when the schedules were handed out. It’s hard to describe the chaos that ensued for that first week while teachers and administration tried to figure out what was happening.

I had to move to a different room this year since I am not teaching biology anymore. My new room was in disarray until the last moment. When school started I found out quickly that most class lists were inaccurate and I had many more students than what my class lists said. My math colleague next door was in a similar situation and we traded 8 to 10 chairs back and forth during certain periods to temporarily handle the overload. The class lists changed daily as students with temporary schedules were shifted around, so I kept all records on loose-leaf sheets written in pencil.

The math department was not the only classes affected, obviously. The science teacher who has been here for 20 years was sitting on the early bus home at 4:00. Since this was unusual for him I asked him how it was going. This experienced teacher who normally seems in control of every situation replied with visible stress on his face, “I have to leave early … I just have to.” With a tacit nod I understood exactly what he meant.

On the weekend before our second week of school Hurricane Irene traced a large slow path that brought it directly over our little island of Hispaniola. It had been classified as an official hurricane by the time it hit us so the country was unsure about what its effect would be. We were instructed to stay home as the brooding monster hovered over the island deciding what to do. I’m not sure of the theological implications of being thankful for a hurricane, but this gift of two days of time gave our school a tremendous benefit. The worst weather we saw, thankfully, was some gusts of wind and some rain, but the new secondary vice-principal used the four-day weekend to get advice from teachers and to create a new schedule which would largely alleviate the overload emergency. It required a new class schedule to be printed for every high school student and the hiring of several new part time teachers, but after eight weeks on the new schedule it appears that the year will be a good one and it has settled into a somewhat normal routine.

Outside of school we experienced a rough start of another kind. On the day that school ended last June we moved into another apartment. So when we came back after our summer “vacation” to Idaho we were faced with the daunting task of settling in. Our daughter-in-law gave some order to the chaos in the few days we had before we left but we were now faced with finishing the move including putting up curtains and shelves and the unending list of projects that accumulate with any move.


The temperature and humidity have been in the 90’s for the three months, and our new apartment, unknown to us at the time we moved, is located in such a position that it does not cool off at night. We have three ceiling fans (with two more ordered) along with several floor fans. We have contemplated getting an air conditioner but since it is a major purchase and it costs a lot for electricity here we have decided to wait for a year to see: 1) are we staying, and 2) are we overreacting. In the meantime, it is quite difficult to concentrate on any kind of disciplined life style like exercising or cooking or studying. When I get home we usually go for a walk where we end up at a local Wal-Mart-style store that has air-conditioning and a place to sit down and talk. The temperature usually becomes almost perfect in another few weeks, so we are living in hope.

This is the first year that my wife and I have decided to stay here in the Dominican Republic because of the ministry itself. For the first three years we had family reasons to be here. So this will be a trial year to see if we feel that this will be the best place to serve the Lord in the last years of our lives. We have never felt like "real" missionaries, but it is the best opportunity we presently have to use our combined skills to share the gospel.

On a professional level I have a heart to help the math department iron out some of the problems which have caused many students to score low. I know that these are English-Language-Learner (ELL) students but I believe they can do much better.

On a spiritual level I want them to see the gospel lived out and discussed on a daily and practical level. We pray about a verse of Scripture every day in each period; we integrate what the Bible teaches with what lesson we learn; I have them memorize six verses during the year on the plan of salvation and have them take a test which explains how a person can become a Christian from what the Bible says. Most of my students come from wealthy, Catholic homes and have been in this Christian school most of their lives. So this is a tough crowd, so to speak. But God calls us to preach, not to convert.

On a family level we are praying about how to keep our family together even though they are scattered half way around the world and it doesn’t look like it will change in our life time. So it behooves us to consider what role we are going to have in our grandchildren’s lives and how we can accomplish that. This school gives a small salary which we have found adequate to live on while we are here if we are careful. So we are considering that this could be a way to save enough money to visit one of our children each year. If they can’t come to us we will go to them! Right?

So we are praying about whether or not to stay beyond this year. I have to let the school know of my intentions by this Christmas so they can begin the recruitment process.

In the meantime the Lord is blessing our family. After many years of ignoring God’s conviction in his life, our oldest son recently gave his life to the Lord. He finally came to the place of surrender to the Lord and told Him that he wanted God’s will for his life. Shortly after that, he was introduced to a girl who had a similar testimony. Within a short time they were engaged and we are planning to attend their wedding in Texas in January.


My second son, the one in Japan, is the proud father of a new little girl. She was born on my wife’s mother’s birthday so her middle name is now the same as her great grandmother which brought tears to my wife's eyes.

And it wasn’t a week later that our youngest, our daughter who lives in Peru, informed us that she was with child again only seven months after her first one was born.

And life will go on. There will probably be more births and more hot weather and uncomfortable apartments and poor starts to school years. But one thing that I know for sure … behind everything is a God who daily loadeth us with benefits.

Blessed be the Lord, who daily loadeth us with benefits,
Even the God of our salvation. Selah. Psalm 68:19

An Era Ended ... An Era Begun

An era ended … an era begun. The Roy Rogers Museum closed in Branson, Missouri. Roy’s will specified that it be closed when it wasn’t able to pay for itself. That day came in June this year, and his son closed the museum. Most people today would have to Google his name to know who Roy Rogers was. An era ended! A letter came to me just before my birthday in June informing me I was officially on Medicare. This can’t be true! I am now in the Medicare generation. An era begun!

My birthday launched another landmark occasion. On that same day my wife and I boarded a plane here in Santiago, Dominican Republic to travel to Idaho for the summer. With us were my daughter-in-law and her two young daughters who had stayed with us for this past year. We flew to Moscow, Idaho to meet the rest of my family for the first-ever Dale family reunion. It was the first time our three children had actually been together for eight years.

Several months ago when we began to plan how to get our daughter-in-law and brood back to Japan, the idea of a family reunion was a small seed planted in our thinking. As we prayed and planned we watched the Lord open a few doors to allow this seed to grow to bear fruit, so to speak. Consequently all three of my children and their families were able to come. My daughter and her husband and new baby girl flew in from Peru. My son flew from Japan to meet his wife and two girls. My oldest son was already in Moscow and helped our property manager get our house ready to handle the crowd. Grandparents can ask no greater joy than to experience this kind of chaos (as long as they got along as well as they did.)

When my mother heard that my family was all getting together and that we would be visiting her in southern Idaho, she decided to get all of us brothers and their families together also. To her amazement, everyone showed up on a Saturday afternoon to eat and talk. I think it was a vivid realization to each of us to see how big our Dale family has grown. It started from the three sons of Everett and Della Dale. Each boy now has three children and some of those children are now married with kids. A head count showed 50 people which we miraculously managed to capture in one picture.

In my enthusiasm I blurted out, “Wow, this is great! I hope we can do this again next year!” The table went unexpectedly quiet and heads turned toward me. Finally my brother’s wife enunciated slowly, “You may want to speak for yourself, this was a lot of work!” So we may want to wait a few years to attempt another one.

Mama Dale is a smart great-grandma. She knew that half of the population of a family reunion (by definition) is children. And she also knew that the big people couldn’t visit very well with that many little people afoot, so she rented one of those bouncy houses that you see at carnivals.

So after the meal and family introductions at the church fellowship hall at Mom’s church, many of the families migrated to Mom’s house where this device had been assembled in the back yard. I’m not exaggerating when I say that roughly 15 children were screaming and bouncing outside in kid heaven until dark while the parents enjoyed a relatively quiet catching-up time inside . The occasional exception was when a teary little one would burst into the house sporting a knot on the head from a bouncy house collision. After a good cry and more than a few hugs from doting relatives, he/she would race out to have more fun. The house was finally empty around 11:00 p.m..

While all of my children were in Moscow for a few days by ourselves we decided to have a set of family pictures taken. A friend of ours, who loves photography, volunteered to take our pictures in the college arboretum. This was the only planned event.

Each person seemed to have his own agenda … a mental check-off list of things to do before the short time expired. One wanted to hike around on Kamiak Butte to revisit some special memories. Another wanted to build a fire at a camp ground and shoot the rifle again.

And each one went through his boxes of possessions that have been stored in the garage for years. Sometimes they did these things together … sometimes with only the wife or husband. Occasionally Mom and Dad were allowed to tag along. It was a little bit like herding cats … but when the dust was settled and each child in turn left us taking our grandchildren back to their homes scattered around the world, I noticed there were literally tears in my eyes and a prayer on my lips that God would continue to draw our little family toward a more important reunion in eternity.

I doubt if we have the ability or opportunity to do this again for a long time, if ever. So we praise God for this experience. They are gone … an era ended. But now we have a new challenge of finding how we can keep our little, but growing, scattered family together … an era begun.

Scotch Tape and Stickers

Recently after a long day I plopped heavily on the edge of the bed – the first of my “retire-for-the-night” ritual. Slipping off my Wal-Mart house-slippers I absentmindedly glanced down. To my amazement I found an assortment of dirty pieces of scotch tape and some “You Are Awesome” and “Nice Job” stickers stuck unceremoniously to the bottom of my slippers.

This unexpected reminder that we have had two small children “underfoot” for this past year gave me a moment of reflection. In a short while they will be heading back to Japan to resume their lives, and we will become empty-nesters once again. Has this year been worth the investment of time, energy, and money it has taken? Have we accomplished the lofty goals that fueled this original decision? Will they remember this time with fondness? Has it changed their lives for the better? Questions like these flooded our conversation as my wife and I discussed it before falling asleep that night.


It was a year ago that we hatched this wild idea that my son’s wife and two small girls come to the Dominican Republic to live with us for a year. The girls could speak very little English and we could speak no Japanese. This prognosis of a lifetime without the ability to communicate with our grandchildren was frightening to both our son and to us, so we were open to his suggestion to have them live with us.

As we prayed about the various obstacles in the weeks that followed it became evident that the Lord was giving us an open door. So our first goal and mutual concern was to have the two girls learn to speak fluently in English.

The second goal was something that my wife and I have been praying for since they were born.

Now unto him that is able to keep you from falling, and to present
you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy.
Jude 24 KJV

Our prayer has been that each of my three children and their children will enter the Kingdom of God and be presented faultless before the presence of His glory. Apart from a few Christmas story books we sent as gifts we have had little opportunity to share the gospel with these precious girls. So this decision for them to live with us had a second goal. We wanted the girls and their Mom to understand the good news of the Gospel as they saw it lived out in the context of our family and the school they attended and worked for. So as we near the end of the year, this reminder of scotch tape and stickers made me evaluate our two-fold goal.

A few days ago while I was finishing a writing project in the living room, the girls were within earshot as they played a card game together on the kitchen table. The conversation went something like this:

L – “Do you have a seven?”
A – “No, go fishing, please.”
L – “Oh, yes, you have a seven. I know you do.”
A – “Oh, no, I don’t have one.”
L – “You know, when you lie I still love you, but I don’t feel good inside.
I’m unhappy but I still love you so much because I love Jesus.”
A – “Only Jesus lie?”
L – “Oh, no, Jesus died on the cross but he came alive.”
A – “OK … uh, do you have a six?”
L – “Go fishing.”


To the right of our living room is a small alcove in a sunny room surrounded on two sides by windows. Before we found curtains to fit we used to call it our "fish bowl" because anyone outside could see what we were doing inside. By the time the girls came we had found some curtains, so we converted it to their toy/play room. Occasionally a cake crumb finds its way into the play room and overnight the ever-present ants blaze a trail for a congregational meal.

One Saturday when the girls went in to play they found some ants. With shrieks of delight mixed with disgust they got on the floor to watch them. Soon they were talking to the ants, scolding them for entering their world. The seven-year-old said something and the four-year-old copy cat sister echoed. This crescendoed until they were yelling trying to out-do the other.

L – “You are bad ants and shouldn’t be here.”
A – “You are bad ants.”
L – You will die and go to hell.”
A – “You will die to hell.”
L – “But Jesus died on the cross but come again in fire.”
A – “But Jesus on cross and fire.”

On this same day their mother was shopping with a friend in an attempt to be ready for her upcoming departure to Japan. My wife and I were occupied with our own projects and the girls were expected to entertain themselves for some of the time. In their Japanese home they could have gone outside to roller skate or jump rope or ride bikes. Even in our home town in Idaho they could have played in the back yard. But for security reasons it is rare to have them play outside without direct adult supervision. It is a sad consequence of living in this country. However, they have learned to adapt.

Turning down a suggestion to play the Wii they decided instead to create a game using plastic bottle caps. Dividing the pile equally between themselves they sprawled on the tile floor while they invented various activities … stacking them like blocks, spinning them like tops, creating designs of flowers, pushing a hand on one and having it defy gravity as they lifted their hands up, setting it on its edge and pushing it forward with a finger so that it would shoot away but return like a boomerang. With each new discovery I could hear an exclamation of “Amazing!” and then a patter of bare feet with a squeal of excitement as they rounded to corner to show Grandpa the newest glimpse into their world.

At one point a minor squabble was brought to my attention. One had a blue bottle cap that was different that the blue cap that the other had. A visible cloud of unhappiness began to form on their normally sunny dispositions. My wife suggested trading for five minutes. After she explained what “trade” meant she set the timer. The cloud dissipated, laughter echoed in the hall way again. When the timer went off, the youngest said, “I gave to my sister so I shared.”

Right after this they found the “Wee Sing Bible Songs” book that has been lying around the apartment all year. They spent the next hour singing some songs together that they knew, occasionally asking me to help them. For the rest of the day at odd moments of transitions such as washing hands, or waiting at the table to eat, or drying off after a shower, I could hear the baby voice of the four-year-old singing on-key:

This is the day, This is the day that the Lord has made,
that the Lord has made;
We will rejoice, we will rejoice and be glam’ in it,
and be glam’ in it.

From the bedroom that evening after I said goodnight I heard both sisters singing together,

Alive! Alive! Alive for evermore, my Jesus is alive, alive for evermore,
Alive! Alive! Alive for evermore, my Jesus is alive;
Sing alleluia! Sing alleluia! My Jesus is alive for evermore;
Sing alleluia! Sing alleluia! My Jesus is alive.


Earlier that day we found them both on the couch. Big sister was reading some verses out of her personal Bible to her little sister. They were playing “Chapel”. Later I found scraps of paper with words scrawled on them in the hand of a first grader saying things like, “I will remember God”, “I give thanks to God”, “I will love your sister”,"I need to love everyone and God”, and “I will go to heaven if I believe in Jesus.” Under each one of these verses was written a Bible reference like Jon 60:1 or Jon 60:2. They had made up and were memorizing their own Scripture verses. I guess I’ll have to let them know that we aren’t supposed to write our own Scripture… one of those details they haven’t picked up on yet.


Hopefully this shallow description will help you see, as we did, that the two goals have been delightfully accomplished. They speak with each other and with us in English. In fact, it seems amazing to us that they have learned a foreign language so quickly. And they also seem to have a fundamental grasp on the gospel. On the bus on the way to school I’ve overheard conversations over the year of the oldest girl with one of the teachers with whom she sits. When my granddaughter would ask a question relating to salvation (and she loves to ask questions), the lady teacher asked in return, “Well, let’s review. What do you think a Christian is?” or “How do you think a person gets to heaven?” Our granddaughter's responses throughout the year have usually started with answers like, “People who are not bad.” Recently, however, she has been answering, “Jesus died on the cross for things I did bad and I have to believe in him to get to heaven.”



During our normal Bible book time one evening a few nights ago the oldest granddaughter asked if I would pray for her and her sister. Normally each girl says a prayer to end the devotions according to whose turn it is. So this was an unusual request. When I asked why, she replied, “Because I want to be Christian.” When I asked her to explain what she meant, she rehearsed a very genuine understanding of the gospel and her desire to receive Christ. The little one, of course, wanted to join in on the experience. So I prayed for both of them.

From that time on she has been telling everyone that she runs into that she has become a Christian. She is reading a verse in the Bible each day and wants to talk about it all the time. I know that the gospel is so simple that a child can be saved. In fact, Christ holds up the faith of a child as the example of saving faith. How real this is, time will tell, but it is another indication that God is answering our prayers.


Both girls have been sweet and trainable all year long. They have learned more than we expected, and we praise God for that. What they remember of this year and how it impacts their lives is yet to be seen and something we will bring regularly before God in prayer. I honestly believe that next year when I look at my slippers each night I will sincerely miss seeing the assortment of scotch tape and stickers.

The living, the living, he shall praise thee, as I do this day:
“The grandparents to their granddaughters” shall make known thy truth.
Isa 38:19 (with some applicable alterations)

Papa No-No

In the Dominican Republic the entire country celebrates a week long holiday just before Easter called Semana Santa (Holy Week). For that reason our school gives that week off each year and it becomes our spring break. Experience has taught me that once a teacher hits spring break in the school calendar, any serious attempt at education in the weeks that follow is only an illusionary dream. I’m exaggerating, of course, but it does feel that way. It’s only a glance and a sigh until the end of the year. So I knew that this would be our last chance to get out of Dodge for a few days to relax before hunkering down for the end-of-the-year-May-Madness that infects every institute of education.

My daughter-in-law from Japan and our two young granddaughters who have been living with us this year will be leaving soon. We wanted to give them one more taste of a Caribbean beach before they leave. We reserved a couple of rooms in a resort at a nearby beach town called Cabarete. It is famous for its beaches and a sport called kite surfing, but the main reason we selected it was because it was close and familiar. She is about five months along now in her pregnancy and we didn’t want to travel very far for our spring fling.


The word “vacation” conjures up different images for different people. For my wife it is defined as anywhere she doesn’t have to cook or do dishes. So this time we arranged for something called “the all-inclusive”. This is the first time we have tried this in the three years we’ve been here and it turned out to be a relaxing experience. It reminded me of what a cruise on a ship might be like.

A large board in the central lobby listed various activities scheduled for the day from which we could pick if we wanted. These ranged all the way from water aerobics to line dancing to kids’ club activities to learning how to dance the salsa. In the evening, entertainment events were available such as a Michael Jackson impersonator or a movie.

However, the activities that beckoned to us most were a bit less extravagant. Our granddaughters were up at 7:00 on that first morning. We heard a small rap on the adjoining door. When I staggered out of bed to answer, two girls wearing bathing suits and broad, anxious grins pleaded, “Pool, please.”


So we spent hours (joyfully and willingly) watching them play in the figure-eight-style pool or playing tag with the waves on the beach.



It has been said that eventually one gets to the age where slipping into something more comfortable means taking a bath in a tub of Ben Gay. After three days of trying to keep up with our girls I realize that I may have entered that age. We craved time to sit on the balcony just outside our room and bask in the tropical warmth and each other’s company.


Three meals were served buffet style each day with a snack bar open the rest of the time offering hamburgers, nachos, and Italian-style pizza cooked in a large, open stone oven. Drinks were available on demand. Our favorite turned out to be a tropical drink called Banana Mama. Waitresses in short skirts and smiling men in uniforms combed the eating areas filling water glasses and cleaning up empty plates. All of them could speak English “a little bit” (a-lee-tul beet) and were most likely hired because of their infectious smiles and charming personalities. One waiter named Rolando delighted in teasing our youngest granddaughter. Whenever he would find the sandal that she would invariably drop on the floor while she was eating, he would stick it in his pocket so she would see it and squeal in protest. He came to say goodbye just before he took one day off.


With this kind of abundance and availability I would guess that each of us easily put on an extra five pounds. It was truly a vacation in the sense of escaping our normal routine, but it is also something one would tire of after awhile.

It did not escape our notice that most of the patrons were European … German, Dutch, Spanish. I discovered a day later that the identity bands that each person wore were color coded based on what language we spoke …. very pragmatic. I also noticed that I could find very few hot pink bands (English speakers). All the English speakers I greeted were from Canada … not one from America.

The resort is located on one end of Cabarete beach which extends probably two miles along the arc of a natural shallow inlet. To walk off some of our caloric intake my wife and I took a long walk along this beach. As we moved from one end of the beach, where mostly Europeans were visiting, to the other end, where mostly Dominicans were visiting, we noticed a stark contrast. As we walked farther along we saw more trash strewn on the beach, more dogs running loose, more boom boxes belting out LOUD party music, more laughter and drinking. It was like walking from a library into a bar. With one exception we decided that we preferred the library end of the beach.


That one exception was an event which occurred one late afternoon on the first full day of our stay. My wife and I had spent a couple of hours watching our granddaughters on the beach and wanted to retreat from the sun and sand. We left them in the capable hands of their mother and went to get a drink and lie in a hammock in the shade. About an hour later our daughter-in-law hurriedly approached us with a worried look on her face.

A group of four women in blue uniform shirts had approached her while she was on the beach. They showed her an album of possible hair braiding styles and asked if she would like one for herself and the girls. Intrigued, she asked how much it would be. They didn’t tell her directly and with some more persuasion Akari agreed. Keep in mind these were Haitian women speaking broken English in a Spanish country to a Japanese woman. The confusion that must have existed at the Tower of Babel comes to mind as I describe this, but I think they used it to their advantage.

When they were almost finished with the last person they told her it would be 6000 pesos for each person. This translates to a total of around $500 American dollars and, of course, she didn’t have anywhere near that amount with her. My daughter-in-law is a compassionate person and felt trapped, especially when they told her that at least two of the ladies were pregnant and they needed the money for the coming babies.


Because I had been to the beach a few times before, I was aware of the beach hawkers’ tactics and I knew she had been taken advantage of. I also knew I had to step in to deal with this situation, and I dreaded it. Just before I went out onto the beach I checked with my wife to ask how much she would expect to pay if she had her hair styled in a local salon. We settled on a certain price. I pulled out three one thousand peso bills and headed into battle.

With the four women surrounding me I explained that they had taken unfair advantage of my daughter-in-law. Because of their dishonesty of not stating a price before hand, she was led to believe she had enough money to pay for it. She had to come to me and this made me upset, I said.

These women knew only rudimentary English and most likely didn’t understand all my words but they knew what I meant. When they realized that I wasn’t going to pay them what they wanted, the conversation became quite animated. The oldest of the four became quite aggressive and I matched her volume syllable for syllable. When she saw that the commotion was creating a scene she said, “Shhhh.” So I told her, “Oh, you don’t want me to make noise? I will make big noise! I will tell everyone what you tried to do if you don’t take what I offer you.” As I turned to go, the older woman grabbed my money and said, “It OK, we take it.”

The next day we walked past them as they hovered on the outskirts of the beach in the shade waiting for their next target. As I went by, she looked at me, and then turned to the women who were with her. With a wag of her finger she nodded toward me and said to them, “Papa, no-no!”


A similar situation happened on the day we left the beach. Arriving at the bus station we discovered that we would have to wait for two hours for the next departure. So we decided to grab a taxi to take us to the other bus station that had a bus leaving in a half hour. A man at the counter heard our conversation (he grew up in New York) and told us that he worked for a taxi company and he would send a taxi right over. We thanked him, moved our luggage outside, and waited. Soon a taxi screeched to a halt and an older man loaded our luggage into the trunk. When he asked for 300 pesos I winced and told him that I paid only 500 pesos for the entire six-mile trip from the resort … but I would consider 200 pesos even though it is nearly twice as much as an equivalent trip in Santiago. When He countered with 250 I told him to take the luggage out. He dropped his shoulders in resignation and said, “No, no, it’s OK.”


In some ways living in a third world country is like living in a battle field. I recently attended a one day self-defense seminar put on by a couple of ex-military Christian men. They have seen that the foreign missionary is a highly visible target for certain unsavory types and certain precautions should be taken when living in another country. This is a discussion for another day, but it made me realize that I am living in a battle field of possible danger and unfamiliar customs. Reading in Psalms recently I realized that God’s protection and help is a very real and practical thing.

Though an host should encamp against me, my heart shall not fear:
Though war should rise up against me, in this will I be confident.
One thing have I desired of the LORD, that will I seek after;
that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life,
to behold the beauty of the LORD, and to inquire in his temple.” Psalm 27:3,4

This kind of dickering and assertiveness is not natural to me, but I’m finding it to be an important survival skill in this country, and an area that God is using to help me grow in my faith. Maybe if I stay here long enough, my nickname will become, “Papa, no-no.”