Happy Halloween!

We are officially landowners! The founder of the mission has made it a goal for the past ten years to own our own piece of property in the Dominican and after a LOT of trial and error the time has finally come and we own an absolutely gorgeous piece of land that’s all ours. I have no idea when we will begin to build shelters and the kitchen considering the land was the majority of our savings, but within the next year surely. How exciting! ¡Que Bueno! So now Bill can finally go home in peace knowing all the property stuff is settled. Now it is time to start fundraising like mad men. (And women J)

Anna came down this week and will be staying with us the next month. She’s a sweet girl from Connecticut who will be composing a booklet/brochure about the families of the kids in our school who people can sponsor. Hopefully this booklet will help us to gain sponsorships on an annual basis. Hopefully. Bill is seriously pushing for more consistent money flow for the program, which is necessary. But yeah Anna seems super energetic and my plan is to teach her how to ride the motorcycle and hopefully learn to ride the bike with her on the back of it. That would be beneficial for both of us.

I really feel like I have a place down here. More and more people are inviting me over for dinner, giving me fruits or other little gifts and shouting my name in the street as opposed to Loryn’s, which is great! I actually have my own presence and it is exciting. I am getting very sentimental about leaving, but I know I’ll be back. My latest internal dilemma has been whether or not I want to postpone graduate school to stay down here longer…and more permanently. It is so meaningful to be here. It makes your whole life make sense; it is hard to see myself returning home for good. I don’t know; I need to see how I feel when I go home. Suggestions on this topic would be magical, considering that no one has bothered to give me any feedback on my blog lately! J But I will keep writing because this stuff matters.

Oh and my leg is healing very nicely from my bike accident. Once the bruising is gone I don’t even think I will have scars from this one! Adios!

Take care, God Bless.

Jamie

“…Because I know it’s my destiny to leave more than a trace of myself in this place. I wanna do something that matters, say something different, something that sets the whole world on its ear. I wanna do something better with the time I’ve been given. I wanna try to touch a few hearts in this life. And leave nothing less than something that says I was here…”                                    ---Lady Antebellum