But when it finally came to an end, I was not as happy as I thought. I happened to get pretty close to a few of the high schoolers, and since I hate saying goodbye to people.. it was harder than I thought. The kids I got to know.. were my favorite by far. But we all exchanged facebook names and things like that, so I know we will be keeping in touch.
Friday, Mackalah came and hung out at the baseball site on her day off, which was absolutely fantastic! I loved her being able to see what I do and who I hang out with everyday. Except we didn't have volleyball practice so she didn't get to meet all my girls, but that's okay. We went to the river in the afternoon and jumped off cliffs again and it was a blast! Friday night was the banquet for the end of the outreach, and I loved being able to take pictures with everyone, socialize, and eat some wonderful food. After the banquet, we hung out and played some games with some of the Dominicans, and then Katy and I rematched out Domino opponents, David and Rodley, and lost again.. surprise surprise.
Saturday morning we got up to say goodbye to the Bakersfield group ( which has the students I got the closest with in it), and I said goodbye with the notion that I would be seeing them later since I was invited to go hang out with them at the resort they were spending the day at. One of the staff members here, Amy let me take her car there to hang out with them.. so nice of her! I went and laid by the pool and swam for a few hours and then said my real goodbyes.
That night we went over to the Slabach's house for hangout time, dinner, and a movie. Nate and Maggie Slabach's are two of the head missionaries in this area, and their daughters Andrea and Chastity have become pretty close with us interns, and we all wanted hangout time! One of the interns, Laurel, cooked up some Moroccan food, we played some games, and then we watched Nacho Libre, in which most of us fell asleep :)
Sunday was the day that most of us had been looking forward to for a week!! We were going to the beach!! We know that we have been living on an island for the past month, but since we are in the mountains you can't really tell, and now we have proof! The trip to the beach is about 2 hours, and so well worth it. We packed 14 people into the Students International 15 passenger van and had some great bonding time on the way. All of the interns are sharing their testimonies at one point or another before I leave, and we heard 3 yesterday, and 2 the week before that at Bible Study. I never realized how much testimonies open your eyes to, you can really have a better understanding of that person when you hear their background. It creates so much more community with the group. The beach itself was SO awesome.. oh my gosh. We left at 7:45 and got to the beach around 10. I was nervous how long we were going to stay, because I know that I could stay at the beach ALL day and be completely content with it. We all got to the beach, and we immediately rented some umbrellas and chairs and ran into the water. Oh my gosh, I wish I could explain what it felt like to finally be in salt water again. I loved every second of it! After playing around and laying out for a few hours we walked to all the restaurants on the beach, and landed on one called Jose O'Shea's.. which was an irish pub with all kinds of american, mexican, italian, and dominican food. It was great!
We headed back to where our stuff was, laid out, read, went swimming, body surfed, walked along the beach, laid out, read and swam :) We didn't leave until 6 at night, and got back at like 8:30 ( we were going up the mountain so it took a little longer) We were all sunburnt and tired so we just watched Kung Fu Panda and went to bed. It was a wonderful wonderful day.. I LOVE the beach :)
Today we meet the new teams that are coming in! I'm excited and have big expectations for the SIX girls that I have at my site. Josh (the boys sports site intern) has TEN students, and since we do a lot of things together, it is going to be a big group this outreach. But it gives me more responsibility and I'm really excited about that :)
Prayer Requests:
The new team coming in, that the girls at my site would go a little better than last time
Strength for my next few weeks here, i'm getting sad that I'm leaving so soon!
Continuous bonding with the interns, and all of us being a body as a whole together
The girls that we are coaching would continue to show up and work hard
Have a great day!
Tisti!!! We miss you!! Sounds like you are having the time of your life though! I am so glad you are blogging about it, so I can keep up with you and not get the short and sweet version sometime later. :) Anyway, you are an amazing gal, and I know you are leaving a huge impact with whomever you are with! Keep going girl, we love ya, and are praying for you!
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