5 Days! WHOA!

Hello to all! Hopefully I should be able to say that in person to most of you in a week or so! Now I can only think of when i was here and having some really tough times in August and September, I never thought the time of my departure would come so fast. And now that its here, I am torn, I want to come home, but I don´t want to leave this place and all the friends, students and family that God has given me here. I realize that from today forward I think my life will always be split between here an the U.S, I will never forget the experiences nor the people that I have had here. Everyone is already asking me when i´m coming back to the DR. I can only leave them with the answer " cuando Dios quiere" in English " when God wants". Because clearly I want to return, but we don´t know what God has in store.

So whats new? What have I been doing the last few weeks? Glad you asked, I am really trying to aprovechar (make the most of) my time that i have left here.
Randy and I went to Saboneta about 2 Sundays ago i think, we went to a famous cave there and hiked around and inside of it for the afternoon. It was tons of fun, but there were tonssss of bats, which mad it interesting but still fun. After the cave we hopped in the lake to clean up. We headed back to San Juan on Randy´s motorcycle, but there was a police stop on the way back, I wasn´t concerned until Randy told me he didn´t have his papers. He left his wallet at home because he new we were going to hop in the lake after the cave. So we got off the motorcycle and we could see that they had already confiscated and put a few other motorcycles in the back of the truck. I knew we were sunk, I thought for sure we were walking back to San Juan ( still at least 10 miles out of the city). Randy finally managed to talk one of the officers into letting us go because he told them he had to take me to church. The officer was catholic and told us if we were lying, that we were gonna burn in hell. We weren´t lying, but needless to say we booked it out of there. Thank God! But what a great story huh?
Other than that I have been finishing up my classes and giving my end of the month exams. None of the students want me to go which is pretty funny and cute. But i am going to miss them too. I am sure there will be enough tears shed in the next few days (yes i do cry, and tears of others of course).

There are a lot of things on my mind right now like re-entry to the states is going to be a doooosy. In all honesty I definitely feel a lot more Dominican than American right now. I may have adjusted too well here. So please pray for that, and take it easy if it takes me a little bit to get used to things at home.
As I mentioned a little bit before, its funny how now I am more reluctant to want to go home now. Its like i knew that this day would be tough back in August, but i could never really imagine it. I guess that is the irony of life, in August i couldn´t wait for december to come, now I am reluctant to leave.
Trying to summarize this trip for you guys at home is really going to be tough, how can I 4 months in a different culture which most of you don´t really understand? How can I tell my church all the things that God has done for me in my time here? How can I tell you about great friends and people I have met here? To you they will just be people in a photo. I have my journel and my blog tolook back at to help explain when people ask, "so how was your trip?" but still that is going to be really tough. For these reasons and others I feel like for a while I will be just as much of a misfit for my first wek or so in the states as I was here for the first month. Please pray for that as well, that God will give me the words and the wisdom to share what He did for me here in this country.

This will be my last post here in the Dominican, who knows maybe I will write another while I am in the states. Thank you all so much for your faithfullness in prayer! I know it has helped me through every part of this journey. Well I am off to finish this week of sorrow and goodbyes and then i´ll see you guys at home :). I´ll leave you with this list of things I made, its a list of praises and things that I have learned here. I am sure there are more but these were the ones that jumped out at me:

1- Patience and perserverance: whether in my classes, with the language or just being here for 4 months I have definitely learned patience and perserverance.
2- Reliance upon God for everything: When you are in a country alone for four months without friends, family,with a different language, a different culture, teaching English when you know nothing about teaching English, you learn that you had better rely on God for everything. Pray that this will not change for me back in more of a comfort zone in the states.
3- Humility: Learn a language and you WILL be humbled!
4- Responsability: sometimes I feel a little old being a teacher here, but teaching is a big responsability and God has taught me a lot through it.
5- Not taking things at home for granted: Things like running water (That is all drinkable!) Hot or Cold, always, whenever we want or need it. Electricity, once again always, whenever we want or need it. There are a lot of other little things that i could add to this list.
6- Hospitality: I have learned a whole new kind of hspitality here in the DR and I think it will forever change how I treat guests.
7- Health: God has blessed me with incredibly great health, besides a few sniffles and a sore throat I have been healthy as a horse. Praise God, because we all know it could have been a lot worse.
8- Finally praise God for this opportunity he has given me to come to this country! I know all too well how hard it is for the Dominicans to enter the states, there are many who want to go but can´t financially.

En Cristo nuestro Señor,
Danito