Graduation

Every year at the end of the school year it is our pleasure to host a "graduation" ceremony to share with our parents all that the students have accomplished during the school year. Usually it is a big production. All the kids come dressed up, parents too. We share what God has been doing in the life of the school and each child receives a certificate for a specific goal met or character trait that has been developed during the year. Enjoy the photos (there are a lot)!

All Good Things Must Come To An End

It is true. Summer has ended. The kids are now out for their "summer vacation" and we are preparing for a new school year.This summer Centro Especial Genesis hosted over 30 students in our classrooms and in therapy. It was an amazing summer. During our last outreach of the summer we had a few days of "VBS". We had extended worship times in the mornings and a craft activity from the kids. One day a group from our local YWAM (Youth With A Mission) base came over to help. All in all it was a wonderful summer with many lives changed. Thanks for coming, praying, and supporting what God is doing here in Jarabacoa.

yup, that's right, one more outreach has come and gone! This time we welcomed back some old friends from Turlock, Country Bible, and Hopewell, along with our favorite independent traveler Morgan!!! We had a great 2 weeks with these ladies. We managed to go back to the pool for a day which was wonderful in the heat! The ladies working in Special Education also helped a ton on "clean up" day when all the kids were outside picking up leaves and trash from the yard! The kids had a great time with this group from bubble blowing and piggy back rides to Vladi's daily "phone call" at lunch when he would removed the ice pack from the cooler and use it as his phone. I think it may be visible in the photo!

thanks again ladies for a wonderful 2 weeks!!!!

no new photos yet!

i somehow never seemed to have my camera with me during this last outreach! However, I wanted to give a great big THANK YOU to the gals from BCHS and JCS for all their help during this last outreach. Our kiddos decided for whatever reason that they wanted to be bad during this past outreach! Thank you girls for your compassion, patience, and resilience!!! We took a trip to the pool during this outreach which was wonderful because the midday temperatures here are getting really hot!!!!

Thanks again ladies...i hope to add pictures soon!!!

Well, Centro Especial Genesis had 2 weeks off...well from teams that is. In what may be a first in our history, we did not have students assigned to our site during a summer outreach. While we did not have the "americanos" buzzing around the site, we did manage to stay busy. Vanesa received the final portion of her walker: forearm rests to help give her better balance and stability while walking. Here is a brief video clip of her trying it out for the 2nd time and taking a walk down the hall for the most part independent of any help (although it will be a while before we trust her to use it completely on her own!)

SUMMER HAS STARTED

Its that time of year again! Summer teams have begun and we are moving full steam ahead. This first team brought 4 ladies to special ed and 4 to therapy. We had such a great time with this group. The worked together very well and connected well with all our kids! We laughed a lot and got a lot of work done. This summer in the classrooms our students from the states have goals to work on with the kids and the new system seems to be working out well. It will be great to be able to track the progress of the kids over the summer!

Vanesa is the proud recipient of a new walker and while we still need a couple of new parts, we are hopeful that this is the start of a new level of independence for her. Please be praying for Vanesa. She has been sick off and on a lot as of late.

HAPPY MOTHERS DAY

Mother's Day in the Dominican Republic usually falls a couple of weeks after Mother's Day in the states. So yesterday we celebrated all the moms. Friday at the end of the school day we had a special presentation for all of our moms. A couple of the classes joined forces to sing a special Mother's Day song. Each child had a flower and a card to present to his/her mom. A couple of the moms shared what challenges and unique blessings come with being a mom to a kid with special needs. There weren't many dry eyes when they finished! After the moms ate lunch we took family photos to be able to present the moms with new photos at a later date!

Donations

some of the new braces from Cascade


new wedge and stool...thanks Marilyn they work great


Nelo and Vanessa with their new hand splints

Once again we have been blessed with many new donations in the therapy site and its time to say a huge THANK YOU!!! Thank you to Benik, Cascade, and Marilyn Collins for all the new goodies. Our kids (and therapist) truly appreciate your generosity!!!

Spring Cleaning

From time to time we all have to clean up. This holds true for our school as well. We have been extremely blessed to have a large yard with lots of trees and plants that provide both shade and beauty. The downside to all the beauty is that when we leave for extended breaks, like the one we just had, we come back to lots of leaves, branches, and some trash all over the yard. So last week when the power went out and it was too hard to see to teach inside, we all went outside to lend a helping hand and clean up the yard. From the biggest to the smallest, all the kids had a job and most stuck with it, even if just for 5 minutes!

More Spring Happenings

During the spring outreaches we were joined for a couple of days by a YWAM (Youth With A Mission) outreach group from Tennesse. This group came with games, toys, candy, songs, and a presentation for our students. We had a lot of fun playing with parachutes, jump ropes, and new balls!!! Thanks guys!!!




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Another spring team has come and gone. This group was from James Madison University and Virginia Commonwealth University (even though she still claims the JMU group)! We were very blesses to have Brian, Erika, Rachel, Laura, and Bryan with us for the week. Bryan and Laura were a special asset to the Developmental Therapy side of things with their knowledge and interest in Physical Therapy. The other 3 did a fantastic job as well at Genesis getting involved and loving the kids!!!
Thanks for all your hard work, and we welcome you back anytime with open arms!!!!


Our faithful "steeds" Bryan and Brian!!!

The Developmental therapy crew at Melvin's house for community visits

The whole group at the banquet. Thanks again for all your help!!!

JUPITER

We have once again been blessed by our friends from Jupiter Christian School. They were with us for a week and a half and we all had a great time. 4 students were with Fausto and Amy had 3 (who named her super amy and gave her a cape!).

As always the students from Jupiter did a wonderful job in the sites and brought an amazing amount of donations with them. THANKS

this isn't the best pic in the world, but it is rather indicative of the group! molly appears to be missing a head and Michelle is behind the camera, but otherwise, the gang is all here

We're Back!!!

It has been a long time since this blog was updated...our apologies to those of you who check for regular updates.

In mid December we had our Christmas party with all the families. It was a great celebration with parents and children, food and lots of presents! Then we closed for the holidays and vacation. We just returned to classes on Jan 26th. Today (Feb 13th) we had our Valentines day party. We had so much fun!!!

We have already hosted our first team of the year...Thank you to Katie, Patti, and Kathy for all your hard work! We are looking forward to seeing our Jupiter Christian friends at the end of the month.

Enjoy the photos from the last couple of events!


Our Christmas party was lots of fun with our families!














Sancocho!!!!!














Candy seems very happy with her Christmas present














HAPPY VALENTINES DAY or FELIZ DIA DE SAN VALENTIN














Candy, the pinata is behind you!














Fun with pinatas!














I know we've said it before, but we have WAYYY too much fun with cake!