God's ways are PERFECT

"Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is - his good, pleasing and perfect will." - Romans 12:2

This past Sunday at RCF was "4th semester Sunday". We do this every semester. It basically gives the students who are leaving the island an opportunity to stand up and tell what God has done for them on the island and to encourage students who will be staying on the island longer. Ryan did a wonderful job. The majority of his talk was just about being thankful. He emphasized I Thessalonians 5:16-18: "Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus.". Ryan talked about how God wasn't punishing us when He sent us to Dominica, He was giving us a wonderful opportunity. Our time here has been perfect. Let me clarify...our time here has (at times) been terrible, lonely, exhausting (mentally, physically, emotionally), and has seemed never ending. Our time here has also been a time of spiritual growth. We have also grown closer as a couple than I ever thought possible. When we left to come here almost 16 months ago we were a husband and wife who loved each other. Now we are a family. We have had to lean on each other so much more than we would have if we were still in the great state of Tennessee. We have learned how to completely trust in God. Neither us of has ever doubted that God wanted us to come to Dominica and that this is exactly where we are supposed to be right now. Maybe someday I'll tell you the whole story and all of the reasons why it was so crystal clear to us that we were supposed to push pause on our life in the U.S. and move down to this island in the Caribbean we had never heard of before. God came before us and prepared our way and He has stuck right by our side the entire time. I was telling Ryan the other day that I hope I don't forget how much I need God when we leave here. I don't want something awful to have to happen for me to remember how much I need Him. Just tonight I had dinner with my Bible study girls. Oh, how I will miss them! They are like my family now! Well, family, therapists, you get the idea! Anyway, dinner lasted 3.5 hours and by the end of the night we were laughing hysterically sharing our horror stories on the island. Stories about eating a chocolate bar and then (after taking a few bites) noticing a few worms crawling out of it! One girl said she had heard that ants didn't like pepper so she blew a little bit of pepper under her cabinets. All of the sudden millions of tiny ants came pouring out of her cabinets, carrying their eggs and started crawling up her cabinets! Another person told about weevils. We talked about hand-washing every single dish we own 25 times a day...in our teeny-tiny sink that only has cold water. We talked about days when we have no water at all. We told stories about walking a mile to the grocery and carrying 50 pounds of groceries on your back in the burning up heat/rain all the way home. More stories about getting to the grocery, noticing an overwhelming smell (similar to human poop) and trying to grocery shop while holding your breath. Another girl says her water smells so bad that when she washes her face it's like washing your face in a big fart. Then we really got to laughing about the fact that we will all be taking de-worming medicine with our Christmas dinner. (Not that we have worms. It's just a good idea to take in case we have a parasite. Who knows though...we probably all have worms.) I think you get the drift! And you know what? I would do it all over again! I've never felt such a mixture of emotions in my life. On the one hand, all of the things/people we've been missing for so long are only 24 days away. On the other hand, all of the friends, memories, experiences we've had here can't be traded for anything in the world. I can remember crying on the last day of church camp when it was time for everybody to go their separate ways. Now it's like we've had 67 weeks of church camp! Isaiah 55:8 keeps ringing through my head: "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord". If I'd had my way, we would have gone to medical school somewhere in the South and we would be living very close to our family and friends. We would be going to a big church and hopefully have a house. Instead, we are in the Caribbean, thousands of miles from family and friends, at a small church, in a 1 bedroom apartment. God didn't give me my way, but as I said (and He said), His ways are perfect. One of the 4th semester students mentioned that Luke was a physician and quoted a verse from Luke 8:39: "Return home and tell how much God has done for you." That is exactly what we plan to do! See y'all very soon!!!

And another one...

Please click on this link and select November 2008. Then scroll down to the second featured article.

http://www.rossu.edu/news/spotlight.cfm

We're gonna miss this...

Inside Titou Gorge. If there are any Pirates of the Caribbean fans out there, this is the scene in Pirates II where OB and JD are getting arrows shot in the water at them from above. Does anybody know what I'm talking about?? The second picture is of us forming our single-file swim line to go through the gorge. I was our fearless leader.

Wow! So much has happened in the last week and I know I'm going to leave things out. There were SO many pictures I wanted to post, so I ended up making another slideshow for your viewing pleasures. Ryan's last day of class is next Friday!!! Then all of the tests/shelf exams start. I can't believe we will be coming home in 31 days and not returning to the island! While we are so ready to be back in the U.S. (TN, specifically), we have made so many wonderful memories here and have made many lifelong friends. Ok, let's start with the RSO Farewell Banquet. Last week we all went to dinner at a restaurant in Portsmouth to honor the spouses who are leaving the island. It was so much fun spending time with the people who have been my "support group" for the past 15 months! Friday night the Spartans played in the championship game, which they won...again! :) Ryan has really enjoyed playing football with these guys and it has been a great stress reliever for him. Saturday morning we headed to Roseau so I could finally show Ryan some of this island that he's been living on, but never really seen! We picked up some friends and went to Titou Gorge. This was my 4th time to go. As always, the water was freezing, but I must be used to it because I jumped right in and waited as the others slowly climbed into the icy water. Usually the TG is a fairly easy swim and there are a few places inside that you can touch so you can stand and catch your breath before swimming to the waterfall. Not this time! The water was much higher than usual and the current was very strong. Swimming against the current was exhausting. Add that to the fact that we couldn't touch at the first stop (where we usually can) and you've got a few panicked swimmers! Some people went back and stayed. Some people went back to catch their breath and then came back. It was a lot of fun and we carved our names on the rocks. The waterfall was so strong that you couldn't even swim to the small cave. In fact, the water was so high that the small cave was not really even there! After TG we went to Screw's Sulfur Spa to warm up and get refreshed. It was fabulous! We jumped from warm springs to hot springs and ate a lot of fresh fruit (I love guava now - never tried it until this semester). We went back to Fort Young to start getting ready for the 4th semester banquet. I loved getting dressed up! I've always liked having a reason to get dressed up, I just usually never have one here. My feet, however, were not happy with the high heels. they have become very accustomed to flip-flops every day for almost a year and a half. We took a bus ride up, up, and up into the mountains to the place where we were having the banquet. The people who planned the banquet did a wonderful job. It looked like a wedding reception with big white tents and very pretty table decorations. The food was great and they put a slide show together of our class' time on the island. They also gave out some superlatives. Ryan won "Most likely to return to Dominica for a vacation". I'm not so sure about that one, but I guess never say never! There was a DJ and lots of dancing. For the few hours we were there we completely forgot we were in Dominica. It was a wonderful night.

Last week my brother emailed me to remind me of how much I didn't like Dominica when we first moved here 15 months ago. I kept saying that I wanted to "fast-forward" through the next year and hurry up and move home. Not that I'm not glad it's time for us to move home, but I definitely am going to miss many things about our life here. Adam emailed me a few lyrics from Trace Adkins song, You're Gonna Miss This. Here are a few words:

You're gonna miss this

You're gonna want this back

You're gonna wish these days hadn't gone by so fast

These are some good times, so take a good look around

You may not know it now, but you're gonna miss this

I have some videos from the football game that I'll try to post later. They're not posting right now for whatever reason. The picture below is of a school bus that was smashed by this tree in the big hurricane of 1979. The Dominicans parked the bus there because it was considered the safest place for it! Whoops!

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Roads less traveled...sometimes there's a reason

Saturday we all jumped in some little boats and headed out to Secret Beach to celebrate William turning 8. Ralna called me on Friday afternoon to see if I would be able to make cakes for the party. She pretty much said I could make them look like anything I wanted. As I started looking at ideas, I realized this was the first kid cake I've made. I was really stressed about it! Below are some pictures of the cakes. I should have taken pictures before we got to the beach because the icing was already melting in these pictures. The alligator's fingernails were falling off and some of the icing on his tail was sliding down. William was excited about his cakes, so I was very glad! No one had been to SB since the hurricane. When we got there we saw that over half the beach was gone and there was barely any beach left! We had to put all our belongings (including the food) up on rocks. Ralna hung a "Happy Birthday" sign on some rocks and people started moving branches to build a place to cook hot dogs. The kids were running around, swimming, snorkeling, hunting for hermit crabs (I think Sophia had about 30 in her bucket), throwing sand at each other, and just basically being kids. Ralna kept commenting on how many things had gone wrong and how at home she would have made sure everything was perfect. Then we stepped back and looked at the kids and realized they were as happy as could be. They could have cared less that half the beach was gone, there were no tables or chairs or presents, or that we were eating hot dogs with regular bread because they don't sell hot dog buns here. They had a blast! Living here has helped us to just let things go and not make such a huge deal about everything. (Ex. as we were leaving the beach Ralna didn't want to give me my cake pans back dirty, so she washed them out in the ocean) Shorty (the guy with the little boat) came back to get a small group of us to take us back to PBH. We all jumped on the little boat and made it about 30 feet from land when the boat died. He tried and tried (and tried) to fix it and finally he had to paddle us back to SB and we waited for another boat to arrive. When we got back to PBH I remembered that I had ridden with Ralna and that our car was at school. Katy said we could walk all the way down the beach to the steps that led to campus. I had never done this before, but it sounded like a plan. As we walked further we noticed that the hurricane had taken away a lot of this beach, too. We were walking on piles of rocks, rather than a beach. We got to a point where we had to start crawling under tree branches. Katy would say "oh man, I'm stuck" and I would look up and see that her cover-up was tangled in some branches. The rocks started getting very slippery b/c they had moss on them so we decided it would be easier to walk in the water (still on rocks). The water came about to my knees, so I just pulled my dress up (my swimsuit was under it), held my bag high, and carefully started walking in the water. I stepped on what I thought was a rock, but now think was a crab. I slipped and immediately felt a strong pinch on my ankle. OWWWWWW!!! I was pinched by a crab! So now I was hot, tired, sweaty, wet, and my ankle was twisted and pinched (I twisted it when I slipped). Nothing to do but just keep walking. Katy and I continued slipping and sliding and both ended up falling in the water. My bag went halfway in with me...cell phone, camera, wallet, and all. Ugh! We FINALLY made it to the stairs that led to campus. We were panting like 2 exhausted dogs. Walking through campus to get to the parking lot I felt like everyone was looking at me. If I looked half as bad as I felt, then it wasn't pretty! My ankle has been pretty tender the past few days, but it's fine. The whole adventure reminded me of a similar story that happened when I was 13. My friend Laura and I were on a Sunday afternoon walk and I suddenly needed to go to the bathroom. Rather than turning around and going home, we decided to cut through a field and save a lot of time. The field ended up being the thorniest patch you can imagine. We managed to get just far enough into the field to get completely, totally, 100% stuck. We couldn't take one step forward or backwards. Every inch of our bodies was stuck with thorns - from our hair, to our clothes, to our socks, to our shoe laces. Our skin had tiny red blood marks from all the pokes we'd received. We went through moments of panic and crying to hysterical laughter. Thank goodness for cell phones because without one they probably would have found us days later. I called Lee Taylor (the field was in between his street and mine) and he jumped on his bike (too young to drive)! and rushed to our rescue with bush clippers. I kind of see a pattern here...my determination to keep going and not turn back has gotten me into some pretty sticky situations!

If you need a reason to smile today...

Look how pretty the other girls look...and then there's me. :)

What an attractive couple!

Sumo Sandwich!!

Ryan had an exam yesterday and afterwards we headed to the pool. A lot of our friends were there and we had a great time just relaxing in the sun (or mostly cloudy sky). Our neighbors, Allison & Josh, had several people over last night for dinner. They are from Louisiana and Josh cooked gumbo. It was delicious! He made one pot that was spicy and one that was mild (thank goodness!). My eyes were burning just standing next to the spicy pot! Everybody else brought a side dish or dessert. I made cornbread. Someone brought marinated cheese and it was delicious! I will definitely be learning how to make that. After dinner Ryan and I headed to a late Halloween party. I got these sumo wrestler costumes for us last week when I was in the U.S. They were great because they had fans in them to keep them inflated, which also kept us cool. It's a great costume if you're feeling a little bloated! :) I was only able to find one adult costume and one child's costume. My costume is tanner, but Ryan's is definitely bigger!

Ryan discussing the election with Ronald Reagan (Adam).

I kept trying to get Ryan to give me a kiss, but as you can see, we would have had to bend pretty far to reach each other!

Secret Ballot?

I don't think secret ballot voting is needed anymore. Everyone seems more than willing to tell you who they're voting for. I'm not saying that's a good thing or a bad thing, but it's definitely true. I went to vote (early) last week when I was in Tennessee. I love voting, but I'm not very excited about this election. More than anything, I'm ready for it to be over! I told Ryan that I'm going to have to go on blood pressure medicine every four years because I get so worked up over the whole thing. To me, things are so clear on 95% of the issues (I've always been a black and white kind of girl...not much room for grey) so I'm not easily swayed (to say the least). Anyway, I've tried hard to not let my blog become the place for any debates, so I don't want to start now, the night before the votes are in! Anyway, I had a wonderful, very short trip to America. I was absolutely freezing the whole time! My parents and I flew to Miami early Thursday morning. Apparently, it was too early because my dad didn't notice that his shoes didn't match until he had to take them off to go through security! His pants were not that short...he lifted them up for the picture. It took us just over 2 hours to get from Nashville to Miami. This is a HUGE improvement from the 1-2 full days of travelling it takes us to get home now! I was pretty overwhelmed with Miami. I spent a lot of time there last April-August, but moving there is kind of intimidating. It is so huge! I just don't think I'm a big city person. Nashville is just the right size for me. I didn't pick out an apartment, but I saw a bunch of options and took a ton of pictures of apartments. Hopefully we will decide something soon. I did find a place that I thought was perfect (so did Ryan) but when the realtor called back a few hours later they had already accepted a contract from someone else. :( I got back to Dominica yesterday and it was a strange feeling knowing it was the last time (hopefully) Theo will pick me up at the airport! I've done the airport drive 16 times! I asked Theo if that was the most and he said I might be tied with a former spouse, but that I'm definitely close to breaking the record! I'm glad to be back in Dominica and am going to try to soak up as much fun as possible in the next 47 days! Only 47 days!!! Tomorrow Ryan has a big test (so please say prayers for him). We will go to the beach in the afternoon and then tomorrow night we are going to a Halloween costume party. I don't want to give our costumes away, but they're pretty great! I'll post pictures later. Then we will come home and watch House episodes (we're already on season 4) and election coverage. Wednesday night is Bunko and then Thursday is snorkeling! More great news...we sold our car! Well, we still have our car but a couple has made an offer and we accepted. The best part is that we get to keep the car until the day we leave the island. Well, maybe the best part is that the couple is from Tennessee, so the power "T" bumper sticker will remain on our car. :) Thank you so much for your prayers! We really appreciate them. I'll try to keep our prayer requests updated.