DR- Saturday & Sunday

First morning at the Mak house.

Kelli Hutchinson looking at the photos of the Makarios kids. We picked one photo to pray for before each meal.

My favorite coffee mug at the Mak house. Love abounds, and the coffee is amazing. All in all, a great way to start the day and the trip.

Preston is truly our little shutter bug.

Doug and Margaret (standing) are the host couple at the Mak house. Here, they're getting the Hill Country group oriented for the week.

Some seniors listening closely to the orientation details... but Tom and Jonny stopped to pose.

And looks pretty excited about his first day in the DR.

Saturday afternoon, we went to the beach with some of the kids from Chichigua, the Hatian batteye where a lot of the kids from Makarios live.

Sweet Grace and her little girl from Chichigua.

Riley is an HCCSA alum and was a member of the Chain Gang with Andy. Here he is with Wilner on his shoulders.

Burying one of the boys in the sand.

Then it was Sarah's turn! Sarah is a teacher at Makarios.

Andy enjoyed the water and playing with some of the kids.

Ashton and his little friend Michael.

Early Sunday morning, Pro & myself escorted the photographers (Justin, Jack and Preston- pictured here) to a hill about a mile away from the Mak house to try to get some sunrise photos. It was cloudy, so the pics weren't so great, but we had a great time anyway...

Jack.

Justin.

Mount Isabelle

While taking pics, I discovered the "soft focus" feature on my new camera- just in time to take some pictures of this "Unicorn" that we spotted. We laughed and laughed about our Unicorn spotting.

Sunday morning, we enjoyed going to church at Robin's home-church in the DR- Templo Biblico.

Andy & I with the Seniors at Templo Biblico.

After church, it was time to head to Caberete- the tourist beach. Here's Tom looking pretty ready to roll with his head out the window of the "Guagua".

Then Baley, Aimee and Preston wanted their pic taken too. ;)

Junior girls say "Yay for Caberete!"

Me with Paige and Bella.

Jessi tries writing a message in the sand.

But she wasn't very successful.

Finally she succeeded.

Then Jessi treated herself to some braids.

The finished product.

We did some souvenir shopping in Caberete too. Paige seems to be trying to convince Jack to do something with her, but Jack is being Jack and not relenting.

Oh, Preston.

It was rare for Andy & I to get any alone time on the trip. Even when we tried to take a walk on the beach, the kids gave us a hard time about going off by ourselves. Here, they called out to us as we were trying to sneak off for a walk.

We tried to go anyway, but it didn't quite work out...

Courtney ran in and interrupted our romantic walk on the beach.

"Hold my hand, Andy!"

Then Jessi came to help.

I wasn't totally thrilled.

But they were just teasing and eventually we got to go on our walk. :)

Getting Ready to Roll!

Last week, Hill Country Christian School had a "week of service" for the upper school. From Wednesday through Friday, middle school and high school students went around the community and served in various places. Some groups went to schools, churches or summer camps to help wherever they were needed. But our group of "Dominicans," as Robin calls us, stayed at school and got ready for our trip. Here are a few pics of our prep work.

Robin called me "co-leader" of the trip, which was an honor, but I didn't come even close to doing the work she did to prepare everyone.  Here we are trying to get the kids prepped for the days to come. 

"I'm ready to pack" -Geoff

Some of the supplies we packed up for the Makarios school, and for the "Mak Community" outreach we did during the week.

Shoes for donation to Makarios

Karen, aka "Girafa", gets busy packing paper.

Courtney Mumme was in charge of all of the bags filled with donations. She did a wonderful job keeping track of everything!

Senoria Inks, aka "Pro Pro," looking very focused as she ties takes care of details on her laptop.

Jonathan is all smiles.

And Wermer was already tired after teaching AP Biology from 6:45-8:00 AM. We had to have early class so we could use the full school day to pack and prepare. But that exam is just around the corner...

On Friday, we headed to the airport at 6AM. Here's Bella, looking pretty travel-ready.

Preston did a little yoga to pass the time at ABIA.

And I reminisced some favorite science tutoring moments... like the time that Olivia and Courtney asked if they could pollinate me.

The "Chain Gang" together for the first time at ABIA on Friday morning.