Dot

Dot celebrated her 50th mission trip while we were in Nicaragua.

I while know she has been to Poland, Austria, Thiland, and Nicaragua, I am not sure where else Dot has been. I will have to ask you and give you an update later. I have worked with Dot on three different trips to Nicaragua. Each trip having a different number of people of different ages. This trip was a smaller group but still with a wide age range.

I found that Dot and I have similar interests, missions, teaching children and ministering to adults. She also made sure all the trips we went on together to bring our friends...the puppets. I was glad to use those again!

Dot is a retired school teacher. Teaching is deep in her heart. I was so pleased to know she would be joining us on the trip to Nicaragua this year.

This year travelling had a bit of a glitch for Dot. She broke a bone in her foot a month or two before we left. She was determined to go, I admire that. She was able to get her cast off in time before we left. She did have leftovers from the injury, swelling if she stayed on it too long. But she knew her limits and heeded them.





Besides working with children Dot does like to do construction work. I thought it was neat she was still determined to do it even though her foot still was giving her problems.
Dot is the person in the dark shorts, working with Linda, mixing cement for the El Ayudante all girls dorm sidewalk.





Dot made a list of teaching supplies we would be giving out to the different teachers we would meet while on our trip. We made sure to give each preschool teacher a kit and then Sister Paula some for the school at Scared Heart of Mary Orphange. The teachers are always so pleased and very blessed by the gift of the supplies. Teachers are not given any monies to use on their classes, which means they buy them theirselves or go without. The packets included a stapler, grade book, pens, pencils, pencil sharpeners, staples, paper clips, thumb tacks and maybe a few other things.
Often I had Dot asking me about where supplies should/could go. I would offer how about where we are going to minister, she said that is what I thought too. I think we did end up having supplies delivered to a preschool we didnt visit as we wanted to bless a group of teachers that maybe doesnt get a regular visit from a mission team.

Three years ago when we gathered supplies I didnt count the number of pencils we had brought with us but I was sure of two things: we had enough pencils to give each villager of Ruben Dario and they must have multiplied in the air, those are good guesses.

I have loved working with Dot as she has teaching experience and has wonderful ideas about how to handle the kids in different situations. She and her husband Jim, taught me an easy way to get our play equipment back from each child when it was time to leave, give them back something in return to take home. So that started the Beanie Baby collecting that happens when we go to Nicaragua. We have the kids stand in a single line, as they come to the front of the line they exchange the play equipment to get a Beanie. No tears, only smiles this way!

The other thing I learned was to make sure if we were going to give out prizes or anything that we had to have enough so each child got whatever we handed out. I was told that sometimes the kids will fight over the items if only one child gets something. For instance supplies.

Dot also aided our group in getting extra hygiene supplies. We took these supplies with us to the girls orphanage and gave them out to those we visited during home visits with Pastor Felix and Pastor John Paul. We had packed around 200 kits and then packed bulk hotel sized shampoo, conditioner, combs, mouth wash, and lotion that we put in ziplock baggies when we got to Nica.

Dot thanks for all you do. You have been a great role model to me, I have learned a lot. There are still many things to learn, and hopefully we will work together again soon!