Jaqi Cox

Month 1: July

Landing in the Dominican

On July 16th I left the United States for the first time. I flew from South Carolina and made it to the Dominican Republic at about noon. I met some of the crew that I would be working with for the year, and unloaded my things into a temporary apartment in downtown Jarabacoa. Then met my amazing new housemates for the first time.

From there, we started new staff training the next day at 8:00 am at Doulos Discovery School. The training was a mix of Spanish class, cultural training, expeditionary learning professional development, and how to acclimate well into Dominican life. (Including getting pesos at the bank, how to do laundry, grocery shopping, and getting a Dominican cell phone.)

My Favorite Moments So Far…

Every morning starts with a 2.5hr Spanish class with Flavia. Flavia is a brilliant teacher at Doulos and a Jarabacoa local. Her first language is Spanish- so theres little to no English spoken that entire time! What I love is getting to use what I learn to talk with locals. People here have been so gracious, patient, and welcoming to me as I learn their language and culture.

Someone at Doulos shared a story that I think is a great example of Doulos education. She said that she took her small children to a waterfall. Now, her kids are very young (lower elementary school). While there, her kid looked around at the beautiful nature, but saw broken glass bottles all over. Immediately her kid took action and told her that they “HAVE” to do something about this litter because it could hurt other people. Then her kids started providing solutions on how to fix this issue.

Doulos is big on hands on learning to show kids how their education can impact the community, because they are the future of this world. These kids are taught from a very young age that their lives matter, their education matters, that they can use what they learn to glorify God by helping others, the community, and the world. So I love that story because even at such a little age- kids are taught to be leaders, problem solvers, selfless, loving, critical thinkers, and aware. School here is very purposeful, rigorous, and authentic.

I am so excited to try the “expeditionary learning” model of teaching with biblical integration to help these kids be world changers for Christ.

We are a Crew.

At Doulos we are a crew. Meaning, we all play an important role in the education and discipleship of our students. Every person at Doulos is important and valued. From this, I have met a ton of amazing new people, and made some pretty great friends in this quick period of time.