Spring Semester of ‘25

Future.

My roommate and I live in La Joya, which is a community where a lot of Haitians live.

Something that we have noticed of the kids in this community is that they most often get into trouble in the streets after school. In Jarabacoa, there are not a lot things for kids to do, especially Haitian kids. With a lack of hobbies, passions, and activities, kids commonly spend their time engaging in activity that leads to teenage pregnancies, fights, conflict among families, drug and alcohol abuse, and actions that further perpetuate the cycle of poverty that this community faces. They drop out of school, have no means of financial stability, and move into a life of human trafficking and lasting abuse as the only answer.

God has worked in both mine and my roommates heart in such a way to open the door for us to begin an after school program with these kids for the purpose of helping them find new passions, talents, and deeper value in themselves and others through Christ. We will engage them in various programs such as art, sports, skateboarding, dance and more- while ending each class with a devotion. The goal is to be able to share Jesus with them, while also giving them healthy activities to engage in, and a safe space to go to after school each day.

So with that, I am very excited to announce that next school year I will be working part time with Love Restored to begin and run this program alongside my roommate. I will still continue to work full time with Doulos Discovery School next year, as the high school science teacher and 12th grade guide teacher, while adding this program to the ministry that I get to do each day.

With this new opportunity for ministry I ask that you would be in prayer for this program. Pray for the kids we will get to impact, pray that we will be able to finance it this summer by finding people and churches who would like to partner with us, and pray for us- that God would continue to be the one leading us in our ministry and fill us so full of His love and Joy.

Chapel.

A blind man, an adulteress woman, and stories about how I ended up in the principals office as a first-year teacher- thats right, I had the pleasure of speaking in chapel.

Recently I have been feeling nudged to talk about revitalizing faith with our middle and high school kids. With my experience in various ministries, I think it’s really easy to get caught up in “laws” and “rules” and forget the point behind why we are living the way that we are living.

So with that, I spent some time talking about the hurt we can experience from other Christians, and how people aren’t always a good representation of Jesus- sometimes people miss the mark and its confusing. However, its easy to point fingers, and in fact sometimes we miss the mark and we are the Christians that hurt other people too. So should we just disregard religion out of hurt? Should we have a high bar for holiness because sin is in fact bad and hurts people?

My thought- lets go back to the basics. Lets remember who Jesus actually is- the guy who healed the blind man on the sabbath (John 9). The guy who didn’t let the pharisees stone an adulteress woman, but still told her not to sin further (John 8). Let’s remember what Jesus would do and why He would do it. Let’s remember who He is when Christians miss the mark. Let us not dismiss reading the Bible because others have used the Bible to hurt us. Let us not get bogged down by the nature of morality and forget what a relationship is. Let us remember what God is actually calling us to. Lets get back to the heart of it as our motivation to live our lives to the fullest with Jesus- with meaning and intent. Life is greater than rules, and yet is also greater than creating our own arbitrary purpose.

Let us enjoy Jesus, and invest in love.

The results of this message were insanely encouraging. From teachers telling me that this was the most engaged they have seen kids in chapel- to opening up conversations with students that I have been wanting to have all year, to students who naturally put up walls pulling me aside to talk about what I said. I was shook

I think God really was working through this opportunity. &If you want to hear more about what I actually said, please feel free to message me. Two of my goals were balance and joy.

Classes.

We have learned so much this year. Math 12 (per their request) is learning an intro to calculus. Chemistry has busted through 12 chapters. And my two expeditions this semester are bread and coffee.

Coffee: Coffee is an aqueous solution, so to start that means coffee dissolves into water. My students can now explain to you the polarity of hydrogen bonding, how to make a solution of coffee molecularly, how to speed up this reaction, how to make coffee more sour (acidic) or bitter (basic)- they have learned so much practical chemistry along with taste testing this chemistry to determine what makes a good cup of coffee. So 5 chapters later, they will now make their own coffee maker (french press, greca, drip…etc) using chemical principals in their design.

Bread: Baking bread is more chemistry (shocking ik). So the 9/10th grader started by learning to draw the molecular structures of the components of bread, they learned about the chemical reaction that makes bread rise, they performed a lab doing an adjacent reaction to what happens within bread, they learned which chemical is responsible for which property of bread- and now it is time for them to bake bread. Each student was grouped and paired with a teacher. Each group will make a loaf of bread. What is exciting is, I will then chaperone them on a service project where they will go and donate the bread that they made to people in need. In this, they will have the chance to meet new people and listen to their stories. What I love about this, is our kids have a very practical opportunity to show love to the community. This will answer the guiding questions: How is bread made? How does God provide for His people? and How is storytelling powerful?

From chemistry, to math, to bread, to coffee our high school kids are learning so much.

Doulos is a very special place. Doulos provides kids with opportunities that the public schools can’t. &It is so cool to me that I get to impact the future Christian leaders of the Dominican Republic by working here. Doulos is such an amazing place, that the opportunity for a kid to come to school here can change the trajectory of their life. This place really is a big deal.

So please know, with your support you are changing the lives of children. With your support you are allowing me to teach here, to mentor kids, to impact this community. So thank you.

More Highlights

• My guide class won Macho Volleyball and made Doulos history by defeating the all staff team

• We celebrated valentines day by writing chemistry “pick up” lines

• I got to judge the senior capstone project, and speak life into every student intentionally and specifically after they presented

• My students created scrapbooks for the electromagnetic spectrum

• My roommate and I started a book study called When Helping Hurts

• My students completed their first lab (to be introduced to science equipment)

• I have been writing curriculum for a new-to-Doulos science class next year: Anatomy and Physiology

• This semester we studied: Electronic Structure, Periodic Trends, Bonding, Gas Laws, Solutions, Equilibrium, Thermodynamics, Kinetics, Acids and Bases, and Redox

• I went on an outdoor education trip to Spirit Mountain

• I went whale watching with my friends

Support.

Doulos is a unique school that deeply impacts the Jarabacoa community. One of the ways this school can help so many people is because 50% of our students are on scholarship.

Because of this, missionaries (me) do not receive a salary for working at Doulos. What this means is none of this ministry is possible without financial support/sponsorship.

If you are interested in partnering with me financially and joining me in this ministry please click the “sponsor me” button below. Your support allows me to stay here and do the work that I do. Your support changes the lives of kids here in the DR!

If you are interested in doing missions abroad yourself and working with me- please know, Doulos is always hiring. If you are unsure and want to know more please send me an email: Jaqic98@gmail.com

One of the goals of our after-school program is to make it as accessible as possible so that we can impact as many kids as possible. With that, we need financial support to run this program and be able to provide resources for each kid. If you are interested in partnering in this ministry with me or you would like to know more about this ministry please contact me directly (email or text).

We cannot do any of this without help. Thank you!