Shannon's Corner

SHANNON’S CORNER Shannon with two Constanza Interns Amazing. Fantastic. Great. Really, really good. Awesome. These are the words that our summer interns used to describe their summer.  Each of them faced unique challenges such as sickness; cross-cultural differences, unstructured programs, roommate issues, and change from one program to another were just some of these unique challenges.  For many of us these challenges would have become stumbling blocks and given us a different perspective than how our interns described their summer. But these eight ladies persevered and endured which has strengthened their character and drawn them closer in their walk with the Lord Jesus Christ.  What made their summer were the connections that they made with the kids and our staff.  How God grew them in their spiritual walk with Him.  How their lives were impacted from their time here in the Dominican Republic. Debriefing...

SHANNON’S CORNER June 2019 Summer Interns 2019 One day as I was outside praying for God’s wisdom and guidance, I glanced up into a tree and saw an air plant.  This plant reminded me that God is my Sustainer, which was a lesson from our women’s retreat last spring.  God’s peace and comfort came over me as I studied the plant realizing that God’s got this and all I need to do is just trust Him.  Unbeknownst to me that God was preparing me to completely lean on Him as my Sustainer through this summer. Kaela giving trauma competent care training This year for our summer internship program we were able to offer our interns if they would be interested in learning Spanish for either one or two weeks prior to our summer program.  We had two gals who did two weeks of Spanish and two gals who did one week of Spanish classes.  We all learned some in’s and out’s regarding what works and what did not work along with some expectatio...

SHANNON’S CORNER May 2019 May has been a surprising month of a variety of things happening. We hosted a one-day conference for all our leadership with a ministry called Amarras who serves in flourishing leaders and thriving organizations.  They focused on four main areas 1) the ‘trichotomy’ of control:  good and bad goals; 2) keys to giving and receiving feedback; 3) thinking about delegation; and 4) delegation.  Plus they had a small segment on self-care and tools to help the individual to not assess where they are but how to come up with a plan of good self-care.  It not only was great in equipping our leaders with tools but also a great encouragement to them.  I had the pleasure of watching one of our directors’ baby so that they could fully participate. In preparing for our summer program, I had a couple of zoom video conference calls with our summer interns.  We talked about what they would be doing as...