Escuela Caribe closed after 3 decades of abuse.
Now the place has opened as Caribbean Mountain Academy. Most of the old staff was fired as the new owners wouldn't risk being sued, but is the place safe for teens?
One of the employees who remained working wrote in a blog entry:
You CAN'T eat an elephant in one bite!
Jon and Rachel Sawyer Testimony August 2012
Our time in the Dominican working for Escuela Caribe
He could see that frustration had overtaken us. Drenched in weariness, we flopped into the thrift store swivel rockers that we had ignorantly shipped to the Dominican, but were grateful for the comfort that enveloped us when we plunked down at the end of the day. The Lord, or so we thought, had landed us in a place we never expected, the Dominican Republic, where we worked with “high potential but underachieving youth.” American teenagers. (We kind of like them. A lot.) The program we worked at, Escuela Caribe, a Christian, therapeutic boarding school under the direction of New Horizons Youth Ministries, is the place where we were sent to serve. We were oblivious to the chaos, frustration, and challenges that would eventually stare us in the face but not defeat us, but we’ll get to that a little later.
Our father/father-n-law studied us compassionately, reading us like primary school books. See Jon grieve. Grieve, Jon, grieve. See Rachel wring her hands. Wring, Rachel, wring. Fret, Jon and Rachel, Fret. With one leading question from the guy who already knew the answer, we were spilling guts, thoughts, dreams and questions that penetrated the heavy atmosphere. Had we misheard the Lord? Why were we here? We had been trained at Heartlight Ministries, a residential program where everything is done through the arena of relationships, yet the Lord had sent us to another program where everything was done through the framework of structure and points. What had we done but follow the Lord’s leading? Our experience and training did not fit our current environment, yet after petitioning the Lord as to where we had stepped, we individually and as a couple felt the confirmation that we were in fact right where we were supposed to be. So we settled into our thrift store chairs and pressed in to our new lives at Escuela Caribe in the Dominican Republic.
We walked in the door of the program questioning everything, trying to understand policies and practices and their effectiveness. It was just so very different from where we had come. At times, answers gave way to a flood of more questions. Other times, answers made sense. Life is like that, but Escuela Caribe seemed to take that to an extreme. On this particular day, Jon had been hard at work with a new idea that he had hoped would find a home in the program. Unfortunately, at that time, the idea fell on hard ground. This was not the first or the last time his ideas were shelved. We were both defeated, but trusted the immediate leadership. But once again, the question plagued us: had we missed the mark by coming to Escuela Caribe? Why would He bring us here to shelve our experience, ideas, etc?
And then, he said it. It was revolutionary for us and gave us the encouragement to dig in deeper. (Thanks, Joe!)
“Jon, Rachel . . . You can’t eat an elephant in one bite.”
Silence as the statement sank in. Yes, it makes sense. You CAN’T eat an elephant in one bite! (Or if your vegan and the elephant analogy offends you, maybe “You can’t eat a papaya in one bite.” is more palatable – but you get the point, right?) You can’t just jump in and change everything all at once – it’s too big! You have to take little bites that eventually add up to a big difference, and that’s how we began to see our role in the ministry we are sure that the Lord led us to.
Were there things that we disagreed with? Yes! Were there things that we would have changed instantly? Yes! Were there things that we didn’t understand? Yes! Were there things that we fought for or fought against? Absolutely. Were there times that we sent disgruntled letters to the big dudes in the states? Yes! However, we began to consistently take little bites that represented small, rather insignificant changes, but that over time began to amount to an elephant without a tail, and then a three legged- elephant, and then . . .
After a year and a half of us being here, Jon was offered a position as Homelife Department Head. This is the supervisor of the residential staff that live with and care for the students. After refusing the job twice because he felt he wouldn’t be able to make the sweeping changes that he would like to make (open mouth – insert entire elephant . . . not possible), he eventually gave into to accepting this position. After all, this was the area that he had over ten years of experience in.
In one of the first meetings he had with the homelife staff, he had them all run a casita, which at the time was a form a discipline that involved running up the rocky road through the campus in a set amount of time. His point was this: don’t be quick to assign a discipline that you yourself can’t accomplish, and when you do assign it, remember how difficult it is! Under the leadership of the director, he took little bites such as implementing a policy that if more than 15 exercises were given, an incident report had to be filled out by the person handing out the exercises. Believe it or not, extra paperwork is a fabulous deterrent! He faced great resistance in this role as his ideas of change were fairly radical for Escuela Caribe, and after a time he was happily moved into another position, Support Services Department Head, which is the department in charge of facilities.
The Lord brought us to Escuela Caribe in the Dominican Republic because we are agents of change. We know that about quirky selves: we swim against the stream (isn’t that what He calls us to in Romans 12:2?), and we can be a little pioneer-ish about it, not because we’re so great (because we’re not!) but because He is great in us. Hindsight is lovely when it confirms that which was questioned previously. We did not miss the boat. We did hear from the Lord who brought us to Escuela Caribe and now to Caribbean Mountain Academy where we continue to be directly involved in change. Jon is involved with the inside change, writing new policies, and Rachel is involved with outside change, renovating the campus.
Right now, there are people out there fighting for our dismissal from the ministry that we currently work with, Crosswinds and Caribbean Mountain Academy, because when Escuela Caribe closed, they retained us. It would have been much easier for Crosswinds to ask us to leave with the amount of resistance they are facing because we are here, and yet they have kept us on staff. They are either sure of our character or very foolish. We don’t say that arrogantly, because frankly, they could have dismissed us because we didn’t fit where they were headed – had that been the case, but we did fit! And we are all very realistic about the fact that all of the current staff ARE flawed, but striving to overcome their skin by the power of Jesus Christ.
We don’t claim to be perfect people, to have never messed up or to be holy rolling Christians. We do claim that we have never witnessed, participated in or had knowledge of abuse of students. The opposition would tell you that because we were here during a time when swats were administered, exercises were given as a form of discipline and that a quiet room was used for students who needed a time out, that we are guilty of abuse. I suppose if these things get twisted all around, you could believe that about us, which grieves us deeply. However, when we stand before the God of the universe, we will have a clear conscience that we DID NOT participate in any kind of abuse during our time serving at Escuela Caribe (or any other time in any other place!) We also know that when the Lord called us to follow Him, that we would do so at the risk of facing much persecution, betrayal and hardships, and we’ll consider it all a blessing.
Source:
You CAN'T eat an elephant in one bite! (Sawyers in the sun blog)
