Score International

God is using his servants to help Giovanna

Kelley Ferger — Mon, 07 May 2012 15:49:47 +0000

God uses His people to accomplish His will.

Leadership
God is Sovereign but….He chooses to use men to accomplish many supernatural works. Today, we are seeing miracles as God works on behalf of Giovanna Valdez. However, to see how God cast vision in the hearts of LEADERS is amazing.
It all started with a phone call! Giovanna had a heart defect and needed surgery. It was apparent the surgery needed to be done in the USA but the Valdez family is Dominican without American insurance.
The day our Home Office received that call, God began His Sovereign work to give direction and wisdom to leadership in the Home Office. I sat down and wrote out the following:
1. We need to organize a group to pray, advise, and communicate needs.
2. We need to raise funds.
3. We need a surgical team and hospital.
4. We need consideration for “FREE” (pro bono) services.
5. We need host family to care for Valdez at site of surgery
6. We need transportation to the USA.
7. We need to use ALL available means to communicate information, need, and solicit ideas and funds.
This was our GAMEPLAN. But it was only PHASE ONE!
An Action Committee was formed with 10 people from five states. Ideas began to flow. I spoke with 6 medical doctors in Texas, Tennessee, Kentucky, West Virginia, South Carolina, and Arkansas. I visited Giovanna’s medical doctor in the Dominican Republic. We submitted all medical records to two non-profit organizations in the USA to fund the surgery.
Funds began to come to our Home Office. Over $27,000 has been raised. The first donors were OUR missionaries. Our Dominican staff gave. The first church to give was the Juan Dolio church planted by Nate Jude. Giovanny is a deacon at that church.
Today, we have funds in the Children’s Emergency Medical Fund. Because we were able to get the Vanderbilt Hospital and medical team to donate services, those funds will be available for future needs.
Thank you to the entire team. I am especially grateful for the secretaries in the Home Office for their work behind the scenes. Many people have been used by God in Phase One to accomplish God’s will. It is truly “AMAZING” how much was accomplished in a shorter period of time.
I want to say, “to God be the Glory” because PHASE ONE is COMPLETE!

PHASE TWO
As I study Nehemiah, I see how he devised plans to do the work of God. Therefore, I want to solicit your help as we enter PHASE TWO of our strategy. PHASE TWO involves prayers!! Nehemiah placed a huge priority on prayer.

I am asking everyone to organize small prayer groups. Would you be willing to organize two or three people to form a “Prayer band”? Would you use FaceBook, Twitter, E-mail to ask people to pray! We cannot do anything for the surgery! That is next and we need to pray for Giovanna, the doctors, the nurses, and the Valdez family.

PHASE TWO is all about PRAYER! Help us! The next two weeks are critical. I am calling everyone to PRAY!

LEADERSHIP CONCLUSION
Leadership is seeing needs and taking bold steps to initiate strategy, organizing people, communicating vision, and engaging people in the process to accomplish solutions. Some people see the problem while leaders accept the challenge to find solutions. You can organize a Prayer Group.
Let us all remember…….God is Sovereign. He will accomplish His will……..with or WITHOUT any of us. However, man must be available to serve Him because He delights in using man to do His work when we willingly give Him the GLORY!
Remember, working together with God directing our steps, giving wisdom, and planting His passion in our hearts…..we “can do all things through Christ”. Therefore, let us rally together. We can only rejoice in the completion of PHASE ONE. It is not over until all sing, “Victory in Jesus”!

Maryville Christian School, 4/27

Kelley Ferger — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 12:29:41 +0000

Matthew 24:14 ”And this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.”

Incredible. The only word I can use to describe the experiences here in Costa Rica. The Lord has given this class a humble spirit and a selfless heart. The first day here on Saturday we went to Iglesia Nuevo Amor (New Love Church) and played with about 30 kids. They were beyond excited to see us there and we embraced each child with love. After playing with them we walked around the village there and preached the gospel. We used the gospel cube and passed out tracts. It was incredible to see the look on the Tico’s(name for Costa Rican’s) faces when they realized that they were sinners and if they died today without salvation they would go to Hell. That day around 11 people received Jesus into their heart. Some may say that it was us working through these people but only God could have done what He did that day.

On Sunday we attended the church service here at the compound and really saw Score’s heart for God. It was amazing to see how much they trust God to provide for this organization. After that we went to the Saprissa and Heredia soccer game which was so much fun!! We had never experienced fans that were so excited about watching their team play, it was awesome!!

Monday we went to Alajuelita and played with all the kids and shared the gospel with people in the village. I have never felt more humble in my life. These people were so happy even though they had nothing. I realized how often I complain about little things and only think of myself, instead we should consider each thing as a blessing just like these people in Alajuelita. The kids just laughed and had a blast playing baseball, frisbee, bubbles and getting their faces painted. Our class grew so much closer that day and we left their with joy in our hearts.

On Tuesday we started by going zip lining at Fossil Land. We had an amazing time, although the mountain challenge was very difficult. We went on 5 zip lining courses and there was also a free-fall course where three of us got to do it. They also got the chance to hang upside down. After that we went back to Alajuelita to do VBS with the kids. There were a lot more kids this time and they were all very sweet. Raymond preached the gospel and they were very attentive and wanted to hear what he had to say. It was another humbling experience because of the joy we saw in the kids faces.

On Wednesday which was our last day doing mission work, we distributed food to certain families chosen by the pastor of the village Alajuelita. Each family shared about their lives and it was incredible for us to see what they were going through and how we could pray for them. After that we went to an orphanage and played with the kids. Some of us were getting our whole faces painted while others were playing soccer or frisbee. We thoroughly enjoyed our time at the orphanage and our hearts reached out to each of these kids. Of course all of us wanted to take them with us and cherished each moment spent with them.

I believe I am speaking for all of my class when I say that God has worked in our lives throughout this trip, he has truly changed each of our hearts. We all love Costa Rica and don’t want to leave. Thank you SCORE for allowing us to stay here and for serving us while we were here. God bless all of you and we will all be praying for you!!

Your sister in Christ,

Kaylie Hall (representing Maryville Christian School Class of 2012)

Women’s Mission Week

Kelley Ferger — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 12:39:05 +0000

Women’s Mission Week
October 16-19,2012
Dominican Republic

We invite you to join us in the Dominican Republic for our Women’s Mission Week. This is a 4 in one event: a conference, mission trip, Bible study, and retreat.
Come and meet ladies who have the same desires, needs and challenges that you have. Study God’s Word, minister together and form bonds of friendship that will last long after the conference is over.

Guest Speaker
Ginger Millermon, a gifted songwriter, vocalist, author, women’s speaker and worship leader.

http://gingermillermon.com/

It’s baseball time in the USA!

Kelley Ferger — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 15:17:16 +0000

Ron Bishop with Nelson Cruz (Rangers)

Andy Pettitte pitching at Nov. Baseball Outreach

Mark Melanco (Red Sox) speaking at Nov. Baseball

Mariano Rivera (Yankees) teaching Dominican kids at Nov. Baseball

Chris Coghlan with Ron Bishop

SCORE International has been blessed, over the years, to have many professional baseball players minister to Dominican boys and men at our November Baseball Outreach. Mariano Rivera (Yankees), Andy Pettitte (Yankees), Nelson Cruz (Rangers), Mark Melancon (Red Sox), Chris Coghlan (Marlins) and many others.
Pray for these men to be successful in their walk with Christ and their impact on others as role models. God is using baseball as a platform to make “Jesus Famous”.

Ron Bishop
Founder
SCORE International

Westlake Christian, 4/19

Kelley Ferger — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 15:42:01 +0000

Hello everyone this is Lexie (: and I was chosen to write about our day today. I was chose to write it by spending the least amount of money today at the straw market. I hope you are all doing good. We are having so much fun down here! And sadly we only have one more full day left.
Today we had the opportunity to clean the senior citizenship homes. Felipe our SCORE person picked us up at 9:00. When we got to the senior citizenship home some of the girls, including me had to clean. We cleaned the bathrooms, the floors, the walls, the rails, the tables, and the benches. And the rest of the girls folded clean laundry, and made bed covers for the beds. The boys had to move wood to a different pile so they could smoke out some hornets ( killing the bees!!!) they also had to clean up trash everywhere, and cleaned some more benches, and also swept the floors and moved the beds around. When the boys were cleaning the trash up Isaac found a tarantula on the ground. Then they ended up freaking out and killing it.
Then we headed back to SCORE to eat lunch. We had vegetable soup, chicken fingers, and French fries, and we had passion fruit juice for lunch (according to our translator Felipe from SCORE). After lunch we headed back out to go to the straw market. The straw market is a bunch of individual people selling their items to people. The best part of the straw market is trying to get the sellers to lower their prices so that we can get a good deal. The other groups from SCORE were there as well. I hung out with my friends from the other SCORE group. I bought a switch blade knife, a purse, and some bracelets oh and some sun glasses! Other people bought switch blades, purses, sun glasses, bracelets, coffee mugs, dominoes, baseballs, and other things. After we shopped till we dropped, we took a group picture at the straw market. Then we walked around and fed some pigeons (that was NOT fun at all!). Then we walked to Christopher Columbus’s sons “house” and we also saw Christopher Columbus’s “tomb”. Felipe tried to open the casket but failed!!!!! After we were done sight-seeing we went to SCORE to eat dinner.
For dinner we had some beef and carrots stuff, rice, and flan, and some other stuff ( I don’t remember it all) and we had some more passion fruit juice to drink. After we were done eating a lot of food we went to JUMBO to get some groceries for the house. I bought some Chex mix and had to pay in pesos and American dollars (it was quite confusing).
Well we are having a great time down here! And are sad that we only have one more full day. But we are excited that we have the chance to go to Catalina Island all day tomorrow with the other two groups. Please continue to pray for our safety home and that we can stay healthy! Thanks Bye (:
~Lexie (:

Westlake Christian, 4/18

Kelley Ferger — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 15:41:07 +0000

Hey everybody! This is Ally. We cast lots for who had to write the update today and it fell upon me. I hope you are all doing well and that God is keeping you safe and healthy. We are having so much fun down here and we can’t believe that we only have two more full days left!
Today was construction day. We went to a village called Los Montones and worked with one of the pastors that works at SCORE. He had us build a sidewalk around a building that will be eventually used for a bilingual school and also stain the walls so they will be protected during the rainy season. The boys helped dig the trench where the concrete went and the girls did most of the staining. There was not quite enough work for everyone, so in the afternoon, the girls walked around with Felipe (our SCORE intern/translator) and tried to find some kids to come play with us. Three girls and a boy decided to join us and they taught us hand clapping games and we had a lot of fun doing that for a while. We also played Pato, Pato, Ganzo (Duck, Duck, Goose) and ran a few races. Those Domincans are speedy! ☺ A bunch more kids showed up so we played parachute with them for a while. We decided to do our puppet show for them and afterwards, they sang us a song about Jesus being their Superhero. It was very cute. One of the older guys asked Isaac if he could play guitar so he got it out and we began to sing some songs. He asked if we knew “Lord, I Lift Your Name on High” so we sang it in English and Spanish. He knew a bunch of other songs too so we sang together for quite a while. It was so cool to sing the same song in two different languages while praising God the whole time. I can’t wait until we get to heaven where we can do that again.
After dinner, we went to the church near the SCORE complex and had a devotional with the two other groups that are here. The speaker talked about not being ashamed of our faith. It was a really good message and I enjoyed the time we spent with the other groups.
That was basically our day today. Tomorrow we will go sightseeing in Santo Domingo, go to the straw market, visit an orphanage, and a senior citizens home. Thank you so much for everyone who is praying but please continue to keep us in your prayers as we are all very tired. We will see you soon! ¡Dios te bendiga! (That’s “God bless you” for those who don’t know ☺ )

Westlake Christian, 4/17

Kelley Ferger — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 15:40:11 +0000

Hello, everyone! This is Timmy here to tell you an update on what we’ve done today, April 16, 2012. In the morning, we got on the bus to travel to a preschool in a village. On the way there, we saw a whole lot of sugar cane fields. The setting was like the movie, The House On The Prairie. We got to see oxen pulling wagons of harvested sugar cane. Of course, almost everyone took pictures of the beautiful sight. The roads felt a bit unsecure along the paths of getting to the village. We even passed a bridge that floods normally…
As we traveled to the village, Jason, the founder of a missions school organization we went to work with today, told about almost every kid that attended the preschool. Every kid had their own personality. I was pretty excited about choosing a kid to do activities with. We all received a picture of the kid we chose. Jason told us about the kid I chose. Her name was Nika. There has been a tradition of calling each person in the family by their features. Nika was a very skinny and small child, so her family decided to call her Nika-feo, which feo means ugly. When we got to the preschool, we saw many curious little children. ☺ I was trying to see which one of the little kids were chosen to be with me for the morning. I unfortunately guessed wrong… Hahaha. When I called Nika name, I was kind of nervous at that point. I don’t really know why. Anyway, we all found the child we were paired with, and we performed the Jonah skit we prepared for them. We also taught the alphabet and numbers in both English and Español. During snack time, I passed out alphabet cookies to all the little kids. We got to construct hand puppets with the kids we were paired with. We used little brown paper bags that kids usually bring to school to hold lunches, googley eyes, glue sticks, markers, and safe scissors for kids. I don’t know about every kid, but Nika got marker all over the seat. Hahaha. I said woops every time. I couldn’t really communicate with Nika, because of the lack of Spanish… Because of that, I couldn’t get the point across to Nika that she was putting the backside hair on the front side of the puppet, which I felt so bad when she received it back along with the other kids… ☹ We did one outdoor activity, which was a race of the pairs binded by being stringed on the ankles together. Lexie and the girl she was paired with kind of cheated by hopping instead of walking during the race, but oh well. ☺ Nika didn’t want to do the race of me. I think she was quite scared of me since my size compared to hers was significant… I’d probably have the same reaction if I were in her shoes, I thought throughout the day. We were all kind of sad that we had to go to the next village when preschool was over.
We went to the next village to see the older kids and minister to them as well. Surprisingly, some of the kids from the preschool lived in that village including Nika! We showed the puppet show, played games, and interacted with the kids of the village. The biggest activity was playing parachute with a whole bunch of kids. It was really fun for everyone. Jason had a bag of sports equipment in hand, so kids played baseball and football, too.
After the village, we went back to the school area, which we found a whole bunch of other kids. We first showed our puppet show. My group thought we’ve been getting better since we’ve shown many kids the show already. It’s probably true. Anyway, Jason called the kids to play in the field, which was probably the most tiring part of the day. There were basically kids everywhere in the field asking each of my classmates to do something breathtaking like giving them a piggyback ride while running. In the previous village, many kids already asked for some piggyback “running.” It was all tiring, but everyone enjoyed every second of that time.
What happened to me during that time? I had to sit in the bus while the kids were in the field. Why, you ask? I’ve had some kind of sun rash on my arms and legs… I hope to get rid of this terribly itchy “disease”. I’m just kidding. It’s not a disease, but it’s terribly itchy to the max. I used some itch medicine that didn’t work, but it didn’t work at all. If I get better, I’m sure I’ll tell the next person who updates to tell all of you of what I had and that it went away, but for the rest of the day, I’ll wait for the doctor so he can prescribe me with something better and figure out what I’ve been having. Please pray for me today. I also ask for you to pray for each kid that was paired with my classmates. We will miss them very much.
As we drove to get to the SCORE “base”, the bus stopped at a sugar cane work station, or whatever it was called. Andrew, Mark, and I stayed in the bus while the rest of our group went out to see all the harvest sugar cane that was there. It was impressive stuff. There was a large crane (much smaller than the cranes we have for constructing buildings in the Chicago) that lifted off the sugar cane from the carts that the oxen transferred. Once lifted, the crane moved the sugar cane to the train cars. I saw many pictures being taken. There was a boy named Junior who was sitting on one of the train cars. He came up to us to cut us some sugar cane. It was truly a treat. He cut the sugar cane with a semi-dull machete. Even though it was partly dull, he cut the cane like a pro and handed it out to those who wanted the sweet treat. Our driver went up to an uncut sugar cane and ripped the skin off. It was funny because he was telling us that we really didn’t need the machete to clean the skin off.
When we arrived at SCORE, we got in the line for food first. It was the first time our group was first in line for food at SCORE. It was really tasty food, which was a treat for all the hard work that was done for the day. We only had sandwiches and chips for lunch, but don’t get me wrong, we were thankful for every meal we’ve had.
For the rest of the night, we got back to the villa to have our group discussion and worship. I led the worship with no music prepared, so I was quite nervous, but it turned out well. Of all those years I’ve played worship music at church, I memorized SOME songs. I was picked to write this update because I was the last one to have breakfast this morning… Oh well. It was fun to write this update.
Thank you for reading this update, God bless all of you back at home. Thank you for your prayers. We love you all and wish you all a great rest of the week in school. I will post this on my blog, so check out tfblog.tk (it stands for Timmy faith blog). My blog hasn’t been active because I haven’t had time to blog during the school year. I will start up my blog again, so if anyone wants to read it, go right ahead. ☺ Adios amigos!
Signing out,
Stephen Timothy Yeung

Westlake Christian Academy 4/15/12

Ryan Hansen — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 01:59:15 +0000

Hi everybody, this is Alan Struna, I would like to thank you guys for praying for us and keeping up with the updates. I really have enjoyed this trip with my fellow classmates and I know you wish you could be here but you will have to wait your turn. Please keep praying for us, so that we can reach the people and make an impact on the community here in the Dominican.

Today, what did we do today hmmmm, not much it was pretty boring.

Nooooottttt. I hope you don’t think that’s all I would write. Today, Sunday, was a really fun day and I don’t think anyone disliked today or even the whole weekend. Since today was the day of rest, we went to a Dominican church and worshiped God in two very different languages. The church was pretty small but it was to be expected. Unfortunately, not all of us made it to the church service today because of a little too much sun. Mark had to stay behind today because he wasn’t feeling well, and Mr. Flemming supervised him. Mark rejoined us later in the day, and now he is feeling much better after some much needed rest.

Anyway, the church we went to was a really amazing service for me and the fifty or less people that were there. The church had everything that our normal churches need to have a service, a pastor and a worship team including guitars, drums and many other musical instruments. It was really inspiring on how much you could see the love of God in their hearts even though they have so little. Our team, including myself, could definitely see how great God’s kingdom is around the Earth; it gives you a bigger picture on how great God’s kingdom will be like in heaven. Even though I couldn’t really understand the worship, you could see how much the presence of God was in the room. It is really hard to explain how great the service was, to fully understand. You need to come to the Dominican. Our part of the service included our cardboard testimonies. They told us that they had something for an Ipod to plug in to, but unfortunately, they didn’t have it. Mr. McNeil saved us and winged a song that he knew off the top of his head (a simple chord progression of the song we were going to play using the Ipod). In the end, everything went really well and everyone was very thankful, and everyone shook our hands after the service.

Next, we stopped at JUMBO, which is like a Wal-Mart. Basically, the only difference is that they crammed as many aisles in the store that they can, so that they make sure there is as many traffic jams in the store as possible. Fun fact for you: 1 U.S. dollar is about 38 pesos. Waiting in line for checkout almost took as long as looking for things to buy. The girls also had a fun encounter with a 32 old stalker who was flirting with them. Everyone at Jumbo bought their own stash of food, like Oreos, soda, and chips for 10 dollars.

Luckily, SCORE is right next to the beach, so guess what we did. The beach was really beautiful. Almost everyone jumped in the disgusting, refreshing salt water. The water is really scary sometimes because you can’t clearly see the bottom and you are always thinking about where you are stepping, which the sharp rocks on the bottom create a threat if you’re not careful. No one this year stepped on any sea urchins (not yet, and hopefully never), so we all had fun and got so some sun. The beach for most of the guys, except Brett, David, and Mr. Flemming, didn’t last very long, so most of the guys went back to the house, while the girls enjoyed themselves at beach sun tanning. When the guys came back, we still decided to keep swimming at the house.

Then, we got home and reflected on our day with some worship and a little talk with Mr. Flemming. This trip has been a life changing experience for all of us. Just remember that the things that are on this earth are a gift from God and thank God for everything that you have. God has really blessed us on this trip. Again, thank you guys so much for praying for us, enjoy your day at school.

God bless you guys.

Westlake Christian Academy 4/14/12

Ryan Hansen — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 01:51:56 +0000

Hello, this is David Crisp writing on behalf of the 2012 senior class of Westlake Christian Academy. We all were awake around 8m. We ate breakfast, I had cereal with milk but the milk tasted like it had vanilla in it. After breakfast we got our stuff ready to go to a village in the morning. We packed stuff like puppets (for our puppet show), our testimonies to share with the kids there, and cameras so we could take pictures.

Our driver picked us up and we were off to our first day of missions! It took about 30 minutes to get to the village so I just slept until we got there. Once we got there, some of the kids saw our bus and were running along it waiting for us to stop. We arrived at the center of the village and we came out and met some of the kids there. Felipe, our missionary with us, told us that there are still other kids in the village and to walk around it and gather them to where we were. We started to walk around in groups of 3 to try to gather them up and in no time the kids were all gathered up. We presented our Jonah story to them. They seemed to like it since they laughed a lot at the puppets. We sang some songs with them and afterwards Becca gave her testimony to the kids with our missionary translating it into Spanish for the kids. After Becca gave her testimony Andrew gave his. We then made a craft with them, a bracelet with different colored beads representing Jesus and him saving us from our sins. The kids loved the craft and we had to help them tie them onto their wrist. We then played with the kids. Some of the kids wanted to play baseball so we got a large group to play baseball. While other kids wanted to play with our girl’s hair. According to Megan it was very painful since they were pulling on their hair in every direction. Some played Frisbee and wanted us to carry them on our backs. I was one of the people like many in our group that carried a kid on my shoulders and back, it was a fun experience. Soon time was up and we had to go. We got onto the buss and said our goodbyes very sadly because we made new friends with them.

What seemed like a ride to SCORE to go eat some lunch turned out to be exciting. Our missionary made the bus driver stop near some people that were selling sugar canes. He graciously bought some and gave it to us. I looked like basically a stick of wood. We had to tear a chunk of the stick off and chew it. It tasted really good, extremely sweet; however once you sucked the juice out there was still the pieces of the cane that was in your mouth so we spat it out on the road. WE had lunch at SCORE and son after we sat out for another village.

We arrived at the village and just like the first one, the kids ran with the bus while it was moving. We got out and suddenly I like many others were taken by a kid and called us theirs. We gathered the kids up on a baseball field and presented our Jonah story to them. The wind made it difficult to present but we made it work. After our performance we taught the kids a song in Spanish and played a game with them about the song. After our missionary said that the kids wanted to play kick ball against the Americans. We were up to bat first but soon were on the field with not even producing a single run. The Dominican kids scored 2 times on their batting. However in the end the score was 5 to 3….With the AMERICANS on top!!! After the game of kickball we played with the kids doing different stuff. Like last time all the girls got dragged by the girls so that they could play with their hair. Mr. Flemming was doing kites with a group while others played soccer and leap frog. Time blew by and before we knew it, we had to go. We said our goodbye’s leaving them behind. Some of the kids followed the bus until we were on the road.

We went to SCORE had dinner and came back to our house. We had some devotion time and reflected back on what we did today while also talking about what tomorrow is bringing. I cannot wait until tomorrow.

Westlake Christian Academy 4/13/12

Ryan Hansen — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 01:50:23 +0000

Hello, this is Andrew Jumper writing on behalf of the 2012 senior class of Westlake Christian Academy. We are in the Dominican Republic now. The days leading up to this trip have been long, and I’m glad that we are finally here.

Everyone arrived at the school at around four in the morning. I don’t know about you, but four in the morning isn’t exactly my favorite hour to be awake; for me, if there’s an AM next to the time on my alarm clock, I prefer to go back to sleep until it is replaced by a PM sign. But I managed. We all did. After all, what’s not exciting about going on a plane? …Okay, a lot. But what’s not exciting about going to the Dominican Republic to minister to people? Not that much, in my opinion!

After we had gathered to pray, we proceeded to load the bags into a truck. I don’t know what the girls all packed to make their bags substantially heavier than anyone else’s, and I probably never will. After loading bags, we piled into the school bus and set off towards the airport.

We got to the airport in one piece easily enough, but that was pretty much where our luck ended; apparently there were bombs in the accordion, the guitar, and also inside David Crisp. As the rest of the group waited for Mr. Flemming and Mr. McNeil to sort things out with security, we could only pray that the three potential bomb threats would be able to continue on with us to the Dominican.

As time went by, we started to wonder if we would miss our flight. Seven minutes. Five. Three. We had to go. We started to power-walk to the flight gate (K5, I believe) so we wouldn’t miss the flight. When we arrived at the gate, we tried stalling as much as we could, but it was no use. We had to go.

Thankfully, the instruments, David Crisp, Mr. Flemming, and Mr. McNeil all made it to the gate in the nick of time; just as we were walking in without them, they caught up to us. They wore weary yet victorious smiles, and we continued on our journey.

The next flight went much more smoothly, and we were provided with complimentary headphones. Soon enough, we arrived in the airport of Santo Domingo. We were there. We arrived at the Dominican Republic. After surviving baggage claim, we took our bags outside where a truck was waiting to be loaded with them. It soon became immensely apparent to me that sunscreen would be my best friend in this place.

Once we had loaded our bags into the truck, we loaded ourselves into a bus, which would take us to the hotel that we will be living in for the next week. On the way there, we observed that certain landmarks that we had gotten used to in America were absent here. Like speed limit signs. I am starting to like this place!

When we arrived at the hotel, we were pretty shocked. I would describe to you how nice it is, but just thinking about it makes me feel guilty. I’ll just leave you with two words: Pool. Indoor plumbing. TV. Refrigerator. Okay, that’s more than two words but I couldn’t stop myself. It’s just that amazing.

To make a long story short, after we were done admiring the hotel, we ate dinner, practiced a skit, swam, and went to bed. We look forward to tomorrow, when we will share a puppet show, tell our testimonies, and eat more food.

That’s all for today! Please continue to pray for us and check tomorrow for another update on our missions trip to the DR!