God is opening doors!

Okay, so one of the coolest things happened this past week. I have always thought it would be sweet to bring the teams I coach to other cities to play. Well, thanks to the idea and pushing of my wonderful intern, we finally made it happen. So this past Wednesday we loaded up two trucks of people to head down to a nearby city called La Vega (about 30 min away). The boys baseball ministry site also was scheduled to play a game in the same facility as well, but thanks to the rain, theres was canceled which means their whole truck of guys came to cheer (I mean CHEER, for real, loudest cheering I've ever heard). We had two divisions, "infantil" and "juvenil". The infantil was the group of girls I work with (ages 11-14). Then I, Cristi (the greatest intern ever), and some other girls I have worked with in the past wer able to play with the juvenil. The infantil team won but our juvenil team lost. Here is a pic of our team from Jarabacoa (missing Cristi my intern)


However, that’s not the main thing I want to talk about. The best part of the day was that one of the Americans that was on this missions team was able to share her testimony with the entire gym. She had a powerful testimony of coming from an extremely broken home but offered hope of a father above who cares, even when her earthly father doesn't. Wow. So powerful and especially impactful in this culture. Soooo many kids here grow up without a father and personally I think that's why so many marry so young. They grow up longing for that love of a father. As they enter puberty and start getting attention from guys, they CLING on and move in with their boyfriends/ get pregnant.

Anyways, when I got up to expound on her testimony and the power of the love of our father, there were numerous girls crying as a response. Gloria a Dios! (Glory to God) Also, after the game, I was able to connect with the coach and many girls on the older team. First of all, I’ve MISSED good volleyball. I kinda thought when I came here, it meant giving up that part of my life. Well folks, NOT YET!!! This team from La Vega is incredible and they invited me to practice and play in games with them. So today, I went down to La Vega and practiced with the team. I sweated a ton, the coach yelled the entire time… and I LOVED IT! I also talked with the coach and he wants us to bring groups to play every other week now and share a message every time we come. Gosh, experiences like this get me so fired up! I’m so glad God can use our passions for his glory! God is sooo good!!! Below is a picture of all those that participated in our games.


Prayer Request: There have been numerous break-ins during the past month, often to American missionaries. Today at 11 o'clock during the DAY, someone tried to break into my house. My car wasn't in front so I think he thought I wasn't home. Anyways, I grabbed a knife and yelled at him and he left. But it still totally freaked me out and still worries me. Pray that God will just protect my house and more than anything, just give me a peace to not worry about the house.

Summer Teams!

We have now gotten in the swing of having summer teams. I rememeber going into summer teams last year feeling like I had NO CLUE what I was doing. My spanish was still pretty rusty and SI expected me to start a new site and minister to the summer teams as well. To say the least, I was scared and thought I did not have the capicity to do it. However, with SI's support and Gods incredible help, I survived. Going into a new summer with more spanish and clearer vision, its exciting to see how God is going to work this summer. Here are some updates of things that are going on these days.

Training Disciples- Jesus calls us to make disciples. God (and my pastor) have kept reminding me of this call and I decided to take it to the next step with my girls. The average age of my girls is 13 so I wasn't sure what approach to take. However, I thought, why not let them give the bible lesson. They have heard me enough and they know the basic idea. So far, two of the kids have given a lesson and it has worked out great!!! They give me an idea of what they want to talk about and then I help them look for scripture to use. So neat to see them preach!

New Intern (Cristi)- I have a sweeeeet intern with me this summer. She does a great job with the girls. Her energy not only pushes the girls, but really helps me out too. God has blessed her with such joy that has definitely picked me up at crucial times. For example, we just figured out how to connect an ipod adapter (thanks Ashley Pagel for your awesome donation) to my car and had an amazing singing party in my car to a high school musical song. I was seriously ready to go for the rest of the day!

Anticipating Visitors- On the next outreach, 3 girls who came on an outreach last summer plotted together to all come on the same outreach again this summer. They come in a week and I am soooo excited to see them again. With all the short terms trips always coming and going, its nice to have some girls come back! One of those girls just happens to be my sister! She came with an outreach and will be coming back again for a couple weeks. So EXCITING!

Goodbye- My brother, Josh, just left for Burkina Faso, Africa to serve with the peace corp! He will be living there for 2 years and teaching Math to highschoolers in FRENCH! He's such a stud, I'm so proud of him. However, its a bit hard for my family because during that 2 years, he will not be able to come home. Keep him in your prayers!

Birthday- I celebrated my 24th birthday during this month. It was so cute. The kids threw me a birthday part and then we had a domino tournament with my friends. Below is a pic of some of my friends.


Okay thats about all for today! Take care and please keep me posted on what's going on in your lives! Congrats to my friends Lo and Matt and their engagement! So exciting!