Day 5 of my Dominican Republic Missions Trip

July 24:
After my first night where I actually slept well, I woke up to a delicious bacon an eggs breakfast. Immediately after breakfast we got dressed and loaded into the girls orphanage bound bus. When we walked in the gate for the orphanage, each player's hand was immediately grabbed by one, two, and sometimes three little girls. We were all led off to separate parts of the orphanage by Dominican girls ranging from 5-15 years of age. They did everything from singing to us, playing volleyball, and teaching us their special handshakes. It was so awesome being able to be their "big brother" for a few hours. When time came to leave, it was hard to leave, but when we did, all the girls had huge smiles on their faces. We returned to the complex for lunch which consisted of (once again) chicken and rice. We had about an hour of down time which we spent relaxing in the dorm before our game. The game was at the Giants complex where we were staying and was by far the best field we played on. We won 5-2, and after the game,Christian High catcher, AJ Gregorovic, shared his testimony. Once again, we handed out tracts to all the players and fans, and we spent about an hour after the game socializing with the players. Tired from the orphanage and the game, we had one more thing to go to- the SCORE international missionary night. This was basically a gathering for all the groups to come together and have a night of worship. After the service, we had the opportunity to buy souvenirs from some local missionaries. Of course, as any guy would do, I bought a machete. We headed back to the hotel and got a much needed nights sleep.

Day 4 of my Dominican Republic Missions trip

July 23rd:
On the fourth day of our trip, we woke up to cereal, bacon, eggs, fruit, and delicious juice. Once again an outstanding meal. Soon after breakfast we left for our first game which was at the Olympic training park. The game time was scheduled for 10:00, but since it took almost 2 hours to find the field, we started closer to 11. There must have been 100 fields in that park area which were flooded by thousands of baseball players of all ages. Our first game was soon underway and all of us started out extremely nervous. After all, we WERE playing in the baseball capital of the world, and most of those players could start on any varsity team. As I said, we were tight for the first couple innings, but eventually we scored a few runs. Then a couple more. Before we knew it, we were up 11-7. In the last inning I was called on to close. The Dominican team posted a late rally scoring 1 run on a deep no out triple to center, but they failed to score, leaving two runners in scoring position. We were now 1-0 in the DR. After the game, we handed out tracts to all the fans and players, and Calvary Vista 2012 Graduate, Sam Hebert gave his testimony to everyone. Sam finished his testimony and the players from both sides socialized for a while. This is where I met 16 year old shortstop, Kendry Abreu (he spoke almost perfect English!!). He is a very good shortstop who was born in the DR and had a short stay in Manhattan, New York before returning to the DR where he currently lives. It was cool to meet someone from another country who loves the game as much as I do, and to be able to share Christ with him was just awesome! Sadly, the time and to head back to the complex for lunch. We returned to fried chicken, dirty rice, and salad. After lunch we headed off to a local sugar cane village in Santo Domingo. We arrived and were greeted by hundreds of children, all asking for candy and toys (luckily we brought plenty of those!). I handed out a piece of candy to one kid, then another, and another, and before I could save myself, hundreds of kids were jumping on me begging for candy! They were pulling my shorts down, climbing on me, pulling my hair, poking me, and of course, yelling at me in Spanish. I was lucky to get out alive! We handed out whiffle balls and played catch with the local kids. The 9 year old I was playing catch with probably threw harder than most 13 year olds here in the U.S.! After a few hours, we had to leave so we could get back to the complex in time for dinner. We had some delicious spaghetti and salad for dinner along with some wafer cookies. We went over the very long day in our devotions and then went to bed at 11:00 local DR time.