6/3 Tuesday DR Trip

(I journaled each day on the trip and then decided to post the entries upon our return to the US)

Tuesday 6/3/08

We were Definitely SORE this morning...but we just took some tylenol and pushed on!

We began devotional at 7:30am today and Stephanie shared her testimony with the group which was again encouraging to hear about her journey in her relationship with Christ. After our usual breakfast we headed over to the church to continue working on clearing the ground so we could start digging the trenches for the cement. Today we spent a lot of down time playing with the kids and helping to create a baseball/recreational field in the empty lot next to the church. We officially named the field “Toma Tomalo” after a song that we sang at church on Sunday. We have all been going around saying Toma Tomala all week being funny. The field was pretty gross and had tons of trash, glass bottles, bones, bugs, manure, and weeds we had to clear out. Andrew H. was a former pitcher for the Giants and took the field under his wing as his mission to create a field that would bring children closer to playing near the church. It was amazing to see how much trash we cleared out of the field in less than an hour. The lot already looked 10 times better and we still have a ways to go until the kids can play on it.

During lunch today some of the people on our team stayed behind to practice Hillsong’s “From the Inside Out” in Spanish to perform at the service on Thurs. J stayed behind to play back-up guitar to Carl so I stayed just to watch them practice. Ana ended up teaching Mandi and I the song in Spanish (She is one of our fluent Spanish speakers on the trip) and by the end of lunch I was singing up on stage as well. This is pretty funny seeing as 1. I’m the worst Spanish speaker and 2. I can’t sing…haha. Anyway, Ben, Ana, and Mandi all have wonderful voices so they drowned me out anyway. Plus the Dominicans love them some LOUD music. Their worship team that helped us with the song were incredible! It was cool getting to know a few guys in their band. Aldolfo, their bass guitarist, actually records and produces music for a living. Their lead worship pastor is an art teacher part-time along with working at the church. Hearing someone worship God in another language is amazing and makes you realize even more how Huge God is and how small we are. I was just there for moral support and to give God praise! I love that song now. I will add the lyrics in Spanish later. We also practiced “Mighty to Save” in English, which we will perform the same night along with the rest of our team! How fun!

After working for a few more hours (Did I mention it is sweltering hot here and we are all applying sunscreen like crazy), we got back to the hotel and ate dinner (Rice and beans are getting pretty old at this point!). Then we had our devotional where Ben shared his testimony and was so open with us that it inspired me to add a few more things to my testimony. We went to bed early Tues. because by the end of the day we are just so exhausted we can barely do anything else.