July 19

Last night after dinner we headed down to Malacom to minister to the boys who were out on the street. We performed a skit for them and fed them a warm meal. While most of the boys were in their teens the youngest boy we met last night was 10 years old, which is the same age as our youngest son. It's very difficult to comprehend sending someone so young to look for work to be able to feed themselves.This morning after breakfast and devotionals we headed out to Pastor Esmeralda's Church. We led the children in a few songs and performed a skit, followed by a craft. We then took a short walk down to a small baseball field, where we played baseball and games with the children. After lunch and depleting our water supply we headed back to the base for a short time to refresh.In the afternoon we headed to Pastor Gabriel's Church. Pastor Gabriel is 22 years old and has been leading this church for about six months. As we were heading to the church the rain began again. For awhile we didn't think we were going to be able to have a service. We were told typically the families do not let their young children go out in the rain, do to the poor medical care and the risk of injuries. During a few breaks in the rain a small group of around eight children showed up at the church. We played with the children for a while hoping the rain would let up. We decided to go ahead and do our program with the small group. Prior to starting we prayed with our group and were ready to start when the rain let up. Pastor Gabriel challenged the kids to bring as many of their friends as they could within the next five minutes. Within the next few minutes we had a group of approximately 60 kids. We once again sang songs and peformed a skit. We had so many children we actually ran out of our paper plates for our craft, which we had written a bible verse on. We ended up handing out note book paper, which many of the kids wanted more than the plates. We finished up and headed back to base just in time for dinner.

July 18

Well we prayed for some help with the weather and it cooled some last night and has begun to rain today. we are feeling refreshed after a good nights sleep. As I write the kids are literally dancing in the rain. I am so proud of the way they are adapting and being flexible. During the night we lost power which meant the fans weren't working. This made for a really hot, humid night. When the power goes out, so does the water. This also presented a few challenges. By breakfast the water was working thanks to the help of a generator and the power was back after breakfast. During devotions this morning we talked about being luke warm Christians and losing our first love. Jaime, the YWAM worker who shared devotions, shared that in the south 100 years ago they didn't use the term "born again". They said "I have been captured by His great affection". I loved that. We have been focusing on how our service needs to stem from our love for God and because He loves us. I thought that saying went right along with this. This afternoon we are gong to Le Tanque, the Haitian community. We have spent the morning preparing songs, skits and crafts. Should be fun to hang out with the kids in this community. Since the employment rates in Haiti are around 40% many Haitians come to the DR for work much like the relationship between Mexico and the US. After dinner we will go to Malacom which is a place where street kids hang out. In that area due to the poverty, many families will tell their kids when they reach the age of 10, that they will no longer provide food for them. They still have a home but have to go out and find work in order provide their own food. So sad. We will be taking them a meal and interacting with them for a while. Thank you for your continued prayer. We feel it. We miss you all but are so thankful for this opportunity. Talk to you soon.

June 17

We arrived safely at the YWAM base around 2:00 a.m. DR time after about 21 hours of travel.The last flight was delayed by about an hour and a half due to rain and lightning storms. Unfortunately we were boarded on the plane and had to just wait it out. We were very happy to get to bed and sleep for a bit. After a few hours of sleep we had the chance to get familiar with the base. It has three large villas and a pool which is empty. So sad! This is definitely a tropical climate here and is very humid. We are hoping to adjust to this over the next few days. We stayed on the base today and did some cultural awareness training and worked on our skits for vbs. We also prepared a craft to do with the kids. I think the main excitement today was when a fire truck arrived and we learned that they were here to fill the pool. So exciting. Hopefully we will be able to swim in a few days. We had a few hours this afternoon to rest and shower. We were all glad to have a fairly light day to recover from the prior days travels. We finished our evening with a worship and purity session where John, the leader this week, challenged us to write down the things in our life that we hold on to which distance us from God. After writing those down, we took turns nailing those papers to a cross. We then broke into small groups and prayed for each other. We are all heading to bed with a peace over some of those issues. Tomorrow afternoon we will go a place called La Tanka and do vbs with the Haitian kids there. We are looking forward to getting into the community and loving on them. Pray for us as we continue to adjust to the humidity and for the many opportunities we will have to love on the people here. Everyone is doing well just looking forward to a full nights sleep. We will try to send pictures soon.

In Miami

We landed in Miami around noon today. We got to explore the airport as our gate kept changing. But everyone had great attitudes in the midst of being extremely tired. We are now sitting on the runway in Miami waiting for some lightning storms to end so we can take off and finally get to the Dominican Republic! Thank you for your prayers so far, and please continue to pray-especially for a really great night of rest when we finally make it to our destination so we can start the trip at our best!

We're heading to the Dominican Republic!

We're getting all packed up and ready to go for our trip. Please pray for us as we prepare to go!