We finally started our mission activities on Tuesday. My team and another are working in the Baracones slums in San Juan. Pastor Tony, the head of the church we are working with has pretty much given us free reign to do whatever type of ministry we feel called to. When we first arrived, we knew pretty much instantly that we would be working mainly with kids as we were quickly surrounded by one hundred plus kids from the area.
We have spent the first couple of days mainly playing with the kids and praying with the families in the area. The kids are awesome, but it is hard to get them organized when there are so many and most of us really struggle with our Spanish, though it is getting better day by day. They do however love to play baseball and it is instantly organized. It is so good to get to play it with the kids. It is defiantly a common passion in the Dominican.
One highlight of the last two days was yesterday I got to visit with a 64 year old man and talk to him about his family, faith, and his experience living in the Dominican. He was great and told me he would give us sugar cane the next day. I told him I would look forward to it as I have never had it before.
I had forgotten this until walking around this morning and he literally stopped us in the streets to give it to us. He came up and put two three foot tall canes in my hands then told me to wait. He ran inside and got a knife and cut one up for us while we were there. His family tried to show us the right way to eat it but I’m sure we looked like fools for a while since we had no clue how to eat it and could not understand what they were saying. Eventually, we got the technique down and it is a great treat.
It really touched my heart that someone with so little would be so eager to share so much with us. It really speaks to the culture of giving that is prevalent in the Dominican.
The rest of this week we are going to try to mix some English lessons in with our game time with the kids and continue to walk around and meet families and pray for them. Next week we will start trying to get VBS type activities for the kids.
I’m still working on getting photos uploaded but in the mean time enjoy a picture of some of my teammates with some kids and a coach at a baseball practice we were invited to and the video my team made for a video contest our squad was holding.
