Thursday, July 31st

Today was another gorgeous day in the Republic. Lets see if I can draw a picture for you what this resort is like. A resort on the beach with the an island look of openness. Palm trees and flowers everywhere. The open air eating areas, pools, flamingos, and a breeze that you can die for.
Breakfast, lunch and dinner right at the beach. Devotion time on the beach.
Every morning at 7:25 hundreds of swallows swoop the property to feed but not low enough to bother anyone. It is amazing to watch.
As far as baseball goes. We played a baseball and softball game at the same time in the morning. I coached the softball game today and lead the message after with about 40 men. It is just so cool to watch the Lord work in the hearts of a new believer.
We had the rest of the day off to rest and relax.
As in any other 3rd world country the internet is very hit or miss. Lately more on the miss.
Tomorrow we have another set of games in the morning and will be visiting and sharing at an orphanage out in the sugar cane fields. This will be a great way to finish up this trip. We leave lat Saturday afternoon.
This will most likely be the last entry until I return home unless I can find access tomorrow night.Thank you for all your prayers. This has been a blessed trip. An amazing showing of God's grace and love for all people who call on HIS name!

Wednesday July 30th

Today was another beautiful day on the island.
All together we put some money together and went to the supermarket(kinda like a target). 24 of us each got a cart and we all purchased the same things. Can you picture this 24 people in a row, in a line, going all over the store. We used all of their carts so no local was able to shop like they wanted to until we were done. When we gathered about 10 items off we went to the register. 24 people in one line to cash out. The bill ended up to be about 450 american dollars or 13,000 pesos.
Each cart had enough to feed a family for about 4 days. Off we went to a village that is very poor. We pulled up and all of a sudden there was hundreds of people around the bus. Crowd control was not a problem because they were happy to see us. The down side was that we could only give to half of the families there. They were very appreciative and were very receptive to the message we shared. All of the kids played with a soccer ball that was purchased will the adults heard the message and received their gifts of food.
In the afternoon were went to another ball field. This time there was a softball game and baseball game to be played. I coached the softball game to which we lost 6 to zip. We had a great game. It was much closer than the score reflected. After the game I lead the message and that went very well. After the message I was invited to met with th commander(like a senator) of the area. He heads the recreation, education and tourism for 8 big cities and hundreds of people. He was excited to see what we were doing and opened the door to any of his cities and wants us back whenever we can come. He said whatever we want to let him know and he will make it happen. It was great to see God at work with this new relationship.
Well I am off to the team devotion, will share more later.

Tuesday, July 29th

Today was a more relaxing day. We went into Santo Domingo to experience the local culture by going to what they call a straw market. It was a building with hundreds of small shops selling everything you can think of and more. Santo Domingo has an "old town" area. This is where Christopher Columbus' son lived. His house is still in good shape after all these years. It looks more like a fort. The downtown area is like a cross of 3rd world and modern all in one.
The afternoon was spent doing a clinic for the Rico Carti foundation. Over 100 kids were involved with the clinic and responded well to the salvation message afterwards. This area was the poorest we had been to so far. The weather has been beautiful but hot! Rico and a few players from the pro team we played yesterday will be acompanying us to play with us in tomorrows game. The night game for tonight has been canceled because many of our players need time to rest and recover.
This has been a great trip and I have taken more pictures than I usually do so hopefully there will be enough to reflect some of what I experienced. This area is a great place for a first time mission experience. There are many different groups that we have crossed paths with that are first timers.
So keep that in mind if you are looking to do some international mission work!

Monday

Another wonderful day in the Dominican.

Even though the physical side of baseball has been fun the spiritual nourishment has been more than I can share on this blog. Being able to be with a few pastors from different denominations and a jewish christian leader, the old and new testament really comes alive.
I just feel so blessed to see the fruits of saying yes to coming here. I would have missed out on all the revelation knowledge that has been shared. Between late night talks and spontaneous conversations with all ages. It is just so cool to be with youth that have the commitments, and boldness to serve our Lord and Savior.

Today we had the opportunity to play at 2 different fields. The morning game was in San Padro. It was in the middle of a poorer part of the city in a park that had a few fields. They seemed to be stuck in the middle of this densely populated city. They were not well groomed and trash was all along the inside of the park (definitely 3rd world). There were weeds and stones all through the playing fields. It was very difficult to play on this field but it was what they had. They too were very good ball players.
In the afternoon were drove to the other side of town that revealed an upper scale ball field. We pulled up to a field that looked like one of the USA's triple A stadiums. What a beautiful place. The Houston Astros farm team is who owns this field. It sat 10K plus. Sounds like it will be about the same size as the new Braves stadium that is coming to Gwinnett. This was a dream to play in and on a field like that. Against players that were expected to be on the pro circuit in the Dominican within the week. These young men were the real deal. We lost to them 10 to 3. The more special part of the day was being able to share the good news of Christ to them after the game. To see that they will be making a big professional decision in less than a week and giving them an opportunity to make a spiritual decision today was even better.

By the way.... thank you for your prayers. My body is holding up real well. God is a great physician. I can't believe that my arm and legs are not even sore.

Tomorrow morning we will be doing some sight seeing and shopping for junk (gifts)to bring home. In the afternoon we are going to be doing another clinic. It is possible that we may play a night game a the Astros field under the lights(that would be real cool).

The time is going by so fast on this trip. This is only the second time that I have been able to enter anything on the blog. Realizing that I have been here for 5 days already. Half way through the trip.
Oh, a little on the Dominican families. The average yearly income is 10 - 12k a year. This may give you an idea of the life styles they lead.

Keep praying for me and for the preparation of the hearts of those we will come in contact with over the next few days.

Dominican Republic Sunday July 27th

Hello from the Dominican.
On this trip there is 25 people from 4 different churches. 2 from GA, 1 from FL, 1 from TN.

Flying into the Dominican we flew over the tip of Haiti. You could see the difference in the 2 countries. Haiti was brown & barren and the Dominican was green & active.

We are east of Santo Domingo right on the beach in a huge 5 star hotel(?). It is beautiful on the grounds. We eat all of our meals in an open cabana right off the beach. We are really suffering on this trip!!

On Friday, we had 2 games in a stadium that houses the local pro team. One sat about 4,000 people. The other was at the ministry location here called Score. This field was the best field groomed filed I have ever sen. After each of the games we shard the salvation message to over 50 people each time.

On Saturday, we did 2 clinics. In the morning it was at a park that had 4 fields and over 400 kids. Translators were at a minimum during the clinics. These kids were out of control but it was amazing to see how God focused them in during the message afterward.
The afternoon clinic was at a pasture on the outskirts of a village much like we seen in Haiti. The kids were well behaved and we well schooled in the game of baseball. That was an amazing experience. Rico Carti, Sammy Sosa, and the recent ex Braves player Julio Franco are a few that we will be working with this week. They have allot of respect here an have foundations that are doing wonders for these kids.

On Sunday morning we drove 1 hour to church. 100 people were representing the Score ministry and 100 were members. It was packed and you could see the Lord moving through that congregation. We have the rest of the day of today to rest up and stay hydrated. It is real easy to get dehydrated because of the great weather. Please continue to pray that this aging body can hold up to playing all the upcoming games and working through the clinics without any injuries. It has been great so far.

Thursday 8/2

Its early morning and we are packing once again to leave for the 6 hour bus trip to Campo Grande. It is very hard to leave this city. The kids are so appreciative of our presence here. The game yesterday drew so much attention that we are all over the paper and national news. This is another big step in getting the interest level with the business community to support the local game with funding to keep it going without outside support.
We should be in Campo Grande in time for the Thursday evening praise service at our host church.
We will be up at 4ooam Friday morning to start our trek home. We fly from Campo Grande to Sao Paulo at 700am. We have a 11 hur lay over in Sao Paulo, This is actually a god thing because many people are missing the flights because of the slow down at the airports with the air traffic controllers and group crews because of the issues over the plane crash last week. If we make all the plane connections ok we should be in Miaimi at 7ooam Saturday morning. Them arriving home in Atlanta around noon.
I will be like leaving family this time!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Please continue to pray for safe and protected travel. For us to have no issues at the airports. For God´s blessings and mercy to continue to be showered on the local pastors and thier families.
Ckow!

Thursday 8/2

Wednesday 8/1

Today we had a clinic with about 15 kids in the morning. They have so much energy so we played a few running the bases games which tired them out in about 15 minutes. These kids are about 10 years old, both boys and girls. They have greatly improved from last year.
This after noon was great. The news and local government was at the main baseball field. The place was packed. Teh traveling team from Corumba against Atlanta. The Corumba teams average age was 17. The Atlanta teams was about 35. We were tied up going into the last inning and we pulled out a win.
These kids played great fundementally. Plus they were alittle younger. It is great to see how global baseball has impacted this area and has taken kids out of troubled homes and given them a purpose. We are watching the last karate demo and going out for all you can eat itialian food at 10pm.
Got to go.
Chow