Dominican Diaries

This online diary was updated daily during the IWU Women's Basketball team's trip to the Dominican Republic from August 8th-15th.

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August 15, 2006

Today was a very long travel day back from the D.R. Our day began by waking up at 5 a.m. to pack up and leave for the airport in Santiago. After we arrived in Miami, Florida at 11 a.m. we had a 7 hour layover until we would leave for Indiana. Many of us were dreading such a long time in the airport, but our time together as a team once again proved to be a great time of fellowship as we played cards and made up our own games to learn even more about each other. I must admit I was a little nervous to fly with the latest news of terrorist attacks but God had his hands upon us and got us home safely.

As I reflect back on the week, I see pictures in my mind of the hundreds of young children smiling ear to ear with twinkles in their eyes. The most exciting part of this trip for me was seeing how the children loved to be loved. Although there was a language barrier, there was not a smile, hug, or laughter barrier. And boy did we share many of those throughout the week.

It has been so exciting to see how God is working in the lives of my coaches and teammates by using this mission’s trip. Patience seemed to be a constant theme for me this week. From not being able to thoroughly communicate without the help of a translator to being punched in the stomach during one of our games. God was definitely testing my patience.

I am so lucky to have been part of this experience. Also, I am blessed to be part of such an amazing group of young women who are striving to grow in their walks with God and use their talents in basketball to share God’s love with each other. Thanks to all who supported and prayed for us during this trip. It could not have been made possible without you.

Senior, Katrina Spitler

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August 14, 2006

Today was a relaxing sunny day in the Dominican! We woke up in the beautiful resort and headed to breakfast as a team. It was great to see omelets and French toast. Even though they were a little different than the usual American food we are used to, they were still delicious and we were thankful.

After breakfast we took a bus ride to a town called Sosua where we tested our bartering skills at the Dominican beach shops. It was funny to watch different girls try to lower the prices. I was one of many who felt a little uncomfortable when I asked them to change it. It was a great experience. Some of the souvenirs we bought included: paintings, jewelry of all sorts, and even Dominican athletic jerseys. A couple of the girls got their hair breaded by the women at the beach and some of them took a banana boat ride (From what I hear they took a few spills, but the water felt great!). The shopping experience was a blast and the beach was beautiful. The ocean water was crystal clear and the white sand was clean and soft on your feet. I thank God for the awesome nature He has created for us to enjoy. While I was at the Sosua beach, I thought about how blessed I am to be part of such an amazing life changing opportunity as this missions trip has provided.

We were at the beach for a few hours and then we headed back to the resort to have our last lunch buffet and then check out. The entire team soaked in the sun as we lounged by the pool for many more hours and enjoyed MANY Banana Mamma Smoothie drinks (By this time, we each personally drank around 7 drinks in two days!). After many tanning hours, we headed back to Santiago for dinner and the farewell party.

Our team enjoyed our last meal at the G.O. Ministries building and then had a going away night. Some of the children in the town came to play games and say goodbye. We got some last photos with them and said our thank yous and goodbyes. It was emotional for some people and I felt very appreciative for all of the hard work and kindness the missionaries had provided for us. They even made us a slide show of pictures to watch before we headed off to sleep. It was a great way to reflect on all of this weeks events. I still get chills when I look at the pictures of the innocent Dominican children reaching their arms up to our team just loving to be loved. It was a nice way to recap the entire trip.

Our team really grew closer together on this trip and God provided many opportunities for growth. I pray that the Santiago community will continue to invest their time in learning more about Christ as their personal savior. Pray for our team as we head back to the United States at 5:30 am tomorrow morning! God is good…all the time! He has truly changed our lives and the lives of those around us.

Junior, Brooke Amstutz

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August 13, 2006

Simply indescribable! Today, we got to admire yet another one of God’s gifts to us. We had a great afternoon on one of the Dominican Republic beaches.

The day started out with a church service held in a community building. Of course, we could not understand much of anything, but I think that I can speak for everyone in saying that God’s presence was felt!! It was awesome to know that, no matter the language, we are serving a great God and He understands each and every prayer. During the service, some of the church’s youth got up front and performed a song with motions and all. I know the smile could not be wiped off my face as I saw these children worship. There was a time of communion later on and it was amazing to see two cultures that are so completely different have so much in common.

After church, we headed back to our home away from home for yet another meal of chicken and rice. Don’t get me wrong, it tastes just fine but we as Americans are spoiled with our variety of foods.

After about a two hour drive, we caught a glimpse of it…the beautiful blue-green water that no camera can possibly capture the beauty. We made it to our resort and immediately found our way to the beach. It was so nice just to relax to the soothing sound of the waves crashing on the beach. The rooms were nice and BIG with wonderful warm showers that everyone had been looking forward to. Supper was also excellent! With the resort, they had an all-inclusive buffet. So, it was salad, steak, chicken, hamburgers, rice, potatoes, green beans, pasta salad, and even a variety of cakes for dessert. We also discovered the unlimited, mouth-watering pina coladas and banana mamas smoothies!!!

After we had soaked up every last ray of sun, it was nice to just sit together as a group and share all the amazing memories we have made throughout this week. It has gone so fast yet it seems like forever ago when talking about what we did when we first arrived. During the sharing, as it does many times, the power went out. At that moment, I happened to look up to catch a glimpse of the beautiful, starry, night sky, and it gave me just another example of how great and powerful our God is.

This trip has been such an adventure and I am so glad that I got to spend it with the amazing fourteen girls on the team. The memories made here will last a lifetime.

Red shirt Freshman, BreAnne Miller

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August 12, 2006

What another great day in the D.R.! Our day started off quite early due to a rather large cockroach that decided to fly into our bunk house at about 12:30 a.m. Luckily, we still had the lights turned on and we spotted it….and (maybe) killed it… All of us girls basically screamed at the top of our lungs and woke up the houses around us….including Coach’s room. It was a fun moment though and we made a good memory. Don’t worry, we now check our sheets at night!

We had breakfast this morning at 7:30 and then we traveled to the capital, Santo Domingo, to play our last game. It took about two hours to get there. Along the way, it was really awesome to see the beautiful mountains and scenery. It is a humbling experience to see just how much we have compared to their primitive lifestyles.

We played against a group of professional girls from the Santo Domingo area. We won 65-53. They were a tough and very talented team. After the game, Coach Brooks shared with the opponent a little bit about how God has been working in his life. It was a great message.

On our way back to Santiago, we stopped for lunch. We had some AMERICAN FOOD…fried chicken, French fries, and Gatorade. AMAZING! When we arrived back, we showered up.

Tonight, we went to a concert in the community. It featured several local Christian rappers. Even though we had no idea what they were singing, it was awesome to interact and worship God with the Santiago community. We have had the privilege of listening to Spanish Christian music on the bus when we travel to our games so we have become familiar with that genre of music. There is one song in particular that we have learned to love and that group was there and played our new favorite song live for us tonight. During the middle of the concert, a local pastor came and evangelized to the neighborhood. Over 30 people came forward to accept Christ into their hearts tonight so that was very exciting to see!

After the crazy Christian concert, our team went back and had our own team devotions. We took time to reflect on another great day and on how God is using the IWU Women’s Basketball team to serve the Santiago community. Such a great experience!

Senior, Katy Hinkle

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August 11, 2006

God provided a glorious day for us today. It was filled with rain, sun, laughter and worship. Chapel started off just wonderful this morning. Liz (Howerth) shared her testimony on how God wasn’t always the center of her life. She used a demonstration with a flat basketball and a basketball filled with air. The flat one represented a life without God and the one with air represented a life with God. I think God really spoke through Liz today because afterwards 20-25 girls accepted Christ when offered the gift of salvation.

God has been working wonders through the hearts of the Dominicans through us as a team. Today during our first session, there was a huge downpour that lasted for about 45 minutes. Instead of all the little girls running for shelter, they all stayed out in the rain to sing and dance and, of course, we joined in. They were singing Spanish praise songs and jumping around like a bunch of monkeys. The Lord really answered our prayers today by breaking the language barrier because no matter the race, size, shape, or color of the person, they can still sing praises to the most high God, even if you don’t know Spanish. We also said our tearful goodbyes today since it was our last day of camp. We took tons of pictures and even gave them candy. Some of us received a gift from the Dominican girls as well which was a touching gesture since we have so much and they have so little. Overall camp was amazing and I know we made an impact in their lives.

The last game of the tourney was tonight and we won against the blue team. It wasn’t our most graceful win but a win is a win and we had fun praising the Lord while we were playing. After we were done we went to get some ice cream! Yes, I know you think that all we eat is rice and chicken, but come on we need a little ice cream too! Ice cream was a great way to end a spectacular day down here in the Dominican Republic.

Freshman, Lindsey Waggoner

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August 10, 2006

The trip this far has been really amazing! We’ve been helping run an all girl’s camp and it has been so fun trying to communicate with them even though we speak different languages. The girls are great to be around and really a blast to hang out with.

But my favorite part of the trip so far has definitely been visiting the feeding center today. The feeding center we visited today was in what they call “The Hole”. It was most certainly an eye-opening experience. Basically, it was a hole filled with trash and was surrounded by tiny houses where people lived. It absolutely broke my heart seeing all the little children who are completely oblivious to their surroundings. They were so precious with their smiling faces trying to talk to us, wanting us to hold them, love them, and just play with them. It was truly a touching scene to pass out food to all these kids knowing that this could be their only meal for that day. It is so encouraging to know that G.O. Ministries is doing something to help these kids and from what we saw they are making great leaps to help make a difference in the lives of these people.

Tonight we played against the home town team from Santiago so there was a nice crowd which made it pretty exciting. Our team came together pretty well and we got off to a good start and led the whole game. It is great having our whole team together and seeing what everyone brings to the team. Some of the girls have been given the opportunity to share their testimony with the campers and opposing teams. BreAnne (Miller) spoke this morning and, of course, did awesome! She talked about how God helped her to get to where she is and how He helped her make it through her struggles with leukemia and prove the doctors wrong by being here and playing basketball. And then she showed them up even more by scoring in tonight’s game. Lisa also did a really awesome job giving her testimony at halftime. It’s great to hear and learn more about my teammates and it has been so fun getting to know all of them this trip.

So basically today was my favorite day and I’m so glad to be here and even more glad to be here with the people that I am with. I can’t wait to see how God is going to work in our lives and the lives of the people we encounter for the rest of this week!

Senior, Stephanie Culp

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August 9, 2006

Today was an amazing day! It was our first full day of service here in Santiago and although it was tiring, we were able to see God at work in so many ways. We started our day off at 7:30 AM with a wonderful breakfast. Then it was off to the camp site to see all of the kids for the first time. We sang songs in Spanish (the team is actually picking up a lot of Spanish from just being around the kids), and Brooke (Amstutz) gave a testimony and talked about God’s love. The kids responded very well and it was an encouraging way to begin our sports camp ministry. From there, we had a morning session from 9-11 AM and then it was lunch and siesta time! One of my favorite things we learned today is that the whole country takes a break from 12-2 P.M. to rest. That was much needed as we have had a few long days under our belt. We went back to the dorm and ate chicken and rice for lunch (which definitely hit the spot) and we all took a wonderful siesta? The pace of life is different here than in America, I couldn’t imagine everyone in the U.S. taking a break for two hours (although I think it is definitely needed considering our pace of life). Then it was back to camp from 2-4:30 PM. Camp consisted of a skills test, shooting practice, free throws, dribbling, passing, rebounding and half and full-court games. It was a lot for one day but the kids really enjoyed it.

Talking about camp brings me to our first major challenge— the language barrier. We do have a few translators, but it is difficult to have one with us all the time. We have found that it is very difficult to communicate with these girls and say all that we want to say, but we quickly learned to use our bodies and hand motions to show what we mean. The girls are learning to understand us just as well as we are learning to understand them. This has shown us that God is bigger than any language barrier. No matter how much we feel like we aren’t able to communicate with the kids, our smiles and just loving of them has proven to be a great witness, not to mention it’s a blast for us! Even though we can’t understand all they say, we can see their unique personalities in how they interact with one another and with us. It has been great being able to serve and be a part of their lives.

Camp took up a large portion of our day, but we came back and ate dinner and were off again to watch and play some basketball! We have sharp, red uniforms that say U.S.A. on them. It’s a good feeling knowing we are representing America and doing it in a way that honors God. Our game tonight was against La Vega. The competition was good and a few girls from the other team play for the National team here in the Dominican Republic. It was a physical game and it took us awhile to get used to the style of play. It even took us a while to get used to dribbling and shooting somewhere different than where we’re used to. We slipped some ministry into the night by having Kyra share her testimony at half-time of the game. It was a pretty good game but we ended up pulling away at the end to win. We had a post-game talk from Coach Brooks and he reminded us that this is a hard experience but that this is where God can shape us the most. Will Partin (our Director) was a great encouragement to us tonight and told us that a lot of the guys were impressed with how we played and said we are pretty? But more importantly, he encouraged us as an “outsider” that he sees the joy that we have as being our biggest witness. It’s amazing to feel incompetent to do this ministry (not speaking Spanish, etc.) and really see that it’s God that’s in control! He’s strongest in our weaknesses and we’re learning to rely on God’s strength to a greater degree. Keep praying for us and this ministry—God is doing some awesome things!

Senior, Liz Howerth

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August 8, 2006

We arrived in Santiago, Dominican Republic today. We left IWU at 5:00 A.M. and flew from Indianapolis to Miami, Florida and finally to Santiago. We had a good meal and got to rest a little before our practice. During the time of rest, I enjoyed just watching some of the residents. All the houses and shops are packed closely together and right off of the street. The houses are opened up and all the people are just out. I would think that people could easily build community and have fellowship with one another because everybody is actually outside of their houses and doing life together, which is a little different than in America. We have our houses with yards and tend to stay in and around our house until with have to go somewhere. These people tend to spend most of their time outside of their houses and enjoy each other’s company.

Brooke (Amstutz) and I got a chance to talk with one of the girls who is going to be a camper. She mostly speaks Spanish, but also speaks some English. Brooke and I were testing our Spanish, but she was better in English than we are in Spanish. Even though we could not speak fluently to one another, we felt connected just by smiling and touching.

I don’t know what God has planned for us as a team or for the people of the Dominican Republic, but I am excited to see what the week holds. Already I know that we don’t need the right words to show Jesus. We just need to serve these campers and show them Jesus through our smiles and actions. I am excited for our team to grow closer together by serving others. At the end of the week, I’m sure we will have many stories of how God touched other’s lives as well as our own.

Junior, Lisa Thompson

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