Amor a Quisqueya vs. California

All week long we have had 55 people from California here telling us how great their state is. They try telling me that Cali is the best state, that their oranges are better than Florida's, and that they are better when it comes to sports. I have to give them props on beating the Buena Vista All-Star team the other night but when it came time to play our church softball team last night it was a different story. The entire group came to watch the game and they were so loud during the first inning, showing their California pride. But after Isidro hit 4 homeruns (we hit 9 as a team) and we won the game 26-6 the crowd was definitely quiet. We appreciate all the California team is doing as they serve with us in the DR, but we just gave them a good old Dominican spanking last night! Go Amor a Quisqueya!

Baseball Outreach

There is a baseball team that came here from California to do a clinic for the kids at Luis' sports site. It has been an amazing expereince for these students so far, but the highlight of their outreach had to have been Friday night. Friday night the team played a local men's all-star team from Buena Vista. This team of high school students played against some of the best players in the area under the lights in front of a crowd of about 100 people. Trailing 3-2, the Americans hit 3 homeruns in the top of the 7th to win! It was a once in a lifetime opportunity for these kids and it was a great experience to be apart of.

The team celebrated their third homerun of the 7th inning!

New Base Update #3

A lot of work is going on here at the new base. I spent 2 days putting the primer on Carlos' apartment with a 2 teams leaders from the last outreach. We will be painting his apartment along with the rest of the maintenance building soon. Today the foundation is being poured for our new 2 story building. We are excited about the progress of the new base. We are still in need of some funding in order to complete this project so if you are interested in helping please email me at kawilson23@bellsouth.net.

Postcard from the Dominican....#3

6 weeks in the DR are done. Obviously the biggest news of the last 2 weeks was my moto wreck. I thank God for my safety there because if you look at the road I was on, I was extremely lucky. God taught me a lot during this past outreach during my time with Him. I have five weeks left before I return home to Florida and there is a lot of unknowns once I get back. I have no idea what or where my next ministry will be. God showed me that He just wants me searching after His heart, not searching after where He is leading me. He wants me to be a man after His heart. The other thing God has been teaching me is how to develop the mind of Christ. There are three things I learned about having the mind of Christ.

#1 - We need to fill our minds with the word of God to have the mind of Christ. The more of God's word you take in, the more your mind is filled with it. God challenged me to read a chapter of Psalms and Proverbs every morning and to read the books that I have not finished yet so that I would have read the entire Bible.

#2 - Whatever is pure, and holy, and noble....we need to THINK about these things (Phil 4:8). For the first time, the word THINK jumped out to me. These are the things that should be on our mind. But if we arent filling our minds with them we will not THINK of them.

#3 - The mind is a great thing to have and God wants us to use it. Sometimes Christians asscociate the mind as worldly or something we rationalize things with. They will say you need to pray more about that and not think so much. If you think with the mind of Christ, that is not a bad thing to do at all.

Have the mind of Christ. Thanks for all your prayers and support.

God is watching over me.....

I spent most of my morning preparing all the materials we need for our community outreach tonight. After lunch I drove up to Los Higos to visit the medical site with a doctor that is here on the trip. On my way home on my moto this afternoon I was going around a turn and coming to a stop. I guess I must have hit my front break before I hit my back break because the back end of the bike slid right under me. As I started to lose the bike I jumped off and the only thing I remember from there is doing a summersault. When I stood up I was in shock of what just happened. Somehow I missed the 3 foot ditch, somehow landed in the grass and avoided the pavement, and luckily no car was coming behind me. I am thankful that God has His hand on me today. I drove the bike back home (you have to love when adreniline kicks in) and I had Cheryl look at me. I only had one cut and that was a small one on my arm. We cleaned that off with hydrogen peroxide and I took some advil for my soreness. I had a bruise on my hip, my ankle is sore, and my hands are sore where I landed on them, but thankfully no injuries. It did give me a pretty good scare though. I thought I was going to need a clean pair of shorts, haha. I am at home relaxing tonigt but don't worry Ill be back to work in the morning. We have to paint the new base! Thank you all for your prayers, they kept me safe today.

Mail Day!!

Getting mail in the states is an everyday occurace. Usually bills adds, and an occasion card or some sort of good mail. Mail here in the DR is like Christmas. We get mail every 2 weeks and yesterday was mail day. I got three packages and 2 cards for mom. The packages were full of some good unhealthy American snacks like Oreos, Goldfish, etc. I also need to send a specail thanks to New Hope Church for the Gatorade, I was pumped when I opened the box! For those of you guys who havent sent anything yet I only have 2 mail days left, haha.

Feliz Cumpleanos Mary Emily!!

One of my nieces, Mary Emily, turned 7 today! I met Mary Emily during my time here last summer. My return flight to the states last summer was on July 15, one day before her birthday. She asked me, "Uncle Kevin, why do you have to leave one day before my birthday?" I felt so bad. I promised her that I would be here for her party this year. We went over to Brian and Sissy's to celebrate and enjoyed some good chocolate cake. Mary Emily is wearing a new necklace out of coconut that I got for her in town. Happy Birthday Mae!!

Jarabacoa Golf Club

I love the relaxing weekends here in the DR. Yesterday we hiked to two different waterfalls and swam all day before going into town do get dinner. After dinner we went to Mi Tio Cafe for some coffee and the group did kareoke. It was a blast. This morning I went golfing with a missions pastor from Nebraska who I met on my first outreach down here. We played 9 holes at Jarabacoa golf club for 300 pesos (about $9). The best part was that our price included a caddie. Our caddie was a 12 year old boy who lives in El Callejon named Claudie. (Hey TJ, he said his favorite golfer was Phil). The caddies here are amazing. If you hit a ball in the woods, they know exactly where you hit it and retrieve it for you. If your ball has a bad lie, they give you a nice foot wedge for a better shot. And if your putting the ball they help you mark the break in your putt. Needless to say Claudie shaved quite a few strokes off my game and I wish I could bring him back to the states with me to help my golf game. For all my sponsors reading this, I promise I am doing some work!

New Base Update #2

Well our maintenance building is almost done! The Chapel youth group from Ohio poured the floor and painted the windows during the last outreach. Now we are just waiting for our garage door to come in. The group also put in the sidewalk that leads to the porch in front of Carlos' new apartment. The Chapel Team will be bringing back a team of adults in the fall to build our new worship chapel. We are now in the beginning stages of starting the new two story building and kitchen. We hope to start laying the foundation for the dorms within the next couple weeks. As you can see, the new base will have a nice view of the mountains. Please pray that God continues to provide what we need to complete this project. We hope to have the new base completed by the time teams come in the spring.

Postcard from the Dominican #2

Well I am a month in to my time down here and have 7 weeks to go. This outreach was incredible. We had a group of high school students from Ohio here and God really worked in their lives. The outreach was pretty adventurous for me. My moto broke down 3 times on the same day. I walked the moto back home from El Callejon the last time. Once I got back someone gave me keys to load my moto in the back of the red truck. I started the car and drove to the place I bought my moto and the keys wouldnt turn off. The keys were to the blue truck, not the red one. So now Im on the side of the road with 2 broken vehicles. It was a lot of fun. My moto is fixed now and we got the truck back but needless to say it was an adventure. Also I have developed some sort of skin infection on my arm. At first we thought I had scabies, thank God I don't. It is some wierd red scab that went away and formed a scar. As the first one went away another one formed. We think it is some form of ecthyma or staph infection. I have been using hydrocordazone cream but its not working. I am on a stronger cream now and am starting an anti-biotic on Monday.

El Callejon (Dead End Street)

El Callejon is a very poor community in the DR that is very close to my heart. It was named by its residents because of the lack of hope they had for their future. It is a "squatter" community made up of families forced to move after a hurricane. There is a Social Work site for women, a pre-school, and often construction projects done in the community by the mininstry here at SI. God has done some amazing things in this community but there is still a very dark side. Because of the hospitality of the culture, students often believe the people of the community are happy despite their circumstances. But there is a lot of pain and hurt that most students do not see. Alcoholism ruins this community. There are fours bottles of rum consumed for every one carton of milk in this community. God has impressed it on my heart to get as many people together to pray for this community. We do evangelistic outreaches every other Wednesday and have 2 ministry sites in the community. As many of you know, Marisol lives in El Callejon. Marisol is the hija de mi corazone (daugther of my heart). Her dad left when she was 5 and her mom is an alcoholic and abuses her when she gets drunk. Her mom is 49 years old but looks as if she is much older. Her eyes are very dark and have no hope in them. She is missing most of her teeth, has no job, and hits her beautiful 11 year old daughter because she is drunk. There are also 7 people living in this small house. I had a bad attitude towards her because of her drunkeness and because she hit Marisol. Last week I was able to visit her in her house at night and see her in a different way. El Calljon is very dark at night. I got to see the hurt and darkenss of the community and for the first time my heart broke for Marisol's mom. I felt bad that she is trapped in alcohol and God challenged me to start praying for her. Yesterday I got to church and the lady sitting right in front of me was Marisol's mom! It was amazing. God really encouraged me that He wants me to pray for this community because He wants to bring His hope here and change it. I am praying now not only for Marisol but her mother and showing her God's love in any way I can. Imagine if God changed both of their lives! Please pray for God to change this community and help me cry out on behalf of this amazing community. I believe He is ready to do something big.

"He (Samuel) cried out to the Lord on Israel's behalf, and the Lord ANSWERED him!" - I Samuel 7:9

Genesis

SI has 2 ministries at Genesis, a Christian school for physically and mentally handicapped children. Genesis is one of only 5 facilities in the country for special needs. Part of the ministry at Genesis is our Physical Therapy site, led by Sissy Entrekin. Sissy is the wife of Brain, whom I worked construction with all last summer. I was able to spend some time at the facility this week and it was amazing. I was able to help Sissy out with some of the therapy on the kids during my time at the site. But the best part of the week was the night we had dinner in the community. We made a meal (salami, mangu, and fried cheese - amazing!) and took it to the house of Melvin. Melvin is a 16 year old boy that is bound in a wheel chair. Sissy performs excercizes like arm wrestling (to get his hand to open up) and play the game Memory (for muscle memory). He comes from a single mother who works all day so Melving sits outside of his house buckled into his wheelchair all day. Though he cannot speak clearly, he is very intellegent and has even prepared a speech to give to the President of the DR. Later this month a group of students will be going to the Embassy of the President. Please pray that God will allow Melving this opportunity to speak to the President and pray for the work being done by SI's ministry with all the students as Genesis.

Sissy and I with Melvin...