The church service was so great. In the beginning, I was a little unsure about it because the pastor was preaching in spanish and it was very hard to understand because of how fast he was talking. After about 15 minutes, in English, he welcomed us to the church. From that point on, the pastor had his 16 year old son, Joel, come up there with him so he could translate in English what he was preaching. It was very cool so see them work together. At times, his son Joel would get a few words mixed up and it was funny to see his Dad correct him. At other times, the gestures the pastor was doing, Joel would do right behind him. Great to see Father and son work together. The service was about 2 hours or so and there were about 150 people in the church that attended. There were Dominicans, Haitians and Americans that attended. The sermon was about God Almighty, and how He can handle absolutely ANYTHING. We need to really understand how much we can trust Him with all things.
It was such a powerful time. One of the books he read to us, was Matthew.
"Jesus looked at them and said "...with human beings this is impossible, but with God all things are possible."
Matthew 19:26
That really spoke to me. The service was incredible and I knew He was there with us, as our hearts were fully open to Him and His word. One of the mission teams that was there with us at the church, brought gloves, baseball bats, baseballs, and cleats for all the kids of the church. After the service, the kids were given all the the baseball gear. Just to experience the joy of all those kids as they each received the baseball gear, is something I cannot even put into words. It's amazing how happy the kids are without much at all. We take a lot of things for granted in the United States, people don't realize how little others have it, until they experience it themselves. After church we headed back to SCORE for lunch. It was chili hotdogs, it was really good seeing how we were all starving! It was after lunch that we had some down time.
So 8 of us decided to go to the beach. It was BEAUTIFUL! They had cabanas and beds on the beach, the only down fall is we were only there for about 10 minutes relaxing. Heather stepped on a sea urchin of some sort. It was crazy and she was in some super pain. This awesome couple helped us and helped Heather out to try and get that stuff out of her foot. The stuff in her foot looked like little white hairs that were as soft as cat hair but as sharp as glass. This couple that helped her, they were such a blessing. We got her on the bus and back to SCORE to get some more help, after about 5 people looked at it on the beach. The doctor at SCORE helped her more and tried some different things. We found out that it was just as poisonous at a sting from a jellyfish. She was dealing with quite a lot of pain from it but we prayed and prayed for her to get better. After SCORE, we brought her back to the hotel and we all hung out at the pool. I have gotten some crazy good laughs with Tina, Sarah, and Margot! We just laugh and laugh, but laughing is good!
On and off I have been struggling today. Struggling with hurt, and I just pray that God will take it away and heal us. Back to SCORE for dinner! Yey, I am really enjoying it here! I can't believe it. We stayed for a while after dinner, and Heather saw another doctor again about her foot. Then we headed back to the hotel for devotion time. We did out devotion altogether in a group. We had some good and bad moments. I just know there is negativity lingering. God will change that. We will give all out praises to God for He is worthy. I am unsure of feelings right now, tonight, but I know tomorrow is going to be a long day and I need to prepare my heart for it. We went through some ups and downs as a team tonight but I think in the long run it will make us stronger. God is trying to tell us to be patient and graceful. Trust in the Lord, tomorrow will be a good day.
