Hi everyone,

Wow! Wow! Wow!  It's only been a little over 2 days and I am overwhelmed trying to catch everyone up on all that we have done.   I will give everyone access to over 1000 pics that you can get later that will express better than me all that we did in 2 days.  At the ball field we played at today they cut the electricity off at 1:30 pm.  At SCORE the doors are locked at 10:30 pm where we have access to wifi.  Unfortunately each evening we arrived after 10:30.  We plan to have everyone send out a blog but it is not as easy as in the USA!

The main reason for me to blog is to let everyone know your prayer and being answered and felt.  After 4 games in 2 days we have not made a trip to the emergency room and I haven't lost anyone!  We have had a blast.  All 14 players have bonded well and are playing as a team.  You wouldn't believe how well we played our first game without even one practice.  It was strange when we were sharing with the Dominican ball players about why the team was on a mission trip and they couldn't understand that we had never played together before.  Our translator had a hard time communicating to them that all of us had only spent a couple of hours with each other before we met them.  We honestly knew our competitors about as much as we did our teammates.

We had torrential rains the night we arrived from the States and were informed that our Friday games were cancelled.  Then miraculously we found a dump truck full of sand in a 3rd world country and had them deliver it to the ball field within about an hour!  I don't think we could do that in the USA.  We then played 2 games, fed the Dominicans sandwiches for lunch, gave them some baseball equipment, had player testimonies and finished with a Gospel presentation.  Your baseball ambassadors were awesome.  I don't have one complaint.  After a full day of baseball, we grabbed a quick dinner and then watched a professional Dominican baseball game.  It is an experience and I will let the boys tell you how different it is.  With only a couple of dissenting votes our team decided that they were so tired that they voted to leave the game in the bottom of the 7th inning.

The players are divided up in 2 rooms and I think it was hard for everyone to get up this morning including me.  After breakfast we again played 2 games and basically repeated our day 1 agenda except at our 2nd game we decided to mix up the teams.  Each team had a captain and they picked teams based on their observations in game one.  It was a very fun game and all the feedback from the players indicates we will do this again in the future.  After the games everyone was exhausted but had enough energy to walk to the beach.  It's located less than a mile away and enjoyed the beautiful beach for a little over an hour.  After dinner we had a devotional and I'm ready for bed!

Please pray that our hotel transfer process will go smooth.  We will start the day at Dominican Church, then a few hours at the beach before we transfer to our new hotel.  Also please pray that the testimonies and teaching at the SCORE mission trip will inspire and challenge us.

More later,

Keith