Sunday Stories...

It is Sunday here in the DR...and it is warm and humid and a great day for our team...

We started the day by heading to a church service...the service was alive and full of young people...students leading the worship time and about half of the congregation left the sanctuary when it was time for Sunday School...the global church is young and so many students are excited and passionate about their relationship with the Lord...there is almost always a sense of passion and joy in the church across the world that we sometimes seem to have missing in some of our American churches...it was fun to be able to greet them and celebrate with them the reality of the deep connection we have in being part of the church of Jesus Christ across cultures and ocean waters...I love seeing the freedom and authentic nature of people praising their Creator in simple ways and in simple settings like this church in San Juan...the pastor even was speaking about Revelation 2 where John writes about the church's need to recapture their first love...something I long for myself and the CU community and beyond...coming to worship tith Dominican believers here encourages us to do that very thing as we follow their lead...

After church we headed back to the basketball arena where we played our second game in San Juan...the heat was not an issue for the CU crew and the team won again by a 129-103 score...the game featured some big dunks from both teams and the guys really enjoyed the chance to play and make friendships with ballplayers from another country...at halftime, Bryan Pasciak and Coach E shared their personal stories of how Christ has changed their lives and how He longs to change each one's life through the power of the resurrection with the crowd at the game...each of the players was also able to give a Spanish/English Bible to each of the players on the DR team...all in all, the team had a great time playing and having the chance to use their athletic gifts to bring God glory and point people to Jesus...

We had a final dinner in San Juan out on a big Dominican farm...Cristian's 80 year old grandmother prepared a meal that most guys commented was one of the best meals they had eaten in a while...it was special to receive such incredible hospitality, a hospitality that often is demonstrated here in ways that surprise us who come from a seemingly so busy world...

We then drove back to our camp location outside Santo Domingo and just finished debriefing our weekend...several of the guys shared about the blessing it has been to meet and get to know the Dominican people, and the Spirit's presence in our church service here...we finished talking about our need to have this trip cause real change in our lives, and the challenge we have to ask God to demonstrate specific steps of personal and team response to what we have seen in another part of the world...we would appreciate your prayers for the ability to hear God speak to us as we seek those things out in the days to come...a trip like this provides a chance to be changed forever...and that's our passion for this team of guys...

Tomorrow we start our work project...we will be mixing cement and laying block in the Dominican sunshine...and then we will be involved in putting on a coaches' clinic and another evening game in the local community...it promises to be a full and tiring and meaningful day...

We are off to bed and pray for a great week ahead for all of our friends and family back home...and we miss our MOMS today...

Buenos Tardes from the DR,

CHIP