CU Men's Basketball Trip--DR Post #1

Hello everyone...my name is Chip Huber and I work as the Dean of Student Engagement at CU...one of the best parts of my job is helping to set up cross-cultural ministry trips and prepare our students for life-changing experiences in other cultures...I have had the privilege to take several of our athletic teams overseas in the past few years and am really excited that our men's basketball team has the chance to serve and learn and get to know the Dominican people and join what God is doing in the DR...the guys are working with a great ministry called GO MINISTRIES (http://www.go-ministries.org/) and we have a long term investment as a university in the DR over many years...several times throughout the trip different players and coaches will be sending me an email that I will post on this blog site...keep praying for them and it will be awesome to hear what God is doing in and thru them in the Caribbean...here's the first entry I received tonight:

This is Shane Moreland coming live from Dominican Republic. The past 24 hours have been really eye opening. We got into Santo Domingo, DR at around 1:00. We were a little hungry so we stopped and ate some chicken and French fries at a local store. After eating, we were on our way to Santiago. On the way to Santiago we drove through the capital of DR, Santo Domingo. Seeing thousands of stores and mini shops on the side of the roads was a real eye opener to the hard work of the Dominican culture. Right away, you can tell these people don’t have the blessings and opportunities we have in the United States. But they make up for it through hard work and dedication. Another thing I noticed is that if you owned a store or shop, chances are you live above or in your shop when its time to close for the day. The three-hour drive to Santiago was beautiful. There were mountains everywhere in sight and people were walking everywhere. When I say walking everywhere, I mean it. A lot of Dominicans don’t have any means for transportation so they have to walk to get what they need. Seeing all this in four hours really makes you feel blessed and grateful for what you have. Once we arrived in Santiago, we got settled at our dorms where we would sleep, eat, and hang out at.  All the kids were really excited to see us. For dinner we had chicken, rice, bread, pineapple, and papaya. If you wanted to make a PB & J, there was jelly and peanut butter too. We have been drinking water and pineapple juice. After dinner, we got the chance to go to a professional basketball game and sit up close and personal. We saw the Santiago Metros play against another pro team. I wish fans in the United States were like the fans in DR because man, do these people love their team! They were going nuts and dancing after dunks and three pointers. The Metros won easily.  After the game, we headed back to the dorms, had a quick snack (bread, PB & J, salsa and chips). We were pretty tired from the long day so we showered and went to bed right after. The water isn’t hot in the showers so everyone has been taking cold showers. It isn’t that bad though because of the DR heat.

The next day was a big day for us because we were scheduled to work construction at our site. We woke up ate breakfast. We ate eggs, DR potatoes, and DR sausage. After eating, we were on our way to the site, which is only 10 minutes away. We accomplished and completed many tasks such as cementing walls, digging in trenches, moving rocks with our hands, sweeping dirt out of the building, and many other jobs. We are scheduled to work 6 hours each day in 3-hour increments. We got done with our first 3 and went back and ate lunch. We ate chicken, rice, beans, fresh fruit and potatoes. After lunch we all were dead tired and took a nap before our next 3 hours. We woke up and were on our way to the construction site. We do many of the same things as the first 3 hours but we got so much done. We really did a great job.

I am glad that our parents and Cornerstone University let us have the chance to go on a mission trip. It has only been 24 hours but it has been one of the best experiences of my life.

-Shane Moreland, junior, class of 2015