a FULL weekend!

This weekend has been so full of blessings it is really hard to pack it all into one post. Sorry for the lack of pictures .. maybe I'll throw a few in at the end!

Thursday, I had the amazing opportunity to speak with the Wheaton College Baseball team. Coach Husted invited me to speak at their first baseball chapel of the year! It was fun talking to a few of them afterwards about their experiences in the Dominican Republic. In a small world story, I actually coached one of the kids at Quarterback when he was a sophomore at Phoenix Christian HS and I was in town visiting! Dave Tokar and Jesse Laizure were coaching there and I was in town so I worked with him for 2 days, small world.

Friday was a loooooooong day. I left early morning to have a few meetings in Indiana, building some relationships and hopefully starting some new partnerships with college basketball programs! It was a great day, I also got to see a few "Dominican" friends over at Taylor which was good as I'm missing the DR even after a few short weeks. 8.5 hours driving in one day is a little bit tiring, but well worth it!

Saturday was spent relaxing and carrying on a great tradition with Mike McKevitt and Chris of our annual "video game challenge." It has been evolving each year and this year it came down to a dominating performance from Chris in Putt-Putt fighting through sickness to take the win. We had a blast as always. That night I spent some time with the Trautwein kids (field director for Kids Alive in Jarabacoa) and went to the Wheaton Football game with their son Luke. It was great to spend some good time with him, even though he had to sit through a lot of conversations with people I don't see often! That's what happens when you get to 1 game a year... It was a blowout 66-0 but it was fun to connect with a lot of old friends. Also, got to see all the guys from the Wheaton Football spring break missions trip in action on the field! Here is me and Andrew Lindquist who interned/lived with me in Santiago for 6 weeks.

Sunday I had the opportunity to give the benediction at all 3 services at Glen Ellyn Bible. Always great to connect with friends and supporters from GEBC and it was a great service celebrating the 70th (!) anniversary of the church. I then drove across town to a get-together with College Church's spring break trip from this year. They are such an amazing group and their commitment to GO and to Hato del Yaque is beautiful. I ALWAYS enjoy my time with this group! It didn't hurt that we had a great Bears game to enjoy as well ... I finished off the day with a visit my Uncle Scott and Aunt Debbie and connect with them for a while. They are a huge reason why I am in the DR now, and I always love to connect with them. I'm beyond blessed to have such a supportive family.

Now, as blessed and busy as all this seems .. behind the scenes was tough. My grandfather, whom I am very close to, suffered a stroke. Thank God he had already been put in the hospital for pre-stroke symptoms when it happened! I really have not experienced much illness or death in my 27 years, and honestly I am learning how to deal with things like this. My initial reaction is to just pretend it isn't happening..to just ignore it. I had another long car ride Monday morning to Lincoln, IL (5 hours round trip) and I prayed before the trip that this would be a good time to really pray and process what is happening. I love my Grandpa so much, but I really didn't want to go visit him because I just didn't know what to expect, I don't like unknowns and uncertainty. I am so glad that I did. At first, it was very difficult to see my, normally energetic and full of life Grandfather, looking very frail and hardly able to speak. After, I got over this initial shock we had an amazing time! We laughed and laughed and laughed .. at times I didn't know what we were laughing at but there was such a peace about the whole situation. I don't think I can remember a time recently when I've had more fun than in that 45 minute visit with my Mom, Grandma and Bop. He is a fighter and I know he will bounce back, but it was tough to see him unable to communicate when he is such a relational person. I know this will be a tough thing for me to be out of the country for, but I will be praying for peace and for continued healing until my next trip home in December!

It's been a long night, and I've gone through a few scrapbooks to find these gems!

Thanks for sticking with me through this long post .. I am going to try to embrace technology and post more through my iPhone straight onto this blog so I don't go months without posting again! May God bless you all. Please shoot me an email, I'd love to hear from whoever is reading this and hear how things are going!

Kyle

You never know ....

So often on short-term trips and with missions in general we "think" we know who we are going to serve, what we are going to do, and have a "plan." It is so important to remember that God is in control and has a plan WAY better than anything we can ever come up with. I love connecting with team's and crashing their reunions to hear about how God has worked in their live's AFTER the missions trip. 

The College Church team had a bit of a scare when they realized one (or maybe a few more than one...) of the kids that they were playing with had lice! There was a little worry and concern until finally they made a comment that really stuck with me "Well even if we go home with lice, I wouldn't change the way I played with the kids this week." I LOVED it. What an amazing attitude, and I thought it was a fun lesson learned because, being the optimist that I am, I was positive that it was all just a scare and that nobody was really going to get lice.

........

So, fast forward a bit to this past Sunday.  I found out that not one, but two of the girls in the group had to get treated for lice when they came back to Wheaton! At first I felt absolutely terrible. But I could see that everyone was just smiling and laughing about it (and more importantly, everyone still had all of their hair!). They went on to tell me that right away they went to this great "lice salon" (yes that really exists!) and got a couple treatments and fully checked out. They went on to tell me about the impact that their testimony had on the ladies that run the salon! These girls had hours to talk about "how" and "why" they got lice and more importantly that even if given an opportunity to go back and change something about their trip, that they wouldn't! Now, I don't know if these ladies' will dedicate their lives to Christ over this encounter with a few of our short-termers, but I'm confident that seeds were planted and that they saw the love of Christ in action both locally and globally. I love my job!

Here are a few pictures that may explain just how they got lice in the first place! (Don't worry I got permission to use these pictures, and I'll state for the record that only one of these girls got lice). You just never know how God will use your story or your experiences, so keep sharing!

College Church STAMP March 2013

Wow. It feels like such a whirlwind since last October when pieces started to move into place for College Church to send a STAMP team down to serve alongside us in Santiago! I was home for a week for College Church's missions festival and had a conversation with the Nussbaums, and next thing you know they are raising money to come down! I love watching how God carefully places a team together, even one on such short notice. This team was special and different in that is was filled with people in very different walks of lives. There were 3 families, some group members were in High School, some in college, some in middle school! Some were just starting to enter the work field, and some were just exiting the work field! But it was very clear that right from the start, God had a plan for everyone who had come down to serve at our site in Hato del Yaque.

One of the biggest blessings for me as I "host" and facilitate short-term teams in the DR, is watching group's fall in love with people and places that occupy a huge place in my heart. This could not be more true about this STAMP team. They came down with no expectations, other than to love on and serve the people of Hato del Yaque, and I know that when they left, they left with Hato del Yaque occupying a huge place in their hearts. From the kids, to the pastor and his family, to the basketball coaches, to the missionaries, this group loved hard and we had to pry them away on the last day!

Here are a few pictures that start to give a feel for what we all experienced together this week. Thank you so much for coming alongside us as we continue to serve together in Hato del Yaque! This was such a special week for me.

WFMP 2013

Wow. I don't think I can put into words what this group means to me (but I'll obviously try!)

My first trip with WFMP was to Romania in March of 2004. The relationships forged there have led to some of my deepest friendships to this day! I had the opportunity to go to Senegal and South Africa and the same thing happens...there is something special about serving alongside your brothers and teammates in a different culture. Whether that means laying block for 5 days straight or throwing kids around or playing pick up basketball, there is something special about WFMP.

I have no been on the other end and had the blessing to have hosted 2 WFMP teams in the DR. I was brimming with pride about my school and my team the whole time they were here (and before......and after....). They made it so easy to be proud of them, diving 100% into everything we did! They really grasped the partnership aspect of the ministry and really the driving force behind everything we do here. They forged incredible relationships with our pastors, our construction workers, with our coaches, with the youth group and obviously with all the kids that they interacted with each day!

Some of the highlights were visiting several of our church plants and encouraging the pastors/communities, playing flag football and basketball against local teams (I guess the youth group counts as a football team!), working tirelessly on our future medical complex, sorting and organizing our new Sports warehouse, and building relationships with all of the kids outside of the church where we stayed.

While getting to know so many of the current (I'm old..) players was amazing, but another aspect that made this trip so special was seeing some real familiar faces here. Having my Dad and brother down here to see firsthand my new life and city was so special, even though we were going 100 mph for most of the week it was fun to have so time with them. Ward and Kristin Kriegbaum have been loyal and dedicated supporters since I became a missionary in 2009 and have now visited me both in Constanza and in Santiago. Coach Peltz has been such an encouragement and resource to me and I really value the time we are able to spend together and the conversations we have! He always pours wisdom and encouragement into me each time I see him!

THANK YOU WFMP !!

(Another thing I learned from this team is that I need to remember to take pictures! But here are a few I was able to round up)

Valor Christian HS Baseball

In February, I had the privilege of welcoming my first team! Now I've worked with lots of teams since joining GO last May, but this was the first team where I "recruited" and helped set up. It was very clear since my first meeting with Keith Wahl that God wanted this trip to happen and He had his hand on it the whole way!

I was absolutely blown away by the maturity the players showed throughout the week whether we were building walls, moving sand, throwing kids around or playing baseball. These kids worked hard and loved hard throughout the whole week! In total we had 29 players from Freshman-Senior and 3 coaches as well. We had a blast playing against 2 top local academies and they practiced one afternoon with our older group and really showed them how to practice at an elite level and how to give 100% effort in a practice. It was a huge blessing and I have already seen first hand how it has CHANGED the way we do things as an academy here!

We also were able to spend quality time in Hato del Yaque, which you can see by my previous blog posts is a place near to my heart. The kids still ask about the guys whenever I'm out there! We also got to experience and participate in a fundraising concert at the Hato del Yaque church put on by Cristo Urbano!

Here are some pics from the week. THANK YOU VALOR BASEBALL!

Carnival -- 2 years of thoughts rolled into one blog post!

Sorry that this post isn’t very fun and won’t have a lot of pictures of cute kids and sports in the DR .. but this topic is something that has been developing in my mind and I have been processing for about 2 years now. I LOVE the Dominican culture, that is probably obvious given that fact that I’ve lived here for about 2 and a half years and plan on being here for a while! But sometimes I tell people that there are 2 things that I really don’t like about this culture – Elections , and Carnival.

Carnival is a huge celebration in the DR and in other latin American/South American countries. It involves some combination of costumes, alcohol, satan worship, more alcohol, dancing, lots of drunk driving and yeahhhhh more alcohol. My first year I had a very limited scope of what Carnival entailed, just seeing the mini version in Constanza. This was pretty watered down and just a big excuse to party for about 6 weekends straight. Lots of cars with huge speakers, big beer/rum advertisements and lots and lots of people. Not too out of the norm though, just lots of partying.

2 years ago for some reason I found myself more aware of what was going on around the country with Carnival. I was a little more independent and saw Jarabacoa/La Vega/Santiago in small parts and how they celebrate. I learned that each city has little differences in which demons/characters they dress up as in the parades and other things like that. I also realized how huge this was in the culture here. I also realized I didn’t like it one bit. There is so much darkness and so much evil you can really feel it during the month of February in this country.

I was out of the country last year for Carnival, but this year it makes me sick! Today was the first parade day for Carnival, which will last for all of February. It makes me so sad to see all the girls wearing next to nothing trying to “impress” and desperate for any attention from the “men” in the country. What makes me even more sad is seeing how early this starts, as girls as young as 8,9, or 10 years old are following the example set by the women/teenagers in how they dress and dance and act.

Recently a study came out that 25% of all pregnancies in the DR are girls between the age of 13-16 years old, and sadly that wasn’t a huge shock to me. That is about right with a lot of what you see in the poorer areas of the country. I’ve seen it too many times to kids I care deeply about and it hurts everytime. The cycle of poverty is so deep here sometimes it seems impossible to make a difference. Sometimes I get depressed or frustrated with deep the issues go in the country. 

The other night I was driving through my neighborhood on a typical weekend party night, it was lined with hundreds of people drinking and dancing and who knows what else. I remember thinking that this is just one small part, of one city, in one of the smaller countries in the world, and it seemed impossible to make a difference. It was an overwhelming moment. I felt like someone would have to be SuperMan to come in and even make a small dent in a place so lost and filled with sin. Then I realized that God already sent someone to do that and it’s already done! He sent his only son Christ Jesus to defeat the power of sin and death over 2000 years ago and He is the only one who can save Santiago or any other city and I will keep dedicating myself to serve and play my role in His redemption story. 

Please, please join me in praying for the DR this week. God's placed some very specific prayer requests on my heart for this month.

-Jess Gates' Volleyball team in Jarabacoa. These girls will deal with all sorts of temptations and choices this month, and I know it won't be easy. I'm praying that God will give them the strength to turn from everything their culture is throwing at them this month.

-The kids in Hato del Yaque. Similarly, I can't imagine how crazy Carnival gets out by our Church there. The kids will no doubt be surrounded by all of it and pray that God would protect them and give them opportunities to get away.

-All of the kids involved in our Baseball/Basketball ministry in Santiago. Especially our older kids, it's hard to turn from temptation when you really don't have to leave your small street to find it. Girls wearing next to nothing will be throwing themselves at these kids and please join me in praying that God can speak to our guys and that our Coaches can be examples for them and speak wisdom/guidance into their lives!

If you made it this far thanks for taking the time to read through all this! It's been sometime that has been on my mind for a long time and it felt good to get it all out! God bless.

New Year for the Baseball Academy!

2013 is going to be a HUGE year for our Sports ministry. We opened up our practices on January 7th, and our coaches have enjoyed having lots of new faces as well as almost all of our players from last year!

Our oldest age group (roughly 15-19 years old) has seen some of the most amazing spiritual and physical growth in the 6 months I've been there. Multiple kids have accepted Christ and many others have been much more active and interested in going to church. I see this as a direct result to having our 4 coaches being able to spend lots of quality time with them due to the smaller group size. One of the biggest blessings/encouragements to us in this new year is that we have almost doubled in size with this group by adding 15 new kids! These kids came over from a local coach who took a job as a regional scout for the Toronto Blue Jays, and he told all of his players that they should look into joining with our program because he believes in what we're doing! 

Please pray specifically for this group of guys and our coaches, that even with the increase in numbers that there will still be great spiritual growth and also on-the-field growth as well. I am so excited to get back on Saturday to see our guys and catch up and start sharing the great vision we have for 2013!

God bless

Some of our new players, gearing up for the first practice of 2013!