Friends and more friends

Monique and I are home now in Friday Harbor, thanks to friend Mike Martin who went beyond the call of duty to pick us up at 12:15 a.m. at SeaTac. Thanks so much Mike! I continue to reflect on friendships in this blog and on Facebook. On the way to the airport yesterday we got to do something I've wanted to do for three years now. My brother Jim is a professional baseball scout working in So. Calif. for the Boston Red Sox. Here in the Dominican Republic, baseball is the number ONE sport. All the kids play baseball and dream of being in the Liga Grande one day. (MLB) In the Dominican they do not have a draft system like in the U.S.A. A prospect is discovered by a private scout, who acts as an agent for the player, taking the kid in to his baseball school and developing him, so that one day the agent might sign him to a professional contract with one of the major league teams. All the major league teams have baseball academies near Santo Domingo. Yesterday, thanks to David Cuevas, COTN-DR Venture team coordinator, and a lover of baseball, we visited the Boston Red Sox academy and saw a game before flying back home. I'm pictured with David and his son in front of the academy office. We had a great time! The next photo is with my friend Pablo. Pablo and I, along with others, have gone into the bateyes to tell our fatherhood stories and we've seen God open the hearts of the young people to share their stories too. We find healing together in the love of Jesus, and lean into the Father's love for us. Monique and I are pictured with Franklin. He works in the COTN office and invited us to his church last summer. This summer we were invited to do a marriage conference there. The conference spanned over three evenings once a week. Franklin did all the translating and also helped us out by translating all of our other conferences. He is a great friend of our family. After our marriage conference at Templo Biblico, we had a photo taken with Julio and Maritza and a young couple from the church. Julio is the pastor and his wife Maritza is the director of Happy Little Faces, Felices Caritas, a school for handicapped children in Barahona. It is the only school of its kind there. Last but not least, the girls are pictured with Manuela, our dear friend and cook at Casa Batesada. She is a special friend, someone who has served our family in so many ways.

More friendship photos

Friendships

One of the beautiful things we see here every year is the friendships the develop and grow. Sometimes the friendships are new, sometimes they are acquaintances that grow into real friendship. The new photo on the blog is one of Fred, CJ and Rambo. Rambo was one of our translators for the basketball camp. He very hard with Fred during the teaching sessions and they have become friends. The following photos show other friendships that are beginning and or growing. We look forward to seeing our team again and growing friendships within our team in Friday Harbor. We will do this by opening our house for "Casa Nights" throughout the summer.

Blessing a family

One gift God had for me while our Friday Harbor team was here working on cement floors in Altagracia, is seeing our guys and gals experience the joy and thankfulness a family had for the work of laying a cement floor in their home. Here is our team with a family in Altagracia. Some of the guys from the community help us too and they are pictured with us. Ellie, Carly, Lizzy and Monique entertained the kids who always swarm around the project to see the Americanos.

Team in Altagracia

We took this team photo in front of the "Hands" Austin and Jordan Nash painted last year in Altagracia. We had just completed the cement floor work there.

Hard Work

The cement floor project is hard work. As you have seen in other blog posts of teams, mixing the cement, shoveling and wheel barreling it to the house is exercise. Our Friday Harbor team did a fantastic job of sharing the work and keeping everyone involved. We had some excellent mixers; C.J., Isaiah, Austin, Vinnie and shovelers; Collin, Otis, Fred and Mandy. Monique got in there a bit too. I was great at leaning on the shovel. (-: I think everyone took a turn at the wheel barrel too. After the work was done, we had some play time with the kids and Collin needed an extra workout so he hoisted kids above his head for 10 minutes. They loved it as you can see. The two boys with their tires were ready to play their favorite game, rolling and balancing the tire, using a stick. They are very good.

Joy and Praise

One of the comments I heard most from our team is that of the joy that the children and young people have in life. This is a joy that comes from something outside themselves, as it becomes quite clear during a week spent here in the villages; that the joy doesn't come from the stuff people have acquired. Here is an example of Monique experiencing this joy a couple of weeks ago. See the video.

Spontaneous front porch Praise! from Victor Woodward on Vimeo.