Senior Trip to Dominican Republic

2009-05-10T04:27:00.000-07:00

Good morning! We made it. We are home. We have all our kids, carry ons, and luggage! That is amazing! God was definitely with us! The kids are tired, but excited. Their next adventure is graduation. Please continue the prayers that they will follow God's will for their lives. My prayer is that this adventure gave them inspiration. Sometimes we need to see where people do not have the privileges we have to see how trivial our big dreams are. Our dreams become bigger when God is the leads and guides them. Pray the seniors allow God to guide them where He wants them to go.
Ms. Stevenson
P.S. I will not be adding more pictures here, but Facebook will have the pictures. I am sure the kids will be putting their thousands of pictures up on their Facebook accounts. It just takes too long to do them through the blog. Thanks for watching our journey here on the blog.

wow

2009-05-08T15:01:00.000-07:00

Wow! I seriously cannot believe that it is our last day on the island! Didn't we just leave? Let me fill you in from my perspective of what has gone on in the last couple of days. Where did I leave off? I think I last wrote on Tuesday. So, Wednesday was the straw market/sight-seeing. That was pretty fun! I have never gotten to "barter" before, so that was a first for me...what an experience! However, even though the sight-seeing and shopping was fun, i must say I enjoyed the last part of that day; it really made me think. We went to an orphanage for the mentally handicapped children. WOW! How much do we have in America, yet we complain. Every orphanage that we have visited thus far, I have connected with one person in particular. The handicap orphanage was no different. There was one boy, I think his name was Lunies or something like that. He loved to smile, and OH what a smile he had! He was so happy in such a sad place. All of them touched me that day. Fast forward...Thursday we fed a village. I'll just have to tell you about that in person! That was fun to. The afternoon was probably the most touching part of the trip for me though. We went to a girls orphanage. Again, I connected with one girl in particular. She was deaf, therefore she couldn't hear or speak. I haven't found our her name yet, but I call her Bonita, Beautiful. She was such a blessing that I cannot even describe it. That one is a "tell it to you in person" one as well! Today, we went back to the handicap orphanage and worked our tails off. We all put in extremely hard effort. We moved two piles of dirt, a pile of rocks, and a lot of cinder block. Yeah, I'm still tired! Anyway, I want to thank everyone who has gotten onto this sight and prayed for us! We couldn't have done it without YOUR prayers! Thank you! Lord willing, we will see you soon! Take care!

2009-05-08T13:34:00.000-07:00

Ok we have a few minutes of free time. We just got back from a good game of beach volleyball and now I am sitting by the pool while the rest of them play in the pool. It is so beautiful. The breeze is blowing so it is not hot out at all. Anyway I promised pictures from yesterday so I will work on that now. Enjoy.
Ms. Stevenson

2009-05-08T05:47:00.000-07:00

Good morning. We are off to the orphanage. I am going to do some blogging this afternoon. We have some free time and need to pack. Pictures take a while to upload, but I will try to put some up. Pray for us. We dont want to go home, and have a long day of traveling tomorrow.
Ms. Stevenson

2009-05-07T03:58:00.003-07:00

Yesterday morning (Wednesday) we went to the straw market and shopped. Then we went and had lunch. After lunch we went to a handicap orphanage. Then that evening we to the beach to have devotions. Enjoy the pictures.

2009-05-07T03:58:00.001-07:00

Yesterday morning (Wednesday) we went to the straw market and shopped. Then we went and had lunch. After lunch we went to a handicap orphanage. Enjoy the pictures.

2009-05-06T19:28:00.000-07:00

These are pictures of the trip to the island. We took a speed boat that sat 30 people. The boat took us to the "natural pool". It is called that because it is a huge area in the middle of the ocean that you can stand up in to your knees. From there we went to snorkel. We looked for star fish and conch. If you found a conch shell without a live conch in it you got to keep it. Some of us did! It was awesome. After snorkeling we went to the island. It was a different island than Catalina island, because the Hale's (the missionaries we were working with) got us a better deal. When we arrived to the island it was like a paradise. The water was blue and you could see all the way to the bottom and we got an all you can eat buffet. Then from there we took a speed boat to a huge catamaran that sailed us back to where we started. Here are some pictures of that day.
Ms. Stevenson

The Great`Experiences!

2009-05-06T17:44:00.000-07:00

Hola my fellow americanos. this is zach. today during our free-time was just sweet haha well it was just really funny. it all started when we got back from the orphanages and heather and josh wanted to go to the beach to play volleyball. well me and miss. stevenson went with them. so that was just a total of four to play volleyball. and when we got there to the net we noticed it was windy and a little difficult to play. so then we showed our true american side and we decided to open coconuts but i had a great idea by just throwing them up and letting them fall. and to my surprise it actually worked. oh yea, when we played volleyball a dog came and sat in the middle of the court. he stayed with us basically the rest of the time. we named the dog perro cuz perro is dog in spanish. we were very creative. we eventually left from throwing the coconuts against a wall because a guy started to come towards us with a mischeti. hah then i had another great idea and that was to go into this very old building. well we started to go up and noticed out the window there was a guy gaurding another building right next door with a shotgun. while going up we ducked wehen going by the windows.eventually we got the fourth floor and he saw us. not good. so then we booked it back down stairs. oh man was that some fun. haha you know what also is alot of fun? scaring people. one night some of our group was playing spaids and i went to the balcony and slowy and quitly opened the window. i guess mr. mcclain heard something and he opened the blinds...haha then i yelled at him.haha his face was so funny looking and he just jumped right back into his room. another night i found a beetle and i put it near the girls door and anna walked out and stepped on it bare footed. but since it was a dominican beetle it still lived. i kicked it then into the room and anna began to freak out. haha it was great. so yea we are really having some fun here. oh yea sorry for some of the spelling. im a horrible speller.

Wednesday :-)

2009-05-06T15:10:00.000-07:00

HEY EVERYONE!!!! Well this is Anna.... So today was an amazing day. We left this morning around 8:30 for the straw market which was in the capitol (Santo Domingo). Once we arrived we were able to barter for different things. I think I spent the most money but hey what can I say I love to shop!! After that the bus driver took us down a couple of blocks to a narrow street that had many shops on both sides. We shopped around and then stopped to eat lunch. After lunch we had ice cream or frozen yogurt. It was some yummy stuff. I'm so glad we had our translator Hugo to help us out. Hugo is apart of the score staff ministry also. After shopping and eating we made our way to this really old catholic cathedral and then to a museum of Diego Columbus' home (Christopher Columbus son). All the old buildings were amazing but the best part was still to come. After all our shopping and sight seeing we drove to a handicapped orphanage. When we made our way in, it was truly incredible. It is very hard to explain what we saw, but it broke every single heart that was there. The orphans were dealing with physical and mental problems. Many of them were just lying on mats on the ground or in a bed unable to do anything. We were able to share a smile and a hug. There was a very energetic girl named Lisa. She was unable to walk or grab anything with her hands but knew how to direct each one of us to do what she said. Overall the day was a great adventure. From shopping to seeing the orphans God is good no matter what. ---Anna :-)

Another Josh Chronicle

2009-05-05T19:09:00.000-07:00

Hey there again everyone! Still having a terrific time in the good old DR. Yesterday was soooo awesome! All of the guys got to pick rocks! I know I know...it doesn't sound like the greatest thing ever. I have to admit that at first I was like..."picking rocks, seriously?" After a while though, I really got to thinking, and just talking with God while I was way off by myself in this gigantic field. I was talking with God and the thought hit me that in the years to come, the place that I am clearing rocks from could be where a chapel or school building that many Dominicans get saved in could be there. Anyway, God let me know that some way, some how the rock picking was furthering His kingdom...let me tell ya', that was the best feeling ever! Then a while later, Brian, Zach, Doug, and me all went out with this guy named Carlos to pass out tracks. Carlos, as hard as it was to communicate, turned out to be a really cool, godly guy. We all enjoyed him thoroughly. Today we did the whole boating trip to some island that I have currently forgot the name of. :) It was pretty fun. For those of you that know me well, I followed my tradition and hurt myself in the water yet again! HAHAHAHA! Praise the Lord it wasn't bad though. Its just a cut on the bottom of my toe that is really annoying. I'm sure that I will live. No Seeworms! :) Well, as you can imagine, we are all tired all ready, but are anticipating a great rest of the week! We are having a BLAST! (at least i know i am!) Okay everyone, good night! I will try to get back with you tomorrow. And I am not to embarrassed to say, I love you Mom, Dad, and Caleb! Aloha everyone! Nite! (p.s. i think you guys will have a lot of catching up to do with our tans!)

2009-05-04T20:01:00.001-07:00

Today was a missions day. We got to spend the day with the Hales. They are missionaries here in the D.R. They are amazing. We went to their church Sunday morning and they are a growing church. As Doug said they purchased a piece of land with the vision to build an orphanage/baseball camp/Christian school/Christian college on. They have purchased the land and are now working to clear and start building. Today we went to see the Christian school they are starting this next year. They are renting a place until theirs is build. It will be up to grade 4. They are looking for teachers. This morning while the boys were working hard helping Mr. Hale clear the land us girls went with Mrs. Hale to a consignment shop. She is working with the ladies here in the D.R. and teaching them how to earn money for themselves. Many ladies in the D.R. feel they need to be married or with a man. If not they will get involved in sex trafficking. She is teaching the women how to earn money for themselves. This consignment shop is part owned by a Dominican woman. She also sells some of her own clothes that she makes. They were amazing. I will post pictures. In the afternoon we went canvasing. It was amazing. We split up in groups and were given a Dominican to help translate. The translators were awesome. They taught us phrases to say. The Dominican were receptive of our information and literature we passed out. It was so good to get so close to the Dominicans. Tomorrow we have breakfast at 7 and then off to the island at 7:30. We are going to do some snorkeling and swimming. We will be stopping at a place to look for star fish and conch. I cant wait. Thanks for all your prayers!! We are having a blast!
Ms. Stevenson

Monday as told by the Great Dougus

2009-05-04T14:20:00.000-07:00

Today we went to Vision-land, a 47 acre piece of land about an hour away from us. On this land the Hale's (the missionaries that we have been working with) plan to build a school, a Bible College, and a baseball camp. When we got to vision-land, the guys went to work immediately. Brian went to work picking and shoveling rocks and the rest of us began to go through the land for rocks to pick up and put in piles. After doing that for about three hours we went back to the compound. To our amazement, the hot water was fixed and the toilet worked. After almost every guy took a shower; we went out to give out tracts. Me, Brian, Josh, Zach, and Carlos (a member of Pastor Hale's church) teamed up and went into town. We all learned the phrase, "Hola, Como estas? Una invitacion especial de la iglesia bautista. Gracias" Even Zach learned this phrase. We also got to see a skinned goat hanging in front of the shop. For the rest of the day we have free time. Me, Miss Stevenson, Anna, Zach, and Kyle are playing Spades. Heather and Josh are at the pool.
Thank You,
Dougus
P.S. Horseus was not after Zach it just wanted to kill me.

2009-05-04T03:44:00.000-07:00

There is a lady here who plays for the WNBA. She is doing an internship where she works for a SCORE a for a few weeks. She is the greatest. She is TALL! She asked us after lunch on Sunday to join them at the beach for some volleyball. It was so much fun. We played hard and then could enjoy a dip in the beautiful ocean. Kyle took the video above when we were waiting for the other two teams to play. Just look at how amazing the D.R. is!
Ms. Stevenson

School Pride

2009-05-03T19:20:00.000-07:00

Once again, when our group is with other schools, I am reminded of what quality students we have. I am proud of our kids. Even when Doug's horse started attacking Zach's horse, our kids kept their composure and didn't panic. What bravery! We are settled and adjusting. Pray for us as we will be passing out tracts and literature some tomorrow. All is well and we are praising the Lord for His love.

Sunday by kyle

2009-05-03T18:13:00.001-07:00

Today was very exciting. First we went to an all Spanish church that was an amazing experience. After that we went to the beach. The beach was so amazing it looked like a beach on tv. We all played volleyball with the other schools at the SCORE. It was a good way for all of us to get to know each other a little better. When we came back from the beach Josh and I played guitars and ukulele with two other guys. But the most exiting thing that happened today was when we went horse back riding. But i'll let someone else tell you all about that experience.....lol Kyle Selvy

2009-05-03T17:13:00.000-07:00

Just a bunch of pictures and video of our day.

2009-05-03T16:32:00.000-07:00

2009-05-03T15:30:00.000-07:00

Hola everyone! Let's see...where do we begin? It was such a long trip over here, but God allowed us to safely arrive (as you can tell)! Today was our first official day on the island, and there is A LOT to get used to. You can really tell that we are in a third world country. It's exciting, scary, and fascinating at the same time! We did so much today! Doug woke us guys up at 6:30 this morning only to tell us about thirty minutes later that he accidentally woke us up at 5:30 instead! AAAHHH...needless to say, we all slept for about another hour! (Thanks Doug) Church was AMAZING! I (this is Josh by the way) got to work with the kids in the junior church. The kids enjoyed listening to me and two other guys played our instruments for them and all of us sing.We also had game time and snack time...it was great! We came home after words and got to relax for a while...then...BEACH VOLLEYBALL! WOOOHOOO! It was so much fun! Then we came back to the compound to ride horses. We all loved it, except Doug...he had the "possessed" one! (so he thought...i think it was just him!) Needless to say, if I put everything in this blog that I did today, it would take quite some time. I just got finished with supper and now we are getting ready for devotions and a night of fun! Thank you all for your prayers. Pray for as tomorrow as the guys go do construction and the girls go do something important with dresses (or something like that)! Good night everyone! Thanks again for the prayers!
Joshua Wagar
Psalm 46:10

WE ARE HERE!

2009-05-03T04:35:00.000-07:00

We arrived in Santo Domingo last night at 10:15. We were definitely ready to get some sleep after the 4 hour drive to D.C, the flight from D.C. to Philadelphia, the 3 hour layover in Philadelphia, then the 4-5 hour flight from Philadelphia to the Dominican. Needless to say, we were zonked. It was very interesting to be the ones walking off the plain into a gauntlet of people staring at us. Its very different here. The first smell we smelled when we got off the plane was smoke. That was quite different from the cheese steak smell in the Philadelphia airport.
The accomadations here are great. The hot water is being rebellious though. This morning, we are going to breakfast at 8:00, then we are going to church. They only have morning church, so we should have the rest of the day free.

-Heather

2009-05-03T03:45:00.000-07:00

Good morning from the Dominican Republic! We made it. We flew from Reagan airport to Philadelphia. In Philadelphia we had a 3 hour layover, and then a 3 hour flight to Santo Domingo. We arrived here at 11 last night. These pictures are of our trip. We are pretty tired, but got a good nights sleep. Today we will be going to breakfast, church, and some free time. Those here at SCORE are so wonderful. They are treating us as if they want to help us, yet we are here to help them. I look forward to meeting the other schools that are here, but they were asleep when we got here. The kids will be blogging as we go, but many of them are not up yet! Enjoy the pictures and pray God blesses!
Ms. Stevenson

2009-05-01T19:15:00.000-07:00

It is just hours until we board the van to catch the plane! I have not finished packing, but will definitely finish! I figured now is a good time to blog. Today was a very busy day because today was the day the seniors were servants. Last week they were auctioned off. Today they performed their duties. I am putting up some pictures because words would not do it justice. These are not all the kids, but the ones I got pictures of on my camera. I will post more when the seniors give me their cameras to upload pictures. Tomorrow I will blog from the Dominican Republic!!!
Ms. Stevenson

can one lose 12lbs. in 1 minute? yes, I dare say you can!

2009-04-30T08:17:00.000-07:00

I, Heather Lindsay, weighed myself at 10:55 AM on 4/30/09. I hit the scale at 150 pounds. Zach "being funny" decided to step on the scale from behind making my weight double :( ...LITTLE DID HE KNOW!!! the next time I stepped on the scale I lost 12 pounds from the original weight! CRAZY isn't it?
I have now found the quickest, inconsistant way to lose wieght. I am excited about my new findings :)
we are weighing suit cases today and are counting the money from our last senior fundraiser. Getting ready for the Dominican trip in 2 days, the class of 09 is super excited to see how the Lord will bless this upcoming week. Thank you for your prayers. They are greatly appreciated. We will keep you updated as the week progresses.

2009-04-29T15:12:00.000-07:00

Just called my phone company Sprint! I so love Sprint! I am signed up for international calling. It will cost $1.99 a minute, but you can call me IF you need me. I will be taking my phone. If you do not have my phone number ask your senior or email me.

I also wanted to say THANKS to all those who have donated items to take with us. We received so many items from diapers, toothpaste, asprin, school supplies, to deoderant! I am sure the missionaries and the people there will enjoy the much needed items. I wish I could take you all with me!!!

Keep us in your prayers! Not only for our safety but that we allow God to use us. Many times we get involved in our own lives and how busy they are. This will be a time for us to stop and listen to the world and what God is doing for them as well, and what God wants us to do for them. Pray we listen! I can't figure out which is harder waiting for God inspite myself or hearing God inspite of myself. Pray we get ourselves out of the way to wait for Him and hear Him.

Ms. Stevenson

2009-04-27T19:19:00.000-07:00

Today is Monday April 27th. The seniors at Sweethaven Christian Academy and I will be leaving to go to the Dominican Republic. This will be the first senior/mission's trip for SCA. We are so excited, yet anxious. Please pray for God's leading, and safety.