Wednesday in the DR has come to a close. Our day began with a 40 minute bus ride to La Romana on the SW coast on DR. We took a boat to Isla Catalina for snorkeling, swimming, shopping, a buffet, and relaxation on the beach. Some of the players even went cliff jumping with our guide/interpreter, Wilkens.

The majority of our day was spent playing and decompressing from the past few days of baseball and mission work. We'll jump back into that routine tomorrow with more baseball and some shopping and sightseeing in the capital city of Santo Domingo.

That's what our agenda looks like for tomorrow. I want to let you all know that we will be visiting some orphanges on Friday. Please pray that God would work in wonderful ways in that time and that we would have an impact on the people/children we encounter.

Thanks you for all your prayers! We love you all!

Greetings amigos y familias en los Estados Unidos!

Day 4 was a wonderful day overall. Our teams all won their games, bringing us to an overall club record of 6-0-1 in international play. A big congratulations goes out to our 15U team who won their first game in 16 days. Great job guys!!! We had some excellent pitching and some hot bats that led the way to victories for everyone.

Our afternoon included a visit a local department store called JUMBO, it is essentially a Wal-Mart in the DR. We shopped for items to give to families in need in a sugar cane village. The 15U team and the 18U team distributed food to families and also shared the Word of God with those they encountered. The presence of God was definitely noticed by both our teams and by those people receiving the bags of food. Our bags contained about $10USD of food and are enough to feed a family for 2-3 days. It was a privelage to be able to help in need.

Tomorrow, we will be travelling to La Romana and Isla Catalina for a "fun-day" of snorkeling, swimming, beach volleyball, and shopping(bartering) in the local market. We'll have more on that in our next update. 

Buenos noches! Dios te bendiga!

15U

We began our day with breakfast at 7AM. At 8:00 it was on to the bus and a 30 minute ride to the ballpark in Santo Domingo for our 9:30 game. The field was in a semi urban setting, and ballplayers from the community were prepping the field as we arrived. After grooming the infield, they chalked the batters box and the foul lines all the way to the outfield fence by hand (No chalk dispenser; they reached in the bag for hand fulls of chalk and laid the lines by hand!)We had originally planned a double-header, but by about the 5th inning it was decided to play one nine-inning game instead. Jordan Zepernick started on the mound for RS and pitched the first 5 innings. Brandon Person finished the final five innings, with the game ending in a tie, due to time. The game featured a strong offensive performance by Tyler Hidalgo. Chris Hoefer laid down a key bunt to move runners into scoring position to help tie the game. Sandy Dodge had a well hit ball to left center field for a double, but we were unable to score him to break the tie. In the bottom of the ninth with one out and a runner on third, Josh fielded a well hit ball at third and made a hard throw to Cameron Walters at home to stop the winning run. Cameron blocked the plate and kept a firm grip on the ball when the baserunner plowed into him "Dominican style". A subtantial collison ensued, but the runner was out and no one was hurt. The next batter was a pinch hitter. Strike one was a 350 foot blast foul down the left field line. Strike two, another blast past third base, but foul. Clearly, this batter was dangerous. Brandon then got him to chase a pitch down and away for a whiff strike three to end the inning.  With the score still tied, the tenth inning came and went, and it was decided to call the game due to time.The players met in the stands afterward, and the RS team presented their hosts with gifts of baseball gear and RS t-shirts. Coach Sites presented his story of salvation through our Score interpreter, Wilkins. Back to the Score hotel for lunch and then a trip to one of the sugar cane villages to play games and distribute gifts. We played volleyball Bump, and hackey sack with the boys and girls, and Raymond played a very competitive game of tag with a young boy with bare feet. Gift distribution started OK, but had to be cut short when started to overrun us a bit. Once again, Wilkins, our score interpreter was invaluable.

Back to the hotel for dinner and devotional time led by Brian Peterson. A wonderful, full day.

The 16U team had an  eventful day. We left the SCORE hotel in the morning for a sugarcane field. The players started a pick-up game of baseball on the local field which was nothing more than a backstop and a pither's mound with rudinemtary bases. The guys were in awe of the players who fielded in an extremely refined manner with perfect fundamentals. After about an hour and a half of playing ball, the players from both sides as well as the spectators gathered at home plate where Coach Jeff Cherry shared about why we are in the DR and his testimony. Our SCORE translator and guide, Denny, then led a prayer for those who wanted to committ their lives to Christ. It was a cool thing to hear a handful of voices repeat after Denny in spanish, inviting Christ to come into their hearts.

Our afternoon was spent in the town of San Cristobal, which is southwest of Santo Domingo. WE played a local team on a very nice field, complete with an elevated mound, dugouts, and grandstands. The Dominican players were quite large, most of them older than the 16U players; our guys were not expecting pitchers that were throwing around 90mph! We had a pitching duel for the first couple innings before Reality managed to get a few runs. From then on we traded some runs in the follwing innings of our complete 9 inning game. We ended up winning 7-6, and we had a blast making our first international appearances. We ended with the same talk as the sugarcane field, and we handed out Reality Sports Baseball shirts to the other team along with some gear.

We will have more on our 18U team in our next update. Thanks for your support! Dios te bendiga!!!

We have arrived in Juan Dolio safe and sound. We were blessed with a very painless and hassle-free journey from Seattle to the Dominican Republic. Miraclously we did not lose any of our luggage in transit, something we are all thankful for. Some of the players got a taste of the locals very quickly, locals helped load some of our players bags into the truck and expected a tip, which our players did not expect... a learning experience for them all. We also had to bump start the truck hauling our luggage, which made for some good photos. We had dinner and then moved on to our devotional time where Coach Kuykendall delivered some opening remarks to set the tone for our week. Tomorrow, we have some baseball games and we will visit a sugarcane village. It should make for a great day. Thank you for all of your prayers thus far, please continue to keep us inyour prayers as we will be traveling around and ministering to the people of the Dominican.