June Gateway Youth Team 2014

Though I am extremely tired and hot this trip has been a great experience.  Playing with kids, being a group leader and conversing with new people are some of my favorite things from this trip.  Tonight I even got to speak French with Willy.  He speaks French, Spanish, Creole and a little English.  I had actually never had a conversation in all French before.  He said multiple times that I was very good at speaking French.  Being a group leader for the sports camp was a little crazy.  Every time I led a group, it was the crazy group of boys.  With no background in Spanish, it was quite hard to control them.  I think I had to stop at least ten fights amongst the younger boys.  Today I was in the VBS room.  The focus of the day was Romans 10:9. We also reviewed the whole week by making bracelets with different colored beads to represent the different things God created.  I really like leading VBS instead of sports camp (I’m better in the classroom then sports).   Leaving all these kids behind is kind of sad, but I am ready for the comforts of home, especially being able to open my mouth in the shower and being barefoot in my house.

                                                                                                Lizzie Bookmyer

 

It wasn’t easy communicating with the Dominicans.  Even with three years of learning Spanish, some of them can’t understand what I try to tell them; and I can’t keep up with their speed of talking.  It took a couple of days to figure out what I could and couldn't say to get them to understand, but the last few days I was able to hold a decent conversation with some Dominicans.  This led to me making some new friends here.  The three I talked to the most were Savy, Tania, and Jason.  When I met Savy, he immediately introduced himself to me and made it clear that he wanted to be friends.  Out of all the kids he helped me the most with correcting my Spanish mistakes.  Tania liked to tease the Americans.  She was a little brat but she was funny.  Savy and Tania are about ten years old.  Jason was part of the older group we worked with.  He is fourteen and I think he likes karate and wrestling.  I talked with him more than the other older kids because he was more open to conversation.  Today when he realized that this was the last chance to talk with me, he asked for my social media account.  I told him that I didn’t have one because I didn't want to explain to him that I was not allowed to tell him.  Also I barely use it.  I told that I plan to come back to the DR and then we said goodbye.  I don't think I made new friends as well as the other Americans but I’m glad I made a few.

~ Derek

Most of us would agree that playing with the kids was one of the best parts of this trip, most of us would agree that this week was fun, and all of us would agree that this week has been tiring.  We are weary travelers ready to go home. Though I could go off on a monotonous speech about how tired I am, I am going to talk (write) about experiences with the kids here.

 Francheska is one of our group favorites.  We liked to play the “partido de las animales” with her.  From the roof of the school/church, we would shout, “Francheska, cual animal dice…” Then we would make an animal noise.  All participants enjoyed that.  When someone explained that we were going home tomorrow, she immediately ran to Grace Dickmann and asked her if she was leaving. Grace sadly said that she was.  A lonely tear could be seen in Francheska’s eye.

When we visited a batey, (slum) we slowly walked along.  We soon realized that we had left behind one of the adults on the trip. (David Rath) After a while, we found him talking to a gaggle of poorer-than-poor children.  He was asking and remembering their names and saying “Hola, me llamo David.”  He saw that one of them was wearing a Toy Story shirt and began making “cowboy noises”.  Even though he was not speaking Spanish, he was making them smile and laugh (as he does with everyone he meets.)  All that I could see in him was Jesus.

This trip has done so much to me that I can’t explain my feelings.  I am tired, smelly, satisfied, and grateful.

I can’t wait to share more of my experiences when I get home.

Lindsey Bishop

June Gateway Youth Team 2014

Yesterday I was a group leader.  It was neat to see all of the different stations rather than be at one station all day long.  Of course, I ended up with the crazy boys. They were impossible to keep track of; I don’t even know how many boys I had in my group.  At one time there was six, and the next there was ten.  A boy decided to kick the ball as hard as he could, and the ball nailed me right in the face.  The kids were chaotic and had a lot of energy, though sometimes the energy was impossible to contain. Overall, it was worth the craziness; my group and I had a lot of fun.

After sports camp, we went to visit a Batey.  I wouldn't quite say I enjoyed it because it was hard to see people living in those conditions, but I definitely think that it was good that we went. It really made me think about the things that I have that I would never think twice about.  Until then I had never seen a skinny baby.  It made me think about how fortunate we are in America.  Yeah, some people have nicer houses than others, but we all have better living conditions than these people.

Rachel George

 

This week has been largely about the sports camp that has been going on, as well as the VBS happening at the same time.  But most of my week, though not all of it, has been spent doing something outside of the normal jobs.  I built a wall.

When I came here, I didn’t expect to do a whole lot of construction.  Maybe a few odd jobs, and probably some painting, but nothing major.  As it turns out, Moise had in mind for us a rather complex construction project.  He showed us a large room on the second floor, sporting attics on either side to store extra desks and chairs.  He explained that he wanted two rooms instead of one, and ceilings to cover them.  Ted, Colton, and I set out to build the wall, receiving heavy, splintery lumber on the second day, and got cutting on the third.  We came back from resting on Sunday and continued on our project.  By Monday at lunchtime, we had a firm divider in the middle of our workspace, much to the surprise of the rest of the team.

Working with Ted on the project has really encouraged me.  I haven’t done much work with anyone other than my family, and wasn’t sure how I was going to like having a job this summer and working with other people.  I really enjoyed my work, however, and was quite pleased with the end result.  I liked the feeling that I’ll be able to come back in a few years, walk into the classroom, and think Yeah, I built that.  And while the project is far from done, the next team will need to finish the roof, and we may still work on it tomorrow, I feel a great sense of accomplishment in what we got done.  I strived to think of some symbolic thing about building a wall, but the words escape me.

Plus, it wasn’t too bad getting out of the sun and working inside.  We would never admit that though.

                                    I saw a cow today.                 Jeb Bishop

 

Today, we went over to the Olympic Village for sports camp. It was a tiring mile walk over, but once we got there it was a blast. With the little kids we played soccer games, which was a lot of fun. Then once we got all hot and sweaty (it’s nice and sunny today) we decided to run some track events. The kids loved the 50 meter dash, and in the 400 meter run they lasted about 200 meters. By then we were all tired and decided to lay in the shade, drink water, and have tickle wars with the little girls. After we walked back to the school and ate lunch, we walked back to the soccer field with the older group  and got a big soccer game going.  A few of us played volleyball with the older girls, which was fun. Once we got tired of volleyball we sat down and the Dominicans taught us some games, which were really cool.

            I love the kids down here.  They are so fun to be around.  The little girls and I are always getting into tickle fights, or they steal my water bottle and I have to chase them.  They love playing with my hair, no matter how gross it is. Being in this country is very fascinating.  I’m missing the air conditioning and long showers, but those are minor sacrifices for the experience here and seeing God’s work here.

            Lisa Simmons

June Gateway Youth Team 2014

These are from last night... We didn't have internet so we couldn't post them.

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This morning we went to a church service and it was amazing how much each and every person gets into the music and they all sing, dance, and clap along the whole time.  It was really amazing how much they enjoy being at church.  The only bad part was that it was hard to understand the preaching.  During the sports camps earlier this week I have been a group leader.  It has been very interesting trying to speak to the kids with knowing very little Spanish.  My new favorite word has become “Vamanos” (lets go).  On the second day of camp I had a crazy group of younger boys that were hard to handle when we have a language barrier, but we managed to keep control.  (For a picture of Erin and these crazy boys see yesterday’s blog) It’s really fun to hang out and play with the kids and see how even though there is a language barrier sports are universal, so without talking we can all still play together.  Everyone is very helpful when you try to talk to the kids and its nice that the people here understand that we don't really know Spanish and they are willing to help.  I am very excited for VBS tomorrow.

~Erin Long

 

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Today we had church, and to put it plainly it was an amazing experience.  When they sang, the sound reverberated off the walls and they danced and swayed to the music.  Although I couldn’t understand the words, I loved the music and tried my best to pronounce the words while singing and clapping.  You could just feel the joy in the room.  During the sports camps earlier, I was both a group leader and helped with the hitting/blocking station.  The little kids in the morning are so cute, if not a little crazy.  I have never wanted to speak Spanish more in my life than on this trip because I really wish I could speak to them or respond to them when they talk to me.  I feel awful when I look at them blankly and shake my head.  A few of the girls yesterday, when the kids were beginning to get a bit out of control, decided to take my hair out of my ponytail and play with it for a straight hour.  I certainly didn’t mind.  It felt great!  Listening to their rapid Spanish babble was interesting and frustrating at the same time while they discussed what to do with my hair.  One girl fell asleep on my lap.  With the older kids, we played a volleyball game called Kill where you try to whack people in the middle of the circle with the ball.  I got hit in the face on accident.

Today while we were eating pizza- which was very good- there was a rat.  I didn’t see it at first, I only heard a high pitched scream and looked over.  Three Dominicans chased after it, but it disappeared underneath a car.  I thought it was hilarious until it ran underneath my feet and I could only run as fast as I could.  I can’t wait to see the kids tomorrow at VBS, I am going to be in a small skit during bible time.

~Katelyn 

June Gateway Youth Team 2014

Yesterday I helped with the sports camp.  I don’t know very much about volleyball so I played with the kids that wondered away from their group.  There was a boy named Franklin and another boy who I helped keep focused by hitting the  volleyball with them and played basketball with them.  I even got schooled by Franklin who is 11.  Today I worked construction and we built a wall for an office and classroom for the school. 

~Colton

               So today I was lucky enough to get out of the hot sun outside and was inside to do VBS.  Lisa, Rachel, Adrienne and I taught the children and not so much children about the 3-5^th day of creation and the verse Matthew 6:26. In Matthew 6:26 the verse talks about how the birds just hang around and don’t do much, but the Lord still loves them enough to feed them, so aren't we more valuable than them?  We had the little kids make paper fish with little squares of tissue paper that they wrapped around their fingers and glued to the paper fish so that the tissue paper stuck up from the fish.  They also wrote the last line of Matthew 6:26 on the back of their fish because we only had a certain amount of time and they don’t write very fast.  From what I saw I think they enjoyed making these fish.  With the older kids they weren’t very interested in making paper fish, so we played a game.  They split into two groups and we spread cards around the room with words from the verse and they had to find the cards and put them in the right order and whichever group was correct and got done first won.  They seemed to enjoy that especially the boys who were flying over desks and pushing over each other just to get cards.

            These past two days of VBS, Rachel and I have made many new friends.  There are these two little girls named Lisa and Ashley who are sisters like Rachel and I and I think that’s why they have such an interest in us.  There’s also a little girl named Francesca and she is nuts.  She is always yelling and bossing other kids around and sticking her tongue out, but she is so sweet, funny and so patient with everyone’s Spanish and tries to help correct everyone so that they speak better Spanish even though she’s only like 7.  It’s pretty crazy to believe how much fun we have with these little girls because neither of us can speak much Spanish, but we somehow can keep a conversation going and we play games with them too.

            Other than having tons of fun and sweating all the time, I miss home and I actually miss my mom and dad.  I’ve learned a lot already this trip and I’m excited to see what God has in store for the rest of the week. 

                                                                            ~Shelby George

Above and Below - a couple pictures from Volleyball Camp

June Gateway Youth Team 2014

Today I helped out with VBS. In VBS, we taught the kids about the first two days of creation. I am so happy that I know more Spanish now. It is amazing how I can communicate with the kids. Even though my Spanish isn’t that good, the kids always help and correct my Spanish. It made my heart swell when the kids said the bible verse, John 8:12. I can only speak a little bit of Spanish, but you don’t need the same language to communicate with the kids. It feels like God is communicating through me to the Dominicans.

When the kids came into the classroom, we have to introduce ourselves and say our age. Apparently I’m tall for my age… The kids couldn't believe that I was 15 years old. I was about a head taller than most of the boys, and they were about 17 years old. I love it! I am towering most of the kids. It feels amazing to finally be one of the tallest. This trip has been so fun and life changing. When you are here, it always reminds me that I am so blessed. I couldn’t ask for better people to be on the trip with. 

                                                       Gabby Lyon

Today I helped out with teaching the kids how to play volleyball. We had 4 volleyball stations, and I helped with teaching the kids how to set the volleyball. Luckily, we had Griffin in our group to help instruct the kids. I really don’t know any Spanish at all, so it was a blessing to have someone to help instruct the kids and tell the kids what to do. It was also a blessing to have Moise’s sons, Daniel and Jonathan to help us get the other kids doing what they needed to. Daniel and Jonathan both know so much English that they would understand what we needed the other kids to do and explain to them what we needed them to do.

My favorite part of the trip so far has been communicating with the Dominicans and playing sports with them. It was so amazing to see how much they understood us when we were playing sports. We played basketball for an hour today and by the end of the game I could understand “Traveling” or “Double-Dribble” in Spanish. It seems like sports are a universal way to communicate with everyone around the world. Whether you know Spanish and can speak it fluently, or have never taken a Spanish class, you can always communicate through a smile, and a helping hand.

Joshua Seitz

June Gateway Youth Team 2014

Today we woke up and after breakfast, started preparing for Vacation Bible School tomorrow.   We had to sort through the suitcases for craft supplies for each day and began to work.  We also got to play tag with some of the kids in the courtyard.   Once the kids left, we had lunch and went back in the courtyard.  The basketball hoops got fixed and the volleyball net was set up.  There were many curious eyes that liked to watch us through the fence while we were working.  We enjoyed being able to talk to the kids and they enjoyed fixing our Spanish.   The friendliness and genuineness of the people here is awesome to witness and we’re excited for the days ahead.

            ~Lydia

Communicating with the kids has been the thing that has really impacted me the most on this trip so far. Even though I only have two years of Spanish under my belt, I am still able to say a lot more than I ever expected. Those who are struggling with Spanish are all able to eventually get their point across, whether it is through a translator or pointing to certain objects. What really humors me is that some of the smarter kids know we do not understand what we are saying and tell us that they are twenty one years old when they are really eight (I had to give them payback and tell them I was ninety-nine). It is really a blast getting to know these kids, even though we have not even started the camp yet (the kids will come to play in the court yard or talk to us through the fence). I knew communication would be my favorite part of the trip, but I honestly did not expect it to be this cool. Our God sure is an amazing God that works in miraculous ways that cannot be put into words.

            ~Grace Dickmann

June Gateway Youth Team 2014

The post below was written last night.  As you can tell if you read it, we were all very tired after 18 hours of travel to get here.  I read the post and realized it might be confusing.  Here is clarification from my today and tomorrow references - Today we got up and had breakfast and now have the job of organizing, prepping and getting ready for sports camp, vbs, and construction.  Last nights devotion was form Hebrews 13:6.  Pray that we are not afraid (not understanding those around us, sleeping someplace different and being in a different culture can be hard) and we rely on the Jesus.  We will post again tonight and let you know how the day progressed.