Update from "Bellas Pies"

Bellas Pies - a.k.a. Team First Class

Alex, Dustin, Molli, Michelle
Our travel to Santo Domingo couldn’t have been anymore smooth. We arrived early Saturday morning. We are staying at an apartment 20 minutes away from everyone else. It has a really cool view in the morning even though it is not in the nicest of areas. After catching up on some sleep, we went to the beach area and played sand volleyball with some people we met there. We attracted a big crowd, and played for about 2.5 hours. We went out to eat at Adriana Tropical Saturday night with everyone on the trip. Sunday Morning we went to church with Evelyn and her daughter, Yonairy in their brand new building. It was awesome to witness the new building and how nice it was and how far it had come from last year. Later that afternoon we toured the UASD campus, and spent more time at the beach playing volleyball with some Dominicans. One of the biggest challenges we knew coming into this trip would be being able to talk with people who spoke only Spanish and so far we have run into a majority of people who speak it, so we have been learning some Spanish along the way!

Our first 3 days of English classes and sharing on campus have gone great. Dustin and Molli talked with Eric and Gabriella. Eric had a lot of questions about sin and the trinity, and although the language barrier makes it difficult, they were able to make things a little more clear for him. It has been really cool to teach people English and have them be so excited to learn. It is a totally different culture over here and they get really excited about learning. Not only is it awesome to teach them English, but just talking with about Jesus has been going very well so far! They have a desire to become the best at everything they do, and it is so crazy because that is not us at most of the things we take for granted back in the United States.

We got to spend time at an orphanage as well. It is so sad to see kids without parents, but at the same time it was so awesome to play with them and see the smiles on their faces. It brings joy to not only them but for us as well to just share love with them and bringing them things they can play with. When we are walking the streets at night or on campus it is also sad to see kids 5 years old carry around a wooden box with materials to shine shoes. It puts things into perspective of how much we have back in the United States and a lot of the things we take for granted. Things such as food and clothing and maybe having a job that we make money at, even if we don’t like the job, is something these kids struggle with every day. We live in a broken world and the only hope is in Jesus and the day when we will live with him forever. Being over here has definitely put that mindset into our lives more and more each day.

Prayer Requests:

• Continued grace with our Spanish, meeting English-speakers, and meeting people who can translate for us.
• Safe travels home
• People would accept Christ