After a late lunch, we headed towards the city to the main grocery store to get enough food for 20 families. Cart by cart, we formed an assembly line throughout the store and filled them up with rice, beans, tuna, olive oil, and other Dominican necessities.
We then ventured 30 minutes away to a sugarcane village called The Cuban (even though zero Cubans live there). As we drove up to the village, children ran up and down the streets making sure everyone knew that the “Americanos” had arrived. The bus stopped and as soon as we stepped foot on their soil, they greeted us with the biggest smiles we have ever seen. They grabbed our hands and took us away to a shady spot where they demanded us to sit and let them braid our hair. Peep the photos below to see our hair-braiding formation line.
We refused to let language be a barrier in our new friendships. Those of us that do know Spanish only know bits and pieces – making communicating any message extremely difficult without the interpreter. I’m reading a book right now called Everybody Always by Bob Goff. He talks about the word “with” and how simply being with someone can say far more than words.
“[Jesus] wouldn’t need a twenty-dollar phrase or a thirty-word Bible verse. He demonstrated the word with is much bigger and worthier and more accessible than any ten Bible verses.”
I believe this is exactly what we did today. While the families were overflowing with thankfulness that we brought them groceries, they felt loved because of the time we took to be with them. Everyone has a need to feel accepted and noticed, and that’s what we wanted to give to them. After we played for a while, we gathered all of the families into their church for Baylee, Molly, Chelsea, and Cheyenne to give a message. They explained why we were there and why we choose to love each other beyond just being teammates.
Today was definitely eye-opening and heart wrenching for everyone. As Sami pointed out, the boys found so much happiness in rolling a tire around while we are constantly trying to find our happiness in places that don’t exist, refusing to look right in front of us.
We hope you enjoy our pictures! It was a special day. Tomorrow, we will be putting on a softball clinic in the morning and then playing a game in the afternoon.
Prayer: that we keep our eyes on being like Jesus, that we feel his presence with us everywhere, and that we don’t grow weary with our long day of softball in the heat ahead!
