Why We Are Here...

Well we finally made it to the Score complex in the DR.  We're currently settling in and seeing some of the area.  We thought during this time we'd love to share with you why we are here.  The videos are taken at an awesome beach near the place of our ministry.  We hope this serves to show you why and how God has led us to be here.  We had some problems uploading the videos so please visit this link to our Dominican facebook page to see the videos...

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=146320545392367&v=app_2392950137#!/group.php?gid=146320545392367

Day 1 at the orphanages

We just wanted to update you on our time here.  Yesterday we got here and had lunch and went to the beach (which was amazingly beautiful) then we had dinner and got together to go over James 1 and 2.  Today we got up and went over James 3 and then had breakfast together then headed off to the special needs orphanage.  It was amazing and heartbreaking at the same time.  Some of the kids were literally tied to the bed because there was no one to care for them and the caregivers didn't want them to hurt themselves.  We felt so bad for them.  Most of them were boys because they were remodeling some of the orphanage so they had taken the girls to another orphanage for a little bit.  However, there were a few girls there and I got to hold one of them for pretty much the entire time.  She was scared when anyone would come near her but after holding her for a while she just kept taking my hand and putting it on her face (she was definitely a physical touch kid, which made my heart break for her because I knew she wouldn't get much physical touch being kept in a crib for 24 hours every day).  She had some sort of seizure disorder and would start shaking really bad when anything new happened but for the longest time we just sat in the chair and she just let me hold her (she definitely had severe mental handicap) she was probably around 3 years old and could not communicate at all and didn't respond to you at all.  But she was so sweet.  It made me really sad because so many of the kids seemed like they would be so different if they only had a real home to live in.  Some of the kids wouldn't even try to get out of their cribs because they'd never been out of them ever.  Reminded me of a story I read once about elephants in India.  To train an elephant in India you tie one end of a rope to the elephant and attach the other end to a stake in the ground.  When the elephant is a baby it will try to pull up the stake but can't because it is not strong enough.  Eventually the elephant quits trying.  By the time the elephant is full grown it is still attachedto that stake and doesn't even realize that a simple man could pull it out and even more easily for a huge elephant.  That was these kids, they had stopped trying.  They never attempted to get out of their beds/cribs (even the ones who were tenagers and young adults) because they too had learned from a young age that they couldn't.  That made me feel so bad for them, but the kids were happy for the most part.  They loved to smile and absolutely loved when Kasey played her guitar.   I can't wait until tomorrow when we get to go visit another orphanage.  I know that I will be emotionally wrecked after that one.  We were reading through the sponsorship manual that SCORE has for the kids at the next orphanage we're going to and some of the stories were so sad about how the children had ended up there.  Most of them have mom's who are prostitutes and the lady who runs the orphanage reaches out to them also.  We've heard she is pretty amazing and can't wait to meet her.  We are also taking about 7 suitcases FULL of clothes, toys and more for the orphanage tomorrow.  SCORE staff is completely overwhelmed by how much we were able to bring.  We've really been overcome with how much God blessed us through donations and extra financial support to be able to reach these kids.  Thank you to everyone who has prayed for us and given of their time/money/and love.

Halfway There!

We are officially on our way.  After a great "night" of packing our luggage we made a quick stop at steak and shake and then headed on our way to drive the 5 hours to Miami for our flight.  We had some awesome blessings already!  First three of our guy friends offered to drive us down which allowed us to get some much needed sleep.  Second, we had originally we had each planned to take all of our stuff in our carry on baggage and fill our suitcases with all of the stuff for the orphans that we had collected/bought.  When we started filling our suitcases last night we quickly ended up filling up three extra suitcases.  When we got to the airport this morning they had computer failure and allowed us to take the extra baggage for free, this would have been around $100+!!!  What an awesome blessing.  We will continue to keep you updated.  Below are a few of our prayer requests at this point.

1. Guitar strings for Kasey (Kasey brought her guitar to be able to play some songs to the orphans, however, in the airport 2 of her strings popped, pray we can find somewhere she can get new strings)
2. safety for our flight (please pray that we have safety on the flight to the DR)
3. Emotional Stability (during our preparation for this trip we have gone through and studied every verse in the bible that mentions orphans or fatherless, because of this we have come to somewhat begin to understand God's passion for these children. We know that when we meet them and develop relationships the need will become even more real. Please pray for our emotional stabilty both while there and when returning.)
   
   Thank you so much for your prayers, support and love!
   Here's a video and a couple pictures of a few of the girls on our way!
   
   
   
   
   
   

Follow us in the DR

As you may know we are going with SCORE internation on our trip to the DR.  You can follow updates about our trip on their website at http://scoreinternational.org/ click on select group and select Idlewild Baptist Church!  We also hope to post videos/pictures on here depending on internet connection!

In a years time...

I recently heard a quote that life is no more than a collection of stories.  If that is true this is sure to be one of the best stories our lives will represent.  In early 2010 we were just a group of girls in a Sunday school class who wanted to do something “big” with our lives.  During this time we were presented with the question “if you knew God was behind you 100% and you could do anything and time, money, friends, family, etc… couldn’t hold you back what would you do?”  This was a hard question to answer but after several weeks many of the girls opened up and began to share their deepest dreams.  “I’d move to Africa to help orphans” said one, “I’d become a famous designer and show girls that true beauty comes from their relationship with Christ not their clothes” another mentioned and still another said “I’d adopt terminal, special needs children and for the last few years of their life show them the unfailing love of God.”  Soon enough we realized that not only was God showing us some big dreams, but we also had several areas that overlapped each other in our passions.  We began praying that God would use us as a class to do something for Him.  We began discussing ideas such as helping orphans and underprivileged children and tossed around the idea of going on a mission trip.  A few months later a representative from SCORE international came to visit our college ministry and was talking about a mission trip to Alabama.  After this one of the girls in our class went up to him and asked if they ever had need for a group of girls to go on a trip.  The rep said yes specifically to do orphan outreach in the Dominican Republic, when could we leave.  We knew this was exactly what God had laid on our hearts and we began to pray about when to go.

We had tossed around some dates but the only one that worked for everyone was to give up our Thanksgiving turkeys and go during that weekend.  So we began to make plans.  We quickly calculated that the trip was going to cost us around $900 each ($8,100 for 9 of us to go).  This made us nervous as we are all in college, working part time or just starting out our full time jobs.  However, we were constantly encouraged that God would provide.  We made a decision at the beginning that we were going to do our fund-raising differently.  Yes we were going to send out support letters but we were also going to sacrifice on our own.  We wanted to give God our best for Him for this trip and we wanted to get over there knowing that we had given up part of ourselves in order to go on this trip.   We began to plan over 6 fundraisers we would put on along with making contributions out of our personal paychecks.  We knew this would be hard.  It would mean not being able to buy that shirt, that lunch or maybe even selling something we already owned.  However, during this time God used this trip to teach us about our trust in possessions.  You see during this time some of us were so convicted about what we put our trust in.  It was hard for us to keep that $20 in our wallet and save it for the trip when we visited Target and wanted to buy that new scarf but slowly God developed a habit in us for giving up for Him.  We learned the different between giving and sacrificing.  Giving is giving away something you may or may not need but sacrificing means giving until it hurts.  Would we really be willing to sacrifice for these orphans?  We were constantly encouraged by many scripture that talked about helping the orphans and by others that spoke of God providing for you.  We knew it was God’s will for us to go so we knew He would provide.

Fast forward 6 months.  We knew God would provide but we weren’t sure how.  About 1 month ago we met for our bi-weekly meeting/bible study at Barnes and Noble to discuss the trip.  We went around and each spoke about how much we felt God was lying on our heart for us to give.  Later on we found out that we had already met our goal for our money for the trip.   Through last minute giving, a change in ticket prices, and an unpredicted scholarship we would now have more than enough money without the money we were still planning on giving.  When we talked about what to do with this money we decided that we should still give what God had told us.  After all He had taught us so much about sacrificing and He had personally laid this amount on each of our hearts.  So now we’re up to date.  We know God wants us to use this money for Him so we are planning on going out next week and buying socks, diapers, wipes, shoes and more for these orphans.  Our goal at the beginning of this trip was to be able to give all we are and visit these orphans and see them as God sees them.  We’ve studied the verses that talk about giving to the orphans and now we are going to be able to do that with our time, efforts and finances.  God is so amazing.   We all knew He would answer our prayers but never imagined that this same group of girls that “wanted to do something big” would end up being part of something even bigger by the time one year was over.  We are excited to see the next step in where God personally leads us while in the Dominican.  Please continue to pray for our trip and check back for Part 2 of this story…