CICI WEST Senior September 13

CICI WEST Senior September 13

Today was awesome because we were able to meet some new faces. We started the day much like many of our previous mornings at Go Ministries. We had a delicious breakfast, and proceeded with our daily devotion from “Grafted: Into the Story” team devotion journals. We expanded on our conversation from this week of being grafted into Jesus and the kingdom of God. Each platoon was able to bring insight during today’s discussion, led by Kelsey. What spoke to me was how many people attributed their opportunities / experiences to what God has done for them. This trip itself is a pure example of that. Also, the Grafted reading brought up the topic of suffering, and how through suffering, we can identify Christ. Overall, our devotion discussion set the tone for the rest of the day. Following our devotion, we drove through Santiago to go to another Go Ministries location. As our bus pulled up, many children appeared. They were waving, smiling, dancing, and shouting, ‘Hola!” Lance (assistant coach Sasha Anderson’s husband) was the first person off the bus, and the children enveloped him in hug after hug. Automatically, the children at this location immediately engaged with us and were excited to play. So many of the kids gravitated to the coloring books, stickers, or just hugging onto our players, without hesitation. When I was looking around the play area, I saw each team member playing with a kid, and it looked like everyone would have something very memorable from those two hours with that group. When it was time for lunch, there were more kids in people’s arms than there were standing on the ground. At one point, a couple players had two grinning kids on them. By the time we had to leave, every person was attached to the kids. I even overheard a kid asking Erica (Pagano) in Spanish if she could come with her. I think those two hours will be some of the most memorable time of our trip. Heading back to the main Go site, was a smooth drive. After arriving, we went to the Go store. We then had some down time before the games. The down time is pretty enjoyable, because people generally play cards together, or just get some rest. Even though resting was nice, a couple people mentioned that they would’ve enjoyed seeing some of the girls we have been working with at the basketball clinics for the past couple days. Luckily, some of those girls were at our game this evening. Today, we played well, and there was a lot of chemistry when we executed great plays. Unfortunately, a lot of our lay-ups did not fall, but we have time to get that together before the regular season. Everyone played well, and it was fun to be on the court again. Today was another great day in the Dominican Republic, and I am sad that tomorrow is our last full day with the people in this beautiful community.