Abraham Mow, Infielder
Slippery Rock University
Today, the team had a bit more of a relaxed day, having only one event scheduled for the day. We attended a church in the heart of La Romana. The experience we had was surprising. During our drive to the church, the bus turned into a parking lot of what looked to be an old hospital that was no longer in use. To our surprise, this is where we will be attending church. We walked in and sat down to wait for the service to start. The pastor started mass by having three people in their church band play music to worship. After singing and listening, the pastor opened by saying in Spanish “We have a group of people that came to our country to worship the Lord with us, welcome” and also mentioned “God’s word is for Americans, Dominicans, everyone.” He made sure to recognize us and welcome us into their church. His message came from the book of 2 Corinthians. After the message, the floor was open to an offering box at the front of the altar. Everyone in the church gave a portion of what they had and placed it into the offering box one by one whether it was in Dominican pesos or U.S. dollars. The first two to place an offering into the box were two little boys no more than seven years old. They sprinted to the front to give a small coin which was worth anywhere between 5 to 25 pesos, about the equivalent to 10 to 50 cents in U.S. currency. Afterwards, the entire congregation participated in the Lord’s Supper which consisted of apple juice and a cracker. After the Lord’s Supper, a man came to the front to speak a bible verse in Spanish, and then proceeded to say it in English for us. It was John 14:6 “Jesus answered, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man cometh to the Father, but by me.” After church, we drove back to our place at Casa de Campo. We ate lunch and then we spent most of the day at the beach. It is one of the most amazing beaches that any one of us will ever go to. The Caribbean Sea and sun was warm and the breeze off the water cooled us down. After we arrived back and ate dinner, we packed 60 bags of an assortment of 13 different food items with Kelly to take to a village the next day. She mentioned that this bag will feed a family of 4 for about 4 to 7 days. It truly was another amazing day here in the Dominican Republic. Attending a Spanish speaking church with a different culture was a very remarkable experience and putting together food bags for poverty-stricken people felt very heartwarming.
