Outback Dominican Republic

We are on the plane in Miami heading to Houston! We should reach Houston about 12:30pm. Feels good to be back in the U.S of A!

Here’s is more details on the Outback’s flight info:

Santo Domingo to Miami, American 432, departs at 6:35am, arrives at 7:55am

Miami to Houston, American 1629, departs at 10:35am, arrives at 12:30pm

What an honor!!! What an extreme privilege!! That the Lord has chosen to use this team to impact lives for His kingdom! Today we had to say goodbye to Cima Del Rey (for now)…but our hearts and prayers stay with the staff and campers whom we served alongside and ministered with throughout out time in the DR. Tonight we went to Castillo Del Rey’s Masters Commission house in Santo Domingo to debrief and get some rest before our early flight in the morning. We ate at one of the missionaries houses (Dawn) with the national staff and then had ice cream at the masters commission house. Nelson…the director of Castillo Del Rey in the DR came to meet us and to thank us for our service! We are excited to see how this relationship will continue to grow these next years!

Our plane leaves out at 6:30am and we should arrive in Houston by 12:30pm. From there we will drive to Columbus and should be back by 2:30 or 3:00. We are excited to be home but not ready to leave. The relationships built this week have been incredible and we are grateful for the Lord’s provision an work in and through it all! Gracias me Señor!

We’ve had a full day of camp!!! The energy is high and camp is running very smooth. I have seen the national staff catch on to so many examples our staff are setting and they have definitely set the pace. Here are a few pics from the day. Pray for good rest, staff health, and continued grace as we finish camp strong tomorrow!

We just started our second camp, and we have 54 campers!! They thought we were only going to have like 10, but the Lord provided 44 more! Crazy! Our energy is high tonight. The staff are doing a great job and training is happening in so many ways!

Pat gave the gospel talk tonight and it went really well. We also had a great meeting with the national program staff tonight explaining even more of the “why’s” behind what we do in Christian Camping. This week has been so amazing!! We are implementing even more programmatic ideas this camp and it has started off really well!

Please continue to pray for us! We only have a short time with the campers. Pray that their hearts would be open to the gospel!

Our morning started off with an adventure!! We climbed a mountain and then went for a little swim in the river.

Climbing the Mountain!

Everybody made it back safe and sound!

After our little adventure, we headed to church! Church was great! It was an amazing reminder of God’s sovereignty and how big He truly is. It was an awesome way for our team to dive into the Dominican Republic culture, too.  While we were at church, the natives asked us to sing a song in English, so we were able to sing Mighty to Save.

The church congregation

Then the church asked Pat, the Pine Cove trip leader, to share a little bit with the congregation. So he had the opportunity to speak about “Awaken a Generation” and the vision behind why Pine Cove does Commission Camping. It went really well! God’s provision and faithfulness has amazed us! Bryan even got to see one of his campers while he was at church! It was such a cool moment!

Giving announcements at the end of the church service.

Bryan with one of his campers at church!

Here’s one last picture! It’s from yesterday’s trip to the beach!

Tourist day was a lot of fun! We went shopping and then did the popular Pine Cove “Soldiers” dance in the market (video to come). We ate lunch then went to the beach. The team had a great time and bonded even more with the national staff. We have been doing Pine Cove cheers on the bus ride and we played Home Run Derby at the beach with a bat and warballs…one is still at sea heading to Brazil thanks to Ryan (he won).  Then we ate true Dominican Republic food for dinner (fried plantains).

Our team eating pizza before heading to the beach!

Loving the Pizza!

The girls enjoying our day of tourism

Tomorrow we are going to church and planning for the next camp. the Lord has been so gracious to our team and has brought tremendous unity within our staff! We have continued to see the theme of Him being the ultimate supplier. Just as God supplies for us what He demands from us in Christ Jesus… He has supplied in ways we would’ve never even thought about (with languages, relationships, safety, and transformed lives). We are excited to see what he has in store for our next session of campers!

(From Friday Night)

All I can say is WOW!! Our first session of camp has ended, and we just finished our debrief time with the national staff. Both teams have learned SO MUCH!! We had a camper and staff share time, and all I can say is WOW! We’ll post stories soon!

Here are some pictures from yesterday:

Parachute games at the Mystery Madness activity class

Playing in the Pool

Archery

Joel is one of the national staff we trained to do a skit!! He is the main leader here!

Tonight we played a game called Operation Infiltration, and it went AWESOME! The kids loved it! We had bad guys and a skit to go with it. The national staff did a great job following and they loved the game as well!

Archery targets the kids made during activity classes today.

The Pine Cove team is doing great. Everyone is feeling a little tired, but still serving humbly. We end camp tomorrow at 3, followed by a debrief with the national staff. This is always a good time for us to process things that went well, areas that could be improved, and share how we saw God move over the past few days.  After we debrief, we’ll have our tourism day! Hopefully we’ll get to post more tomorrow!