Bootcamp!

I gasped as I saw Edely pass out after just 10 minutes of Survivor Boot Camp. “Oh no,” I thought. “What in the world have I gotten my girls into?”  This year, 11 girls have volunteered to be a part of our Frontera discipleship program because they wanted to grow in their walk with God.  In addition to bible study in the classroom, we took them on trips to help stretch them to depend on God. On one of our adventure weekends, we did a “Survivor” theme which included bringing in one of our missionaries who used to serve in the Dominican Army.  As a part of this team building weekend, he took the girls through a typical “boot camp” training.   The girls had to remain mentally tough while their drill sergeant barked orders at them.  Like Edely, many girls hit breaking points when they thought they couldn’t go on.  However, after a five minute break and pep-talk, every single girl gained the strength and courage to march back to their platoon.  

Crew lining up to start "boot-camp"

Tough girls after completing 3 hours of training!

Once the weekend was completed, all the girls were elated with pride. They realized that as a team, they overcame something really hard and were stronger for it!

We also did a missions trip to a poor city in the Dominican Republic called "Caraballo". The girls helped out the local missionaries with their Awana program as well as helped with some construction projects.  It was neat to see the girls really using their gifts to serve the Lord.  After walking through the neighborhood, they were also astonished to see the even greater proverty. 

Stephanie helping out with Awana

Mabelis, Ashley and Mary-Emily helping to pour cement!

Girls after carrying 100+ loads of rocks and dirt!

After a days work... Champs! 

I feel so blessed to be a part of this sports ministry in the Dominican Republic.  Just like enduring “boot camp”, many of these girls have to work hard and push through tough things in their lives.  Most of them come from fatherless and/or abusive homes and must choose to lift themselves up and courageously run to the Lord. Through our volleyball teams and discipleship program, we are really starting to see these grow into girls who are discovering what it means to find victory in the Lord.  God is good and I’m thankful to fight on his side!

Pee-Wee!!!

So, I'd like to attribute my lack of blog posts to my incredible work ethic that just pours out Jesus' love into girls that I just don't have time write on blog.  Unfortunately, that's not 100% true.  I am pouring out Jesus' love, but I'm afraid thats not directly correlated with my scarce blogging. Anyways, enough excuses.  I apologize that it's been so long. I'm going to try to break up the things that have been happening over the next couple blog posts.  But since I'm assuming you are busy too... its going to be a lot of pictures and less talking!

Event #1: We split up VC Revolution into "seasons"

We found it was hard to really pour into all our girls when we were running 4-5 teams at once. So this year we split up our teams into seasons. Three teams play from May-Dec and the others Jan-July.  This has been a great thing and has allowed us to really invest in these girls. Take a look!

My "teenager" team from Corocito.

Dianny (far right) is one of our graduated girls that will be attending college as well as helping coach the girls from her community. 

Freshman team- Coached by Chelsie Blackburn

These are girls from all over town that are mainly freshmen. Chelsie has really invested in these girls during their season and they have improved so much! 

Loreidy (far right) just finished her first semester at college while serving as the Freshman assistant coach. 

Pee-Wee Team

Great group of girls from Corocito that are 10&11 yrs. old. We just started this team this year and they have done such a great job! 

Another picture of some of our pee-wees because they are just so cute! 

Stay tuned... In the next blog post I'll be talking about our new discipleship program including their experiences of "boot camp"

Empty Nesters

I’ve always heard that parents have a tough time when their kids go off to college.  I never  understood that until last month when 4 of our girls graduated from our VC Revolution program.   To be apart of our volleyball ministry, girls can start at any age and as they get better, they can move up to become a “varsity” player.  Throughout their years in our program, there are pretty high expectations of achieving certain grades, being a good role model in the community, as well as intense volleyball training.  We have had the opportunity to coach and disciple many girls for multiple years.  However, this past year was the first time that we actually had to “graduate” 4 Dominican girls from our varsity team.  Mabelis Acevedo  and Loreidy Hernandez have been a part of VC Revolution for 4 years, Dianny Moronta-3 years, and Caroly Trinidad-2 years. 

I wish these girls could have stayed on varsity forever, but I knew we had to push them out of the nest.  However, many of them come from extremely poor homes and do not have money to attend college.  Thankfully, we were able to find sponsors for all of the girls to attend a great college about 25 minutes away.   We hope to find more sponsors to help cover transportation and books, but we are so thankful to have come this far.  In return for their scholarships, the girls will volunteer 15 hours a week as assistant coaches within VC Revolution or help at other ministry sites.  So not only will they be attending college, but they will continue to pour back to girls from their community.   For most of these girls, they were the first in their family to even graduate high school! Now, they are really going above and beyond to attend college.

Caroly and Rachel

One neat story of how God has already starting using these girls is through our community health site.  Rachel Snider, who is in charge of that site, asked if I had anyone charismatic and organized who could be an assistant at her site.   Immediately, Caroly popped into my mind since she is great with people, and because of our training for our states trip last summer, is pretty fluent in English.  So for the past two months, she has been going out into communities, ministering to the Dominicans, translating for the Americans, and being a great help to Rachel and her site. I am so proud to see these girls, who have been a part of our ministry for so long, start to really give back and serve alongside Students International.  Even though we have had some girls leave our nest, God continues to bless us with tons of new girls.  I am so thankful to be a part of this ministry which allows us to disciple girls and then equip them with the tools they need so that they can go out and FLY! 

Triple Header!

During these past two weeks,  I was reminded is so much bigger than I think.  His plans seemed to just BLOW my plans out of the water.  I headed into this past outreach a bit worried because we had to accomplish three big things. Our triple header.  First time ever Purity Ceremony/Senior Graduation. First  time ever volleyball camp.  Figure out a way to incorporate high schoolers in first two.  But, for cliche sake, gotta say it, God hit a grand-slam during this outreach.

First Challenger: Purity Ceremony/ Senior Graduation
This past week, we combined two important events into one big celebration. A purity ceremony as well as the graduation of our 5 seniors.  As a result of our purity ceremony, many of our varsity players decided to write out 10 promises they wanted to keep for their lives.  Not only that, but they invited their families, youth pastor, other VC Revolution teams, and other friends to be witnesses to this event.  It was an absolutely beautiful thing to see the girls nervously, but confidently read their promises in front of everyone. They proceeded to sign their contracts and receive pearl necklaces to remember their commitment.  Thank you to Blythefield Hills church for donating the special necklaces, the girls LOVE them.  Many families and parents were moved by the girls courage to do something like this.  One of our girls, Keysi, commented that it was only the second time in her life that she saw her mom crying.  We also invited the youth pastor to come and give a little talk about the influence parents can have on the girls lives.  It was a really neat thing for many of these families who never go to church to get connected with someone from our local church.  The senior graduation part was also incredibly moving as certain underclassmen talked about each senior.  Lots of tears were shed and it was a really neat time of remembering the great times we have shared with our seniors.  Its crazy to think some of these girls have played for VC Revolution for almost 4 years now and will now be going to college!!!


Second Challenger: Volleyball Camp
We wanted to try something this year to get more people from the community involved.  We hosted a weeklong volleyball camp with the morning session being 6-11 year olds and then in the afternoon 12-18.  It was a neat experience that we'll hopefully get more girls involved next year. But this year was fun!

Keysi teaching in the morning session.

Right before water balloon fun! 

Morning session: Ages 6-11

Afternoon Session: Ages 12-1

Third Challenger: Incorporate American Outreach Participants
Outreaches in the summer last 2 weeks.  Each American gets the chance each outreach to share a testimony/devotional at least once during their time here.  One of the first practices, we were all moved to tears by the devotion given by one of our high school girls.  Seriously, God blessed us with a 16-year-old preacher who has an incredible gift of writing/public speaking. SO. She became our guest speaker for our entire volleyball camp.  At the end of the week, numerous girls commented on how one of their favorite parts of the the outreach was her talks.  Another cool thing was that one of the americans was a Zumba instructor. SO. We got her to lead warm-ups each day for the girls.  By the last day of camp, the older girls kept wanting to keep doing ZUMBA and not go play volleyball!!! Here's a video of one of our jam sessions!

 It was a beautiful thing to see how God did things we totally didn't expect.  I was reminded me to remember that no matter how good of ideas I THINK I have, I need to hope and EXPECT that God will do even bigger things!

Purity Retreat!

One of the biggest struggles that these girls face is what I think most teenage girls struggle with: boys.  Thus we teamed up with 3 other ministry sites within SI as well as the youth ministry from the church a put on a 3 day purity retreat! And it was awesome!!! Here's what Chelsie (our new volleyball site leader) wrote about the weekend. 

The Purity Retreat was great! Youth from the Students International volleyball, baseball and social work sites were involved. A HUGE thanks to those who prayed specifically for this weekend. God showed up big time in the lives of the students. They were very willing to listen, learn and grow from what they heard in the teachings. The main topics of the weekend were sexual purity and the importance of marriage. Many activities were planned, some just for fun (you'll see that in the video) and others that were very meaningful. There were many teaching sessions, a time where students could write down questions to be answered by a panel of adults, small group sessions and to end the weekend was "La Boda". "The wedding" was very special; instead of just imagining their wedding day they were able to walk through what it could be like. The ceremony was followed by an opportunity to commit to purity. It was a beautiful thing! A weekend filled with forgiveness, redemption, commitments and healing could only come from the work of a Mighty God! Take 5 minutes and follow the link below to a video that highlights the events of the weekend!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Y54h13Q8KQ&feature=youtu.be

What is VC Revolution- Video

Check out this video to see what VC Revolution is all about! Loading it to my blog takes way to long here in the DR so you can just click the link and watch it on youtube!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cntn9z4hMWU&feature=youtu.be

Looking to the Future

It’s hard for me to believe that I have now been here for almost 4 years.  I am excited to see how God continues to use VC Revolution here in Jarabacoa.  We are training new coaches to accommodate for all the new girls wanting to be involved.  We have two big new projects that we are working on that we need your help with. As we graduate 4 of our seniors from our varsity team, we are also starting a scholarship program to help them attend college. As our site expands, we also need monthly supporters to help keep the site running efficiently. 

#1:  Sponsorship for Graduating Seniors

Many of the girls in our program have been trained and discipled and will be graduating in June.  Mabelis, Caroly, Dianny and Loreidy have all been a part of varsity and would like to attend college next fall.  Mabelis and Loreidy would like to study psychology and Caroly and Dianny-Dentistry.  They do not have nearly enough resources to pay for college.  Most of these girls will be the first in their family to go on to college (or even to finish high school!)  In return for their scholarships, they will join us as volunteer staff and help coach teams within VC Revolution or serve at other ministry sites  We are excited about this scholarship program because it allows these girls, who have been be apart of our program,  to continue serving alongside SI as well as continue their education. In order to pay for tuition, transportation and books, it costs $100 per month for these girls to attend college.

Mabelis, Loreidy, Caroly and Dianny 

Would you consider being a monthly supporter with your donation of $100 per month?  Or you can also be a half-scholarship supporter of $50 a month.  You can also give a one time donation.  Anything would be a huge blessing to these girls. Please consider helping to sponsor one of these girls and give them a chance of a future that they could have not otherwise afforded. If you would consider playing a HUGE role in providing these girls with a future, you can donate online at https://www.stint.com/donate.php.  Under “Ministry Site/Special Fund” scroll down to “Dominican Republic/Girls Volleyball Site- Scholarship Account” and follow the easy steps from there.  

2: Site Support Needed

As more girls want to be a part of VC Revolution, we need help financially to run these teams efficiently.  First of all, we want to be able to pay our coaches fairly.   In addition, in order to host tournaments, we need to provide food and refs for the games.  Hosting tournaments is a great thing because we are able share the gospel with the teams that come.  Students International was able to provide enough money to run the site for the past 4 years.   However,  in order to allow more girls into our site and provide coaches for all the team, we will need your help.  Our goal would be to raise $600 a month for total of $5400 to complete the rest of the year.  This money will go directly to the program to cover Dominican coaches salaries, travel expenses, equipment and uniforms. 

For the year of 2013, we need a total of $5400   If you would be willing to give a one time donation or consider being a monthly supporter of our site, we would so appreciate it! If you are interested in giving to our program you can give a tax-deductible donation online at https://www.stint.com/donate.php.  Under “Ministry Site/Special Fund” scroll down to “Dominican Republic/Girls Volleyball Site- General” and follow the easy steps from there.

*For more information on other ways to donate, feel free to visit the website at http://www.stint.com/about/donate and it can explain other options.

Other Big News!

In February, we welcomed Chelsie Blackburn to our full-time missionary staff.  She will be spending the first couple months taking Spanish classes and then joining me in May. Our goal would be that she can really invest in the newer players and continue and disciple them as they go through our program. 

Chelse is the one on the right. :) 

This was a big 3v3 tournament that we played in last week!

Here's a video that we just made giving a better idea of what VC Revolution is all about!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cntn9z4hMWU&feature=youtu.be

New Address for letters and packages... FYI

SDQ11056 Jessica Gates
2250 NW 114th Ave Unit 1 A
Miami, Florida
33172-3652

Support still goes to the same California address

Top 12 Things of My Dominican Christmas

In my last post, I discussed the top 12 things I’ll miss this Christmas.  I must say that it left me feeling really sad! So, in efforts to lift my spirits a bit and let you know some of the great things I’ll get to partake in this Christmas season, I decided to write a new blog: The Top 12 Things of my Dominican Christmas

1. Dominican Food- Eating lots and lots of Dominican food.  One of the popular things Dominicans doing during Christmas is cook a pig!  We had some on Christmas day. So good!  

2. Pijamada “Pijama Party”-  Since all my roomates are gone, we decided to take advantage of the empty house and have a pijama party.  We have been studying the book of John and so to finish up our study, we watched the Passion of Christ.  I must say, this was the first pijama party that I’ve had… probably since college.   Possibly my last.  Haha.

3.  Volleyball- There will be lots of volleyball happening this Christmas break.  Not sure I really need to explain this one. 

4.  Spending Time with Breddy’s Family-  I have been dating a great Christian guy for the past few months.  He loves the Lord and loves sports too! So we really enjoy doing the same activities together.  Here, Dominicans aren’t huge on gifts for Christmas.  They mainly have big dinners and spend time together as a family.  Because his parents work a lot, I haven’t had a lot of time to get to know them. Here is a picture with Breddy and two of his cousins at one of the family get-togethers. 

5.  Conga (basically softball without a umpire to call balls and strikes. Pitcher keeps pitching until you hit it or swing 3x and strike out) -  This has been a new activity that Breddy has introduced me too.  We play softball basically on the side of a gradual mountain.  Not sure I can explain it.  The bases are closer together because you have to run up-hill.  Also, balls don’t go as far because, yes, you are hitting up-hill. Super fun. Lots of kids play and even some other women! Probably one of my favorite new Christmas activities. 

6.  No Planes- I really hate flying.  I feel like 90% of the time I fly, something goes wrong.  Ask me sometime, I have at least 5 horror stories.  So I’m happy to just be the chofer and take people to/from the airport.

7.  Going to the Beach- Not so bad spending Christmas break in 80 degree weather!

8. Dancing- I’m not the greatest dancer. There is just something that doesn’t allow me to move my hips like latinos do!  I think I have an extra bone or something that just makes it impossible for me!  However, from merengue to bachata, dancing is a big part of Dominican culture.  So, we’ve been trying to work on my dancing skills. Check out a video of Breddy dancing with his cousin.  Someday…. I might dance like that!

9. Motorcycle trip to the Presa- Last Saturday, some of the varsity girls (and their drivers) and I took a motorcycle trip to the Presa.  The Presa is a beautiful man-made dam that has the best fish and tostones on the island!  Well, I don’t know if it’s the best, but it sure has a great view.  Check out a highlight video of our trip.

*To see a video with some clips of us riding on the motorcycles*

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h8ibmM6IqJM&feature=youtu.be

10.  Girl Time- Its just been great to get some hang-out time with my varsity girls.  Whether we are playing volleyball, riding motorcycles, or making dinner together, its just nice to hang out with them and continue to build those relationships. 

11.   Rest- It has been a great time of just reading, relaxing and getting lots of rest.

12.  Skyping with my family on Christmas Morning- Even though I am further away this Christmas, some traditions still continued this year.   Christmas morning, Breddy and I skyped into Christmas at home.  Breddy read a Christmas story and I translated it for my family. Then we got to hear my dad read something. It was a special time to all be “together”.  We even got a “Family Picture”.

Thank you to everyone for your prayers and support in this past year.  In January, we start up strong with two American teams coming down.  Also in February, another American girl will be joining me on staff at the sports site.  It will be great to have her so that we can start more teams and be able to reach more girls! Continue to be in prayer for the girls of the site.  Many of them are hitting that key age where they decide to follow God or choose their own way.  Thank you for your prayers.  I pray that God continues to bless you in this new year of 2013!