Thursday, June 13 Brianna



Brianna

 Hi everyone, it's Bri! Today, we started off our day with quiet time in our journals. We read about Abel and Enoch. Then in chapel, we further learned how to live our lives for God. After chapel and worship, which has been amazing so far, we ate baked oatmeal with yogurt and fruits for breakfast. Then, we went off to our sites. I'm in the women's sports site with Claire and two other girls. In this site, we go to public schools and play volleyball with the girls and boys, who age from 9-20 years old. We play with a group of girls and help them improve their volleyball. These girls live very hard lives. Yesterday, I met a girl who was 15 years old and pregnant, and she seemed very sad and alone. I also met girls who are big, tough, and fight with other girls their age because they're angry or struggling at home. All these girls have very unique stories, which I am excited to learn about and discuss with them these next days ahead of me.

This morning, we arrived at the public school and I gave a devotion in Spanish to the boys and girls. My devotion came from the verse Proverbs 4:23. I helped the kids understand this verse and how they can apply it into their daily lives. After playing several volleyball games with the girls versus the guys, we went to eat lunch at the preschool in El Callejon. We've eaten there everyday so far this week and it's very relaxing. It also provides us with an amazing opportunity to build new relationships with others. In the afternoon, there were no PE classes to attend, so we went to the river and each of the members in my site shared their testimonies, including myself, and we talked about God and how we've encountered Him.

Later in the day, each site went to a dinner in a Dominican family's home. Below is a picture of our group before we went to our separate host family dinners. The house I went to was about the size of a medium-sized bedroom. Two adults and three little kids live in it. The mother cooked us a delicious meal consisting of rice with corn, chicken, tostones, potato salad, and dulce de leche and coconut candy for dessert. I enjoyed today and this whole week so far to a great extent, and I look forward to the rest of the time we have here.

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