Sports, new shoes, Word of God all part of mission trip

God is in control.

That's how 19 teens and adults felt after returning from their mission trip to the Dominican Republic last month.

For the past decade it has been the dream of Remone Hernadez and Michell Marte, pastor of a church in Navarette, to use a camp to do sports for the glory of God and to incorporate it in a way to touch more kids for Jesus. Members of Seymour Christian Church have helped to make their dream a reality by taking mission trips each year to work on various projects for the camp.

This year a group from the church set out on July 11 to teach others about Jesus not only through sports but also through vacation Bible school.

Dan Weaver, youth pastor at Seymour Christian Church, said they did a total of four Bible schools, two on Friday and Saturday the first weekend they were there and two the following weekend.

"Bible schools are about an hour and a half program teaching the kids about Jesus," he said. "We use puppets, games, crafts, snacks and a lesson."

Several months before the group left, they and other members of the church collected new shoes to give to the kids who came to the camp as well as VBS.
"We took 650 pair of shoes because we've noticed in times past there is a great need in that area," Weaver said.

"It was really touching; at the end of one of the VBS', Love (Lockman) told them the story about Jesus washing the feet and then we gave them a new pair of shoes and washed their feet," said Brittany Erwin, one of the teens who went on the trip.

The group taught VBS to kids on the weekends and worked with the girls and boys volleyball and basketball camps during the week. The boys camp was the last group they had to give shoes to.

"We got down to the last two busloads that were going to come in and we were running really low on the bigger sizes," said Kena Brown, a teen who went on the trip. "Me, Love and Dan were all really scared that we were going to run out of shoes and that some of the kids weren't going to be able to get them, so we got together and we prayed about it."

Brown said they had only one 10.5 and barely had 9.5 sizes left and no sizes bigger than that.

"God answered our prayers, because when the next busload came in, they were pretty much all the same sizes."

Lockman, a sponsor

who went on the trip, said several kids brought theirs back and said they were too big, so they were able to exchange them for a different size.

"We had one boy that didn't have a pair of shoes," Lockman said. "Kena gave her pair of shoes so that every child had a new pair of shoes."

They took down 14 large boxes and four suitcases full of shoes.

"It turned out that we had exactly the right sizes and the right number of shoes," Weaver said. "God knew before we got there how many shoes and exactly the sizes we'd need."

While there, Lockman noticed that some of the kids wouldn't put on their new shoes for sports camp. In the Dominican, if you don't have shoes, you can't go to school.

"We realized we weren't just giving shoes, we were giving an education," Lockman said. "That's one way I think we are blessed in America, we have education, anybody can go if you are willing to work hard. But there it doesn't matter; if you don't have shoes, you don't go to school. There is so little hope."

More than 80 girls were in attendance for the three-day girls volleyball camp and 220 boys in the three-day boys basketball camp.

"The Dominican kids are very capable and very athletic, but volleyball and basketball aren't sports they have a lot of opportunity to play because of the poverty and the opportunity that's there," Weaver said.

Donna Sullivan, one of the coaches who went, said it is just now being accepted for girls to play sports.

"There is only one high school girls volleyball team in the whole country," she said. "Other than some club teams, there is no organization for sports in their country. They just get in their communities and play."

While many of the kids in the sports camp had basic skills, Sullivan was most impressed with the skill levels of the boys playing volleyball.

"They have some skill levels for the boys in volleyball that we don't have in our country in the typical high school boys," she said. For the girls, "We had skill levels from the very basic all the way up."

She said the boys playing basketball had a lot of natural athletic abilities. The boys had a knowledge of the game and a skill level of how to put the game together.

Vacation Bible school proved God's presence as well. Weaver said when planning for the four Bible schools they had planned to have 100 at each one. Aaron O'Neal, 17, was put in charge of snacks and had planned accordingly.

"Well, the first day pretty much soaked us for all the snacks we had."

Weaver said they weren't ready for the 350 children who showed up.

Later they went to a local store and bought several hundred snacks in preparation for the next three nights of Bible school.

"Down there, because the society is so poor, that was a huge treat for them," he said of the cookies and crackers they bought. "At the last Bible school before we came home, a bunch of kids showed up at the church."

Weaver said they counted and they had only 68 snacks left.

"We were like, ‘Uh-oh, what are we going to do?" he said. "

Only 68 kids came to the Bible school.

"Just like when we talked about with the shoes, the last kid came up and wanted a size 12 and the only shoes we had left were a size 12.

"So the Lord knew ahead of time exactly what to tell us to bring and what to buy," Weaver said. "It's trips like this that make us realize that God is in control and when we step out and face it he can do amazing things if people just follow him."

Those attending the trip included sponsors Weaver, Wayne Huddleston, David Huddleston and Lockman. Coaches included Donna Sullivan, Kim Bilskie, Jessica Rowand and Kristi Gossett. Teens working on the trip included Tyler Newton, Stevie Lockman, O'Neal, Dustin Sluder, Morgan Perkins, Chelsey Engle, Whitney Beverstock, Brown, Heather Day, Hattie Jaynes and Erwin.