Day 5 Recap

Sorry for not posting yesterday!  I had every intent of blogging and posting lots of awesome underwater pictures from all the fun we had at Catalina when we got back yesterday, but God definitely had other plans for my night, as our devotions really just floored us all and lead to part of the group talking until around 2 AM and certainly becoming much closer.  Tonight there will be pictures! Promise!

Catalina was AMAZING.  It was so beautiful and so much fun.  We had about a 1-hour bus ride with a few people from another group here to the boat itself, during which we passed the time (and annoyed the other group) by playing our new "song game" where someone picks one word, and two teams compete back and forth to recall/sing songs including that word.  When we play guys vs. girls, we're pretty evenly matched, too, and the game can really go on for the whole bus ride!  As a group, we really just get along very well and it's so awesome to see people who would have never known each other otherwise at school become so much closer.

We got off the boat at this gorgeous dock that we had to descend some old and rustic looking stone steps to get to.  Our boat was a double decker boat with an open-air top floor, so we all went up there to enjoy the views.  We got free Cokes right away and took pictures endlessly, of course.  The 40 ish minute boat ride to the island was SO pleasant too!  The water is so incredibly blue and the temperature was just perfect; it was so nice to have one more chance to soak up some summer rays.  We stopped at a reef a little bit off from the island and got to jump off the top of the boat (so much fun!!) into the most aquamarine blue colored water ever and then snorkeled with some sweet tropical fish!  Jean has an underwater camera, so that was a great experience, especially for Brad who I really think almost never surfaced, he loves snorkeling that much!

From there we headed into the island, and a small boat came to pick us up.  It was pretty Titanic-esque, all 25 or so people from the main boat loading into this tiny motorboat.  It was no problem, though, getting to the island even with all of the people cramped in one small boat, and once we got there, it was literally paradise.  I'm talking pure white sands, chairs already laid out, tiki huts scattered around, and palm trees everywhere.  NOT TO MENTION that amazing water!!!  I will probably never want to go back to a Maryland beach again :(  We could actually see our legs and toes while standing in the water!  We were so glad that we had brought all of our goggles from swim practice, that way we could dive and look at the fish without a snorkel mask.

We laid out for a little bit and all got really burnt, then went to the tiki pavilion for a buffet lunch of various pasta salads, rice, potatoes (all Dominican style), an array of Dominican fruit (the best mangoes EVER, watermelon, papaya, pineapple), a date and coconut mixture, bread, and barbecued chicken and some other sort of meat.  So incredibly good. 

We did have some issues when the guys went for a walk and Chris decided to "kick a rock" and get sea urchin barbs lodged deep in the top skin  of his toe.  Fortunately enough, some people from the other group had brought a large knife (??) (much better than the earring tactic Jacki was using before the appearance of the knife) and Chris was able to try to cut his skin enough for me to be able to attempt at prying out the barbs with my nails.  He's much better now!!

The boat ride back was every bit as amazing, as a few of us rode at the front of the boat and sunbathed with some sea spray hitting us every now and then.  It was such a good day!!

Last night's devotions, however, were I think what really kicked a lot of us in the pants.  Craig McClure, one of the long-term missionaries here, was the speaker, and he was the type of speaker that does not compromise on one bit of the Gospel.  That's a really good quality, but I just realized how much I am NOT used to hearing such bold messages!  The focus was on aiming for the right target, using the example of Matt Enns, the Olympic rifleman in 2004 who was doing so well that in the final round all he needed to do was clip the target to win gold, and was confused when the judge told him that his bullseye was no good- only to find out that he had aimed for his OPPONENT'S bullseye and was disqualified from the competition.  Craig made this into an athletic parallel, telling us that in everything we do, the glory needs to go to God (the right target), rather than ourselves.  When things go well and we win, we give the glory to God, but how often do we praise Him in our sufferings?  Apparently the literal translation for the passage in Scripture that talks about how if our focus is off, all we have to offer God is "dirty rags" is actually "menstrual rags," and Craig really made us think about living a life thinking we've done everything right, then meeting God and seeing that all we have to offer Him, all of the fruits of our ill-gotten labors are just dirty tampons in His sight.  Pretty humbling I'd say.  There was so much more to the message, but as athletes, I think many of us just finally got the message about how everything needs to revolve around God- ESPECIALLY as athletes at Messiah!!  Not only do we need to praise Him in our winning, but also praise Him in our losing and really just all the time.  We all talked about how when you have a bad day (as Chris really did after the whole sea urchin incident, as well as going swimming with his camera in his pocket, and getting burnt), we need to thank God for suffering- which seems unreal.  Craig even said "if the Lord wants to take my life, that's okay; praise the Lord!  She's not mine anyways."  I can't tell you how many jaws dropped.  We have a hard enough time thanking God and understanding God when we lose a competition- but when we lose a family member or a spouse?  Craig just kept saying that we should feel HONORED that God has chosen us to suffer.  The gates of heaven are narrow gates, he said, and not all those who say they believe are definitely going to get in.  There was just so much to think about, which was why we all felt it ok to lose some sleep last night in order to get thoughts about the message off of our chest.

A side note from last night:  the wrestling men finally had their big synchro showdown with 4 guys from another group here, and won.  The video should be up soon; it was very impressive.

Today we are going to a different orphanage, then the straw market, then straight to clinics (where the swimmers are doing something different today).  There won't be any break in  the middle so please pray for energy and strength as we go throughout the day- we're all pretty drained with our sun exposure yesterday AND the lack of sleep last night, so not having any down time might be pretty hard, especially with what we're bound to see at the orphanage.  The softball girls visited this orphanage in January when they came down, and they said it was the saddest place.  There are several children here who are children of incest and are very deformed because of it, but their testimonies are great.  In January, at least, there just was not enough staff at the orphanage to properly care for all of the children, and when the softball girls arrived there was just a line of strollers sitting out in the sun with babies 3-9 months just sitting there.  Again, I'm not sure if we're all really mentally prepared for what we could see, so if you could, please pray for that.

Tomorrow we come home!  We won't get back into BWI until midnight, so prayers in advance for traveling mercies would be so great too.  See most of you in a few days!!