Day 1 and 2

Team Paraguay:

Nicole Horton, Mississippi College (she’s from Colorado), Anysia Weicht, St. Leo University (Ft. Myers), Courtney Creamer, Mississippi College (Ft. Myers), Kendra Altemeyer, Newberry College (Ft. Myers) and Coach Tom Baxter (Ft. Myers)

I received a message from Dawn while they were on layover in Peru then was able to chat with her via instant messenger yesterday.

They had a good but very long trip.  Costa Rica was beautiful.  She had some severe pain in one ear as the planes took off and landed but that eventually went away several hours later when her ear finally “popped”.  They didn’t arrive in Asuncion until 3:30 a.m., an hour late, but got all of their luggage and didn’t have any trouble in customs. 

They are staying at Coach Tom and his wife, Sara’s (who is Paraguayan) apartment.  After a bit of sleep, they had lunch at Coach Tom’s favorite restaurant.  Dawn had beef and it was really yummy.  She’s already having a great time.  It’s been fun to get to know Sara better and see her in her home country.  She likes what little she’s seen of Asunción and noted that there’s poverty, but not to the extent of Haiti’s poverty.

Excerpts from the team’s blog:

The time finally came for us to head to the orphanage. We built a fire, cooked hot dogs, introduced S´mores to the kids, and most importantly, fell in love with the kids there…..At the beginning, it took a while for everyone to warm up to each other, but it did not take long for God´s love to pour out of us! We played games, painted the girls´nails, laughed with each other, and ate together. ….One of the most rewarding and touching things about tonight was to see a husband and a wife with three kids of their own and a fourth on the way take care of 14 other children as if they were there own……..All in all, tonight was AMAZING and we can´t wait for what the rest of the trip has to offer!!!

Read the full blog entry HERE.  Click on the title “May 16th- Officially Day 1 of our Trip” to read the entire entry. 

The itinerary is HERE.  You can keep up to date on the day’s projected activities there.

Pray for the team as they have their first presentation this morning.  The team has played together at different times in high school and in club ball, but since they all just finished the school year at their various colleges, they haven’t practiced together as a team.  It shouldn’t take long to get their rhythm down though. 

Part of the afternoon’s activities will include painting at the orphanage.

Dawn’s burdens for this trip:

*That she play well to give a good showing of volleyball skills

*That she can effectively share her testimony and will be able to share the Gospel in a way that will bring people to Christ

*That she will be a blessing and encouragement to her teammates

Pray for her for these things please!  Feel free to send her encouraging notes at: definitelydawn@hotmail.com.  Internet is limited but she will be able to access it from time to time.

Day 2

[Excerpts from the team’s blog….]

We commuted to Siloh Christian School where we did two presentations, the first one was for fourth-sixth grade and the second was for the seventh-ninth grade of the school. The kids got such a kick of playing volleyball.  We were playing it by ear as to how the presentations were going to go. We ended up playing 2 versus 3 for the first presentation and 2 plus Tom versus 3 for the second one for about ten minutes and then we let the kids serve back and forth. We placed targets on the ground for the kids to serve and hit. The winners were given soda as a prize. It was amazing to see how much the kids here share with each other. We saw the sodas being passed around down a line of kids as each person took a sip. For the older kids, they were given the opportunity to play against the girls… and they loved it! At the end of the first presentation Courtney spoke to the kids about Philippians 4:13 and then Nicole spoke about faith and prayer for the second one. When we told the kids that we were leaving the nets for them, they all applauded and cheered. They have never had a volleyball net before and were sooo excited to be able to play. Last night, the principal was telling us that he had to board up the building with the volleyball court to keep kids out from wanting to play. When we arrived this morning, there was a piece of plywood up against the opening saying that they were prohibited from coming in.

Read the rest of their adventures, including their return to the orphanage HERE.

P.S. The t-shirt is the team’s “uniform”.  2 Passions…1 Purpose, Volleyball with a mission.