hey everyone. this is the last weekend of the basketball tournament. i'm posting some pictures of it on my flickr.com account. i'll try and get a link on my blogger here. i have been reffereeing all more and i'm going back to do two more games this afternoon.

i'll write again to tell you more about it.

two weeks left

hey everyone. i'm relaxing during siesta. there are no more teams for the summer. we have next week to prepare for a big sports week in a place called barahona or the bateys. this weekend we are finishing up the 5 week league for the dominicans. Will is at this moment preparing a slideshow of pictures taken during games. he told me that the kids love absolutely love the slide show. they go crazy when they see themselves. so good. that will be fun. it's on sunday night.

also, the coaches from this league are playing a game on sunday at one o'clock. we are playing against a team called pueblo nuevo. it's going to be so much fun, i can't wait to play. the last few weeks have been so amazing because of the relationships i have developed with some of those dominicans.

in a little bit Will and i are going to go pick up medals and other rewards for the basketball league. i have band practice at 5 and we are having dinner at the bosses house tonight. from time to time Tim will cook for us staff. it's always a fun night.

i have clothes to wash that the teams have left behind and spanish to study i guess. so another day that has a lot of stuff to do in it, but i wouldn't call it busy. not after some of the days we had when the teams were here.

don't forget to check my flickr account.

a long time ago, in a land far far away

hey everyone. how amazing has the last two weeks been. i thank you all for constant prayers and thoughts and wishes. the longer i am here in the dominican the more it changes for me. i can remember back to the first month i was here. I didn't know anyone, i didn't talk to the dominicans, i didn't know any of the places. being new to this place and to these people was quite a stretching experience.

now after being here for 3 months i have a different routine, i have a different purpose about me, i know more people and i have all of these relationships that really are beginning to drive my heart. two weeks ago a group was here that once again did construction in the hole. the entire group had never been on a missions trip. and they were amazing. everyone was so uplifting and wonderful and fun. they worked hard and enjoyed each other. it was possibly my best week here.

since then i have been helping Will with a lot of preparation for the big sports week we are going on in september. and we have been able to spend extra time with dominicans since the only team that has been here for the past week went to the bateys. the other day me and will went to the court to just hang out and play with the kids there. it was so much fun. there are times, like any kids, that these kids don't act like perfect little angels but when you get to spend some time with them and give them some attention, it's quite a nice experience.

also, the coaches of the 5 week basketball league have been having a bible study at Will's apartment. it's been a good time. we actually just hired two more dominicans, alan and simon, to be a part of G.O. They also got baptised two sundays ago. it was really really exciting. alan is like my self-appointed spanish teacher. he's helped me a lot.

i'll make sure to write a bunch these last few weeks. i have a site where i'm posting pictures now. http://flickr.com/photos/11521586@N06/ so go there and see those shots. and this is a great time to write me at brenton.bellinger@gmail.com. you can yell at me for not blogging in two weeks or let me know what's going on back home. i love you all. and gina.......you better stop that baby from growing so much before i can see him again.

a day of basketball, yes i mean a great day

exactly! a great day.

i woke up this morning and the team of americans were going to take presents to the kids at guanduleys for a birthday party of sorts but my day had a different path. after breakfast will and i headed out to the basketball court, which is called a "cancha" in spanish. i told you about the six week league that i was a coach in, well, i have practices on tuesday and all of the teams have games on saturday. having the league for six weeks is a step towards teaching these kids responsibility and dependability. hopefully. haha

so, starting at nine i reffed three games and then coached a game at 11:30. we won and i really like my team, we have some good players. and i took my camera but then i was too busy to take pictures, sorry everyone. next week i promise. then me and will came back and had lunch, i rested until two and we went back to finish reffing games.

there were only two left in the afternoon and we were done by around 4 o'clock i think.

this is a really good time for me to be bonding with those young guys.

OH OH OH OH!!!!! big news that i want you all to pray for. will has this big plan to get G.O. its own land to build courts and fields and a sports facility so that we can stop having to fix up all the courts that get destroyed because the people don't take care of them and so it becomes easier to do camps and provide space for our needs. there has been this perfect piece of land that is close by and it is amazing. large, flat, gorgeous and owned by a rich guy who doesn't need to sell it. so what was his price? thirteen million dollars U.S. outrageous! well, the praying comes in with the fact that someone just showed will a piece of land that he likes even more. i haven't seen it yet, but will likes it a lot and has even gotten the go ahead by the president of G.O., Brooke Brotzman, to go after it. the price?????? one million dollars. this is the next big step in the amazing growth that G.O. has been experiencing and right now i want you all to cover this in prayer. pray for the money, pray for the process, pray for all the kids and adults that will be reached because we will be able to expand with this land. pray hard. pleeeeeeeaaaaassssseeeee!!!!!

and keep praying for me. i love you all!!

a great day

hello friends and all. what a great day in the dominican republic. we worked in the hole today with the group. there are a couple of girls there that i hung out with for a while. like 8 year olds. i did a lot of hard work in the sun today and then i got to play basketball for a little bit. then i came back and hung out with a friend from the street. his name is raymir. we had a good time just talking. he speaks english pretty well. and then we messed around on my computer. he likes to rap and we recorded a song. he's 14 and a really great kid who doesn't have a lot of good influences to hang out with all of the time. but that's why you all have sent me down here right? lol

for the next 5 weeks i am coaching in a basketball league that will partin has set up. i like the guys on my team and our first game is saturday. we do devotions with the teams and with the coaches. it's a big out reach especially because it is teaching the kids a lot about responsibility. and we will have plenty of one on one time with them.

i am currently reading the book "Wild at Heart." and i am spending a lot of time thinking about God and my relationship to him. i guess the best place to have revelations is on a mission trip. so keep praying for me, especially right now. i have made so many great friends and have had so many opportunities to show Christ to people.

i love you all. email me sometime. brenton.bellinger@gmail.com

the boys in the hole, and the boys outside of the hole

two weeks ago from this last tuesday they arrived here. another basketball week. i was excited. the american team that was coming down was an AAU basketball team from kentucky. the guys were staying in the "chateau Gabriel" which is the name given to the new dorm connected to the church. it used to be Gabriel's house. we fixed it up right before the summer started.
the team would sleep, eat and meet there which is down the road maybe 200 ft. from the main dorm. This is a picture of the top of the chateau where the group ate. that's Isaiah just relaxin'. the team was coming to put on a basketball camp for 10 to 14 year old boys from a place called the 'Hole'. i have probably already told you what the 'Hole' is but i'll fill you in again. the Hole is the city waste dump where 600 families have taken squatter's rights and built homes. disgusting pigs walking around everywhere. crap and trash everywhere also. G.O. has a church and a pastor they partner with in the Hole that has a feeding center that feeds about 50 kids their only meal of the day 6 days a week. Felix is the pastor. and we signed up about 50 kids for the camp. not all the same kids because the church picks the worst off kids to provide the meals for, and some of them are really young. here we are in the church in the Hole signing kids up. you can see brandon towards the left and will in the middle. now, there is no court in the Hole so we decided to use one close enough for the kids to walk to. i believe it was a 5 min. walk to get to the court. which i don't have any pictures of. sorry, we worked on it too. another place that was trash when we first got there and looked like a million bucks for the camp week. the "club" manager doesn't take very good care of the courts. but it worked very well for our purposes.
so the team was going to be doing the camp and then play in a tournament we set up at night with three other teams. they were going to wear USA jerseys like all the sports teams that we bring down. this team once again was all 15 year olds.
the camp mornings went like this.

-Arrive at the club by 830 in the morning.
-Worship (maybe 3 songs)
-Get into lines and do team relays
-split up into teams and do drill stations
-do separate team competitions

and then it was break for lunch. we went and served the kids at the feeding center/church in the hole everyday before going back to eat our own food. then after the 2 hour siesta we would head back to have games at the court. most of the players on the AAU team were coaches and then the players who's teams weren't playing would referee the games. the camp would end around 4 in the afternoon. my job through all this was to help. lol, to do this here or that there. i kept score and reffed. i translated in the mornings. and i translated very very little. i was in charge of water a lot. which was actually very difficult at first. but by the end of the week i was pretty good at controlling the small riots that took place everytime someone wanted water.

then back to the dorm to get changed and a small rest. while the players were doing that though, i was in charge of loose ends and getting more water and ice for the games at night. it was a four team tournament and the americans always played the later game at 530. so i guess the game was more in the evening instead of night. which to tell you the truth, watching those games is just really hard for me. i want to play so bad. and this team was pretty good. they passed the ball exceptionally.

then at night i would sleep down at the chateau with the team so they would have a staff member there in case of an emergency. wonderfully, there are many fans and also air conditioning at the chateau. i keep calling it the coldest place in santiago. and i got lots of opportunities to talk to the kids. so it was a good week.
they ended up 2-2 after the week. they lost to a team called Sameji (Suh-may-he) once and then again in the championship game. but mostly for that team i hope that witnessing the poorness of the kids in the hole will stick with them. that they will realize more what life is actually about.

This was a trying week for me. it was hard to work with the kids in the hole because they are wild. they have never had a camp like this done for them and they haven't really learned discipline or order yet. it was hard to work with the americans because even though they were great kids they were only 15 and alot of them got distracted a lot or just didn't listen very well. the sun got so hot this week. i believe the temp got over 100 degrees a few times. and then it was hard for me to watch so much basketball and not "be" a part of it. BUT!......

It was a good week. I guess these are all things God can use to make me grow. hey thanks again everyone for reading.

you might want some mustard with this ketchup

SOOOOOOO let's go back to the big youth group that was here.

they were amazing. not only did they work like crazy but they had great attitudes and they followed directions. their leaders were on the ball and pretty much the entire week went great. like i said before i helped worked at a place called Hato del Yaque. The Yaque is a river that runs through part of Santiago. so this is a smaller part of the city near the river. it's a lot poorer than where the mission buildings are. the organization is building a church/feeding center there.

we would arrive there in the morning and spend the morning moving dirt that a big truck would leave in a big pile near the entrance. we used shovels and wheelbarrows and moved the dirt inside to raise the level of the floor. and especially the first day the group did so much work. there were also a few people working at chiseling out electric socket spaces in the concrete. and in the back corner people were bending rebar (sp).

so we would work until 12 and then take the 2 hour siesta. ahhhhh. then back to doing the same thing. and that was wednesday. thursday, will took me with him and audrey to the capital to watch audrey play in a basketball game. that was a fun trip even though audrey didn't get to play much. and brandon came that night.

then we went back to hato del yaque on friday. this time for siesta wilby took me around to talk to some people at their houses. to practice my spanish. lol, which you can't really practice when you don't know anything.

wilby by the way is a haitian translator. he speaks spanish and english along with creoul and whatever else he knows. he's a great guy. the nicest guy i know probably. and we are close friends. if you remember me talking about romano, they are actually cousins and live together here in santiago.

so my lunch time was really fun, trying to talk to some of the people. then saturday i went with will to the court and had a meeting for the 6 week league that is coming up. it was also an all star game from the big camp we just had and i got to play in it to give it more players. i had such a great time. it had been so long since i had gotten to play ball. (sigh)

then that night i played guitar for a small worship service the youth group here had with the american team. it was a lot of fun. then a sunday morning and the team was off to the beach again. it was sad to see this team go. i really like them and there was a lot of fun people, students and adults.

it was a great week for me. and there are definitely more coming i know.