Day One — DR Trip 2026

Thank you so much for the many prayers that were prayed on our behalf in the months leading up to this trip and throughout our travel day. We felt them very much! The repeated word of the day by the leaders was SMOOTH—and that’s a good thing. Loading up at school went smooth. The drive down to the airport went smooth—relatively. Checking in at the airport went smooth. Going through security went smooth. The flights were smooth. The long layover in Miami was smooth. Going through customs in Santiago went smooth. The ride to Hota de Yaque was very bumpy, but smooth—if you get my drift. So many blessings from God and answered prayers so far. Thank you so much! Praise God!

We’ll see how it goes, but it’s my hope to provide some kind of written update each day of this trip to let people know what we’re doing and follow along on this journey. We’ll see how that goes. Last night we didn’t wrap things up until about midnight, so I decided to wait to write until this morning. As often as I can, I will try to provide some updates about the work we’re doing and the ways in which we are seeing God at work.

There’s not much to update from the travels besides how smooth everything went. We arrived at Hota de Yaque around 11pm. They had some snacks for us and took the opportunity to orient us to the place and the culture a little bit.

To be honest, this entire trip will be one long process of these students—and leaders—being oriented to the place and culture. The students already got to experience a few things that made them uncomfortable. One of them was a fairly large—some would say HUGE—Wolf Spider that made its way into the snack area. Rumor has been going around that it was a Tarantula, but we had these spiders in our apartment when we stayed in the DR and they were Wolf Spiders. They also got to meet the many Geckos that wander freely through the buildings and hang out on the walls and ceilings of every building. There was definitely some trepidation after the spider incident, but students were able to settle down and get ready for bed.

Of course the heat requires some orientation as well. To be honest, it’s way more moderate than what I was expecting and much cooler than when I was here in June/July. However, it was still pretty warm—even at midnight. So, we pulled out all of the fans, made sure plenty of air was moving, and worked on falling asleep. From what I can tell, everyone slept pretty well last night.

Today we will be eating some breakfast, then beginning our work right away afterwards. Sounds like we will be doing some painting and cement work around Hota de Yaque in the morning until lunch time. From there, we will be doing some of our first sports camps at Hota as well and getting to have some of our first interactions with the young people of the area.

Pray that the students continue to have good attitudes and orient well to all of these changes. Pray that God would be at work in their hearts to transform them. Pray that God would be working in the hearts of the athletes coming to the sports camps this afternoon and that the students would build some good relationships and have some good conversations that will produce fruit. As always, pray that God would continue to be glorified and that He would use us for His kingdom and His glory today and throughout the rest of the week.