I am FILLED UP

  Y'all have been hearing me say how I am horrible at vacationing because I am not filled up. I was filled up today and yesterday and the past week! Our best friends came down to visit us for five days. We take an off season vacation every year together. Because we both live in different cities and travel so much they were nice enough to come here!
  After they left we were able to get together with SCORE International. Keith Madison, the former UK baseball coach, and his wife allowed us to go into the orphanages and baseball facilities with them. If you would like to learn more about SCORE visit there website at http://www.scoreintl.org/#all or shoot me an email. I would love to tell you more about how life changing it is. There website is super easy to navigate. We were on the baseball short term mission trip in the DR.

  I fell in love with every single little baby girl I laid eyes on today. You will too if you ever go! These little babies are not always orphans. Some have no parents, some have one maybe two parents on drugs, prostitution or simply just can't afford to take care of their babies. Prostitution is legal here. No one has ever told them what they are worth. SCORE international comes in and provides education, a safe place for these babies to eat and sleep. They get women off the street and teach them a trade. These women can then go and use what they have learned to earn money to support their babies! Wow!! Such a miracle.
  These babies are precious. These women are learning. These men are being prayed for. We are all children of God. No ones wrong is worse than anyone else' wrong. We are all wrong. We are all loved by Jesus. And those of us who FEEL the LOVE need to SHARE the LOVE!

  Each and every face you see in these pictures has a story. A beautiful encouraging story. A story that I hope fills you up. I want to say something to all of you reading this! If you feel like going on a mission trip GO! It doesn't even need to be out of the country. Just go downtown to an impoverished area. So many people have talked to me about wanting to go but they don't have money or they feel like they aren't strong enough in their faith or even have a faith. Let me tell you this. 1. You don't have to be a Christian, Catholic, Budhist or whatever to serve. If you want to serve oversees then challenge the Christians who are leading the groups. They (WE) need that. They will let you go. The good ones will. And you don't have to go oversees. Missions are right outside our doors. Go downtown, look for homeless shelters. I can give you plenty of ideas. Just email me!
I hope these pictures light up your world like they do mine!

So many of you emailed me asking how you could help with mission 108 and I just couldn't give you a great answer. Mission 108 is my baby but we just aren't big enough to accept nationwide donations right now. I am slow but will eventually have a 501 C and a place to donate on the blog. For those of you who ask or those that are looking for a place to give and don't know how or where this might be the place. No one has asked me to do this so please don't think I am advertising for the group. But if you fell in love with some of these faces you can go https://scoresponsor.org/childsponsor/product/pasitos-de-jesus-2/ here and make a donation. The money will go straight to them and you can actually see some of the same faces you see here on this website! Robbie and I are honored to have met these beautiful souls.
Here's a note from Rob:
"It has been amazing being here in the DR and playing baseball. But today I got to experience it at a whole new level. I got to see how Dominican kids play baseball. It was truly a blessing to get to be with that group of people who went to help further these kids lives. It was fun to connect with the kids. It was a blast. I was so excited to be with the kids. It was cool to see the joy on their face no matter what we were doing even just drills. They appreciated everything. It made me feel grateful for what we have been blessed with in America. It was cool to see how natural they were. They were all very natural athletes. When we pulled up the kids were out throwing rocks in the air and hitting them with bats. It was cool to see because I remember doing that when I was a kid. It made me think of my childhood. You don't see that a lot in America anymore. Even though some of them didn't have gloves or even tennis shoes they were outside ready to roll. The whole time I have been here there hasn't been a day I have driven down the street and not seen at least 7 or 10 pick up games. I can't remember the last time I saw a pick up baseball game in America. Boom. These people love the game and it is very inspirational. These kids play in fields with dirt spots where the positions are and five feet of grass around them. The mound is made of a rock. They use a rock for a mound. All of them just want (desire) to play baseball".

Baseball is life here. If these kiddos don't make it in baseball a lot of times they just don't make it. They drop out of school around 13 to come play in hopes to be signed at 16 years old. A lot of the DR players in America come from these same cities we went to.
I am happy to share this experience with you. We have seven days left in the DR. We are then off to Ethiopia! I am sure a chunk of our hearts will be left there as well. I have learned the only way to allow your heart to grow is to leave pieces of it with others. Forever my heart will be here. #FEELtheLOVE #SHAREtheLOVE
Tweet me/email me pictures and stories of your experiences in other countries or own back yard. Its all about TOGETHER!
Peace and Love
HE>i
xoxo
R&B