Buenos Dias,

Today was a very eventful day for the Messiah Men's basketball team and SCORE. We began our day with breakfast and a short bus ride to the Emmanuel House. This institution was a place where kids from the poorest areas of "la ciudad" or city were able to come and learn. We met the children's teacher, while also being informed of sponsorship opportunity (30$ a child/month). Coach and his wife got down and dirty by filling up plastic bags with powdered milk. We put the plastuc bags in our orange draw-strings to distribute later that day. Another bus ride, led by the Emmanuel House teacher took us to a "pueblo" or community of very poor economic status. We were greeted by a rush of children as we began our journey of distribution. Our group was split into two teams, David's Team "Cuba/Dale" and Felipe's Team "Flip". The groups split up, going house to house distributing the bags of milk, as well as water filtration systems. As the distribution came to a close, piggy back races were held by the players and kids while Pete was teaching them an arm trick. An old man, grandfather of two, told us that no group has ever come through there with so much love towards the children in his entire life in that community; A touching and heart felt moment. Sadly, our trip in the pueblo came to a close as we ran out of things to give away. After lunch, some of the guys went to the beach near the SCORE missions house and enjoyed some fun in the sun by body surfing the waves. 2:30 came around and it was time for our last game of the week. The Falcons looked to finish the trip with a winning record but fell just short of victory to a team led by a professional point guard we saw the night before. However, the crowd for testimonies was the most receptive in my opinion as Ryan and David shared their stories. Even though we didn't pull out the victory on the court, I think we won off the court by touching some lives through our experiences with Christ. Now that our missions portion of the trip has ended, its hard not to believe that we've made impact here. God has blessed us with the opportunity to be here, to touch lives and I know we did that as best we could. Tomorrow's itinerary includes the Catalina islands, a vacation hot spot in the Caribbean...hopefully these American boys come back with some color! (hopefully not red)

Thank you for your support and keeping track of our journey!

God bless,

David