Unforgettable Journey: Raiders make an impact

Recently, 12 Middle Tennessee student-athletes and head coach Shelley Godwin visited the Dominican Republic for a mission trip. GoBlueRaiders.com contributor Justin Beasley highlighted their experiences from their week-long mission trip.

Until you actually see it, it does it no justice. It will grab at your heart no matter how many times you've been there.

"Beautifully broken" is what Middle Tennessee head women's tennis coach Shelley Godwin calls it.

It's a poverty-stricken capital filled with close to one million people, well south of where the tourist visit and top one-percent reside. It's colorful with beautiful beaches, all-inclusive resorts, clean white-sand and the clearest water you'll ever lay eyes on.

It's nothing short of paradise.

For some people.

It's Santo Domingo, the capital and largest city in the Dominican Republic, where long-dirt roads serve as the median for an ocean full of sugar canes that lead to clay-made houses. Houses that do not know what plumbing is, houses that have the living room serve as a bathroom.

Trash is scattered in every way you turn. The same trash is twined together inside an empty bottle of water, serving as the baseball for the afternoon's pickup game.

A bus rides along the median, about three miles before it begins to break down, or at least that is what the passengers think. You look out the window and see approximately 30 children screaming at the top of their lungs. It is their first visitors in over a month. It had been too long.

Getting off the bus are a dozen Blue Raider athletes in Carla Nava (tennis), Emily Jorgenson (soccer), Kelsey Brouwer (soccer), Nina Dever (softball), Laura Dukes (softball), Kailey Ann McDougal (softball), McKena Miller (softball), Taylor Kirk (soccer), Madison Ledet (soccer), Autumn Gipson (track), Bridget Keller (volleyball), and Eseta Maka (volleyball), all of who have one thing in common – faith.

Faith originally brought them together almost a year ago in late August. Nava, a former Middle Tennessee tennis player, was looking to connect with other girls her age from her church.

It required more from her than to just join any active group, instead Nava would have to lead a new bible study group. This group had girls her age and girls who could relate to the everyday challenges of being a Division 1 student-athlete.

She found them in a litany of sites on-campus at the Fellowship of Christian Athletes (FCA) weekly meeting, others at the volleyball game and a couple at Middle Tennessee basketball games.

The first meeting was set for Wednesday, inside the tennis locker room. Nava was extremely nervous. It only took one person to walk through the door to show Nava and her former coach Godwin what was possible.

"It continued to grow every week. They would bring new teammates," said Godwin, the frontrunner of the Middle Tennessee women's athletic bible study. "You could see the wall slowly came down each week."

In this time, Godwin wasn't a coach or even a former athlete, but simply a friend. She made that clear with a simple, yet unusual request.

"Do not wear something MT with your sport on it. This was about who they are as people, not athletes here at MT," Godwin said.

It didn't take long for the group to realize that something special was looming in a locker room filled with different players from different sports. It was so special that they never cancelled a group meeting outside of Christmas break from August until the end of the spring semester. Inside the room, filled with new teammates, they made the most of their talents.

They made an agreement and commitment to serve those less fortunate. It wasn't just a day of community service; it was a mission trip 1,564 miles away from the campus of Middle Tennessee from May 24-30.

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The Baseline

Godwin knew what "the baseline" would be for a mission trip to come into fruition – financial support.

The group then followed suit, sending a bulk of letters to family, friends and people who would support a mission trip.

Two months later, over $20,000 was raised.

"At the very last minute we didn't think we were going to have enough money and then we ended up having more than we thought we would and more people got to go," Keller said. "It was really a blessing."

"It was the grand finale to a really neat year," Godwin said.

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"Short Term Trips, Long Term Effects"

This is printed in quotations on SCORE's (Sharing, Christ, Our, Redeemer, Enterprises.) website, scoreintl.org, on the home page.

The quote holds true for Godwin and her group of athletes during their seven-day trip to Santo Domingo.

This wasn't Godwin's first trip down the three-mile dirt road to San Louis, or as the group calls it – the Sugar Cane Village.

As soon as the group steps off the bus, they're instantly connected with the crowd of kids. The group has the kid's full-undivided attention, not because the group brought material possessions, but because they're here to love on the kids.

That is exactly what happened. Hours upon hours of playing games, getting to know each kid individually and making an impact on someone's life.

"It wasn't about what we were giving them, it was just about us being there," Godwin said.

Come to find out, it wouldn't be anyone's last trip to the Sugar Cane Village.

It didn't matter that the group had already visited the Sugar Cane Village. They could tell the kids needed more attention, love, and "material blessings".

That was when the girls came to Godwin the night of their first visit, inside the household that SCORE provided, and asked if they could return to the village.

"It wasn't on the schedule to go back," Godwin said.

But they returned the next day with the approval from SCORE, and showered the kids with material goods.

"It's something our group realized, when you got nothing, what do you rely on," Maka said. "They rely on God just to give them food for the next day."

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2-For-1 Is Too Much

One day the group was handing out new shoes to all the kids in the village. Nava found a girl who was still sleeping. She woke her up with excitement showing her the new shoes and school supplies she would receive.

Once Nava gave the young girl new shoes, Nava noticed they didn't fit, but she cannot recall if the shoes were to big or to small.

But what happened next was something she will always remember.

The little girl went to her mother and Nava went to grab another pair of shoes, hoping this time they would be suitable for her feet. But before Nava brought new shoes to her mother, she had already made clear that the original shoes she received would be fine. Nava responded, "Okay have this one. You can just keep both."

"No, we are all getting one, so one is fine," the mother said.

Coming from a family that didn't know where its next meal was coming from, and to be so self-sacrificing, "it was a punch in the gut," Godwin said.

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No Translation, No Problem

"I didn't know what he was saying half the time," Kirk said about a nine-year-old boy named Wilson she grew close too.

Kirk, just like the rest of the group, can relate to the difficulty of communicating with the young kids, as Spanish is the official language.

Consequently, language is a barrier in the Dominican Republic.

Or is it?

For Nava, a native of Mexico City, Mexico, language is not a problem as Spanish is her first language. Therefore she can help assist the girls with their interactions.

But it was not why Nava came on the mission trip. She was there to serve the kids, and not be tied down as the official translator.

"Don't use me," Nava told the group on day two. "Let the Holy Spirit lead you. People always say when you go (overseas), language is barrier, and it is as much as you want to make it."

The girls accepted the challenge, and they concentrated on being "available". Just being present with the kids is what mattered. There were no distractions of being on a cell phone, worrying about playing time or stressing out over a class at Middle Tennessee. Instead, it was quality time Godwin and Nava envisioned that was being carried out.

"It was cool to see God's love," Kirk said. "He found a way for us to communicate."

"Carla wasn't there to be a translator," Godwin said. "Love is a universal language, and that is what we really tried to hit home when we got down there. We are here to love these people and it doesn't matter what language you speak."

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#TRUEimpact

The normal mindset when going on a mission trip is about giving to others and expecting nothing in return. But mission-goers can all agree, the latter is far from the truth.

"You don't realize till you're there those people actually help you more than you help them," Brouwer said.

Every girl has come back and expressed how the trip changed them as much, if not more personally, than the kids they went to assist. With that, the group looks to make a difference with their sport and even with their family.

Once Kirk returned from the Dominican Republic, the first thing she did was sit her family down at the dinner table to share how transformed she was after the week-long trip. Flipping through her journal, Kirk did not skip over any details while talking about the trip, describing every village, every kid and every impact the trip had on her personally. It helped Kirk inspire and spark new conversations with her mother, father and brother that she might not have previously had.

"As an athlete we have so much attention drawn to us, and I think we should use that as a pedestal to not just gain light upon ourselves, but to show light to the Lord and his great love," Keller said.

In same the light, Ledet, who calls her four years at Middle Tennessee a mission trip in itself, looks at soccer in a completely different way now.

"I realize how soccer is just something that God gave me to use for him. It's a gift that he has given me strictly for him," Ledet said.

And with that gift, the girls, like Emily Jorgenson, can now make a difference within their respective teams.

"I hope that my teammates are able to come to me with anything," Jorgenson said. "You don't have to go overseas to serve."

As a result, in its first-year, the Wednesday bible study group that began in the tennis locker room finished abroad in Santo Domingo, capping off the seven-day pledge that Godwin and her faith-sharing team will always remember.

"I'll for sure never forget it, Brouwer said. "It was my first out of the country experience. And for it to be a mission trip it just changed my life."

Middle Tennesee State University Athletics

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