GRUPO JUVENIL!!

"For to me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain." Philippians 1:21

This was part of the passage Jared shared this afternoon with the youth group. We started the youth group meetings four weeks ago. It is going really well. At our first meeting, we had 16 teenagers. Each week following we have had three. At first we were discouraged with these numbers. We know it is not about the numbers, but we want to share the Word of God with as many people as possible. Tonight, however, truly encouraged us that it is about changed individuals, not big numbers. 

We also have been playing some team building games!

Jared opened the group tonight by asking the kids to share about how they see the Lord working in their lives. Jyro shared that each day he can see the Lord is changing him. Enmanuel shared that today he was thinking about the bad things he used to do and how he doesn't want to do those things anymore. Seth shared that the Lord opened his eyes this week to see how blessed he is and that there are those around him less fortunate. Tonight, I(Steph) was reminded that Jesus spoke about the one lost sheep and how the Shepherd will leave the rest to go find that one that is straying. We are excited to see how the Lord is working in the hearts of the young people during this time. Please pray that these teens would see Jesus and live for Christ.

Johan, youth group co-leader

Another opportunity we have to minister here weekly is children's Sunday school. Jared and I have been helping and co-teaching with Vicente and Johan on alternating Sunday mornings and Thursday afternoons when we have Bible studies here at Calvary Chapel of Barahona. We typically have around 20-30 kids at each service. We have been following the adult service in where they are in the Bible, which is the book of John. It is a great blessing to be able to teach these children about Jesus. We pray they grab hold of the Truth and follow Jesus with their lives. 

 We are overjoyed to report that the Lord provided everything we needed for the residency visa process. All our paperwork has been submitted and approved. Thank you for praying for our visa situation. 

Please continue to pray for us as we learn Spanish. We are blessed to have great co-laborers here who are bilingual and very patient with us, but we know how important it is for us to speak the language of the people to whom we serve. 

As always, thank you for you prayers and interest in what the Lord is doing here. Our Lord does great things when His people come to Him in prayer!

October in the Dominican Republic

Today marks 6 weeks since we moved to the Dominican Republic. God has been good and has done so much. He is faithful to never leave us or forsake us, no matter where we are!

About 1 1/2 weeks ago we had a team of eye doctors come for a long weekend. They examined close to 480 people on the mountain in Barahona in two days. We also had two opticians, one of them was Jared, who attempted to fit each person who needed glasses from a collection of almost 200 pairs of donated glasses. They were a great blessing to the community and many people were blessed with exams and glasses that they would not be able to afford. 

It is awesome to think that the Lord was preparing Jared for that weekend over the years he worked as an optician before we moved and that He brought us here just weeks before this team arrived. We just never know how the Lord is going to use the things in our lives for His purposes later on. 

Today we spent the morning notifying the sponsored families of the monthly meeting coming up. While we were out in the community, we had the pleasure of sharing about Jesus with a woman named Vikki. She was sharing with us that she has had some difficult things happen in her life and that she walked away from the Lord. Jared and Johan, one of our co-workers at In Calvary's Care, shared with her that she doesn't need to walk through those difficult things in life alone. The Lord loves her and wants her to come to Him in difficult times. We prayed with her and encouraged her to spend time reading the Bible. She told us that she has a Bible, but can't read. We told her that we would be happy to come read the Bible to her. This morning Lewis, the ministry leader of In Calvary's Care, encouraged the staff before we went out to look for those divine appointments that the Lord may have for us today. It was awesome to see the Lord work and lead us right to Vikki. Pray that Vikki will continue to draw closer to the Lord and will lay all her burdens at His feet. 

As far as other prayer requests... We are still working on completing the Visa process. It is a long story, so to summarize, a few of our documents were incorrect and needed to be revised. We hopefully will be returning to the Capitol tomorrow to finally submit all the correct completed paperwork. Even though this has been a difficult process with many problems, we have seen the Lord's hand in it and He has been directing our steps and providing everything we need. 

Please also pray as we continue to learn Spanish. We desire to be able to speak with the people more clearly.

We will be starting a youth group in a few weeks here at Calvary Chapel of Barahona. We will be inviting the teenagers in the In Calvary's Care program this week during distribution and are excited to see what the Lord is going to do in the lives of the young people here. 

Thank you for your prayers and support. We are grateful the Lord has included YOU in the work He is doing here in Barahona!

A Day in the Life of the Dominican Republic

Stephanie and I have been learning some of the ways of the Dominican Republic and we thought in this post we would share some of them with you as well as give an update on some things we’ve been doing.

The day begins at 7 A.M. promptly (though Steph and I are up by about 6:45) with a large blaring siren from the center of the city.  Ffter this the first siren goes off in the morning the daily activities begin.  Men are heading off to work, mopeds are everywhere and of course the roosters are sounding off left and right…Actually I’m positive the roosters start their day much earlier than 7.  More accurately its around 5:30 or so.  It’s not uncommon to see wandering chickens or goats in the neighborhood.

School is divided into two sections.  The little children go to school the first half of the day and the older children in the afternoon.  So as we are getting around in the morning the little kids are being walked to school by their parents.

Steph and I begin our day cooking on our propane top stove.  Usually the pans burn while you cook as you have little control over the size of the flame you are getting.  Steph has oatmeal each morning while I have scrambled eggs.

 

At 8:30 each day of the last week Stephanie and I have helped with the dividing of rice, beans, sugar and milk for the families that come each month to receive support.  We work until noon each day and then the rest of the day is taken with cooking, studying Spanish, prayer and other activities.

Lunch is the big meal of the day in the Dominican and we have rice and beans pretty much every day.  We have also had spaghetti a couple of times as well.  We’ve had no meat for several days now.  You must get chicken from the open air market and its quite frankly gross to both of us to have to take out the innards of the chicken and so on.  I’m sure eventually we will bite the bullet but for now we’re happy with our rice and beans.  We also have gotten to partake of many of the different fruits that grow on the island: Avocados, bananas, plantains, oranges, and guava just to name a few.

On Friday the 21^st Steph and I got to participate in our first monthly meeting that the families have.  Once a month, the Friday before the distribution starts all families must come to a meeting.  During this time the gospel is shared in some way or another and each family receives on a piece of paper the time they are to return the next week to pick up their food.  Here is a photo of all the people crammed into the church.  There are more standing back behind the cement wall.  Currently there are over 200 sponsored families in the program.

Today which is Saturday the 22^nd we are having a special activity for the girls in the sponsorship program.  A team came down a few months ago and brought tons of brand new shoes.  Many of the girls were invited and as you can see they are quite excited to be receiving the nice new shoes.  Stephanie was also able to share a little message with them from the book of Esther.

Stephanie and I must return to the capital next week where we will attempt to complete our Visas.  Please pray for us that we have everything we need and if for some reason we do not that we will be able to quickly get the necessary documents.  Our temporary Visas expire on October 7th so time is beginning to run short. 

Thanks again for all your prayer and support. 

Jared and Steph  

New Beginnings

Well...Today is day 2 of our journey and we thought we would take a few minutes and update everyone on the things that have been going on.  First off and most importantly we want to thank all of you that are praying for us and thinking of us.

Our journey started on the 10th of September at a daunting 2:30 A.M. followed by a quick tossing of the luggage on top of David and Brenda's SUV and a joyful ride to the airport.  Saying good-bye was definately the hardest part of the day.  It's always so difficult to say bye to those that we love so much.  We took comfort in knowing that Jesus has indeed called us into this work and that we know without a shadow of a doubt that this is what he wants for our lives.

We arrived in Santo Domingo around 3 in the afternoon and made our way to the Hotel Napolitano where I (Jared) got to enjoy two Dominican men attempt to smash a moped into the back of a small 4 door sedan.  After a while they figured it out and they used two old shirts as tie downs.  These are a few photos from our hotel room.

This morning (Tuesday) we left around 8 oclock and began our residence process.  Once we finally found the Ministry of Foreign Relations we quickly found out that we were improperly dressed.  A man yelled at our translator that there absolutely no shorts allowed followed by a second shout that my wife had to cover her shoulders to enter the building (she had on a skirt) So then we jumped in the van and quickly changed.

We arrived in the office and were then sent on a mission.  Unfortunately we did not have a letter that we were supposed to have so we had to find an internet cafe to type the letter.  This was quite a journey and at one point I believe we were in reverse on a one way street while other cars were driving towards us.  We made incredible time getting our letter completed.

We praise Jesus for the next thing that happened.  We were originally told that the completed and signed letter from the Ministry of Foreign Relations would not be ready until at least Thursday.  When we dropped it off she asked us to return later in the day.  Much to our surprise she was able to complete it in less than a day.

We have to report to a second building tomorrow and attempt to complete our Residency process.  Overall its been an incredible couple of days.  Loving how incredible the people are.  Amazed that even though their culture can seem a bit disorganized they don't complain about it at all.

Thanks again everyone for your prayers.  We thank our Lord Jesus every time we think of you.  You are such a huge support to us.

Preparing to Go and Taking a Look Back...

As we are preparing to depart in only a few weeks, we thought it would be good to take a look back on all the Lord has done to get us to this point. 

Jared and I have both felt that one day we would be called to full time ministry even before we knew each other. The Lord has been teaching us and molding us and directing our steps, probably more ways than we even know. 

I(Steph) had an opportunity to go on a short term missions trip with our church, Calvary Chapel of Delta, PA in January 2011. I was very nervous to go and don't know how I even signed up for the trip. I guess the Lord was working! During the first few days of the trip I felt out of place and did not see my purpose in being there. Then we began facilitating New Believer's Classes in the evening and I felt a passion to see these beautiful people grow in their faith and understand their Savior more. 

The Lord gave me Romans 10:13-15 

For "whoever calls on the name of the LORD shall be saved." How then shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach unless they are sent? As it is written: "How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the gospel of peace, Who bring glad tidings of good things!"

Unbeknownst to me, Jared was at home praying that the Lord would give me direction regarding our future. I returned home and shared with him what the Lord had shown me. The Lord had been working in Jared's heart and he was willing to pursue the idea. We began to pray and talk with our church leadership. 


Our church facilitates a child sponsorship program, In Calvary's Care, with over 200 children currently in the program. The staff of In Calvary's Care began having weekly Bible studies which has grown into a small church, Calvary Chapel of Barahona. 

Our pastor and church leadership began to pray about the possibility of sending us to the Dominican Republic to join with the current staff and support the work they are already doing. After over a year, 100% of our elder board agreed that the Lord had prepared us and was sending us to the Dominican Republic. With their approval, we began to move forward. 

We purposed in our heart to not force this to happen. We knew the Lord was/is capable of taking care of every obstacle. As we began to knock on doors, the Lord was faithful to open each one. Over the last 4 months He provided a renter for our house, we sold almost all our possessions. The Lord raised up leaders to take over the Junior High ministry we had been leading for two years. He enabled us to obtain all the paperwork we needed for Residency Visas and we received approved Visas in only two weeks!

We also knew that if this was a work of the Lord, He would provide for our financial needs as well. We didn't solicit funds, but just prayed that the Lord would provide. He was so faithful. We have over 100% of our monthly budget! We even have extra for ministry expenses. 

For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. Ephesian 2:10

We are excited to see what the Lord is going to do over the next few weeks as we prepare to go and how He will use us once we arrive in Barahona. Thank you so much for your support and prayers! It means so much to us. We know the Lord loves for His people to come to Him in prayer and we know we have seen Him work so clearly and mightily over the last 1 1/2 years because of those who have been praying. Thank you!

Then He said to His disciples, "The harvest truly is plentiful, but the laborers are few. "Therefore pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest." Matthew 9:37