We have just completed our first week of Ministry in the Dominican Republic, Praise God!
What does a normal week look like for us?
Each week will be a little different, but we do have a weekly schedule. Each Sunday we will go to a local church and meet the pastor and community. This will be the church that we are serving with for the week to come! Monday-Thursday are our ministry days. These days consist of whatever services the local church and community need (SMT-strategic ministry time, clinics, etc.). Fridays are what we call “ATL” (Ask The Lord). We don’t have anything planned on Fridays because this is our opportunity to open our hearts to see what God has for us! Some ATL days we may get to just enjoy the country by going to tourist areas or local shops. Some days we will have opportunities to work with other ministries in the area that we feel called to, and some days the Lord will lead us into things we won’t expect! At the end of the week, each Saturday we take a sabbath to rest and spend time with the Lord processing the week and looking ahead to the next week. I am so grateful that World Race exercises a Sabbath!
This week (September 18-23):
This week we got to partner with a medical team from Colorado Springs in a medical clinic. We hosted the clinic in a city named La Vega, which is a little over an hour from the base, from Monday-Thursday. In total we served over 550 people through prayer, medical advice, medication, and more!
I had opportunities to learn some medical skills in taking vitals and it was amazing to minister and serve those in need in that way. All of these people really needed love and care, and I am so grateful to God to see each person receive it in the name of Jesus. Within the clinic I also had opportunity to spend time with children as their parents received care. We got to color and play soccer and just experience the joy of the Lord! I got to hold lots of babies and serve both the parents and the kids in many ways just by being intentional with each interaction.
My main ministry this week was in SMT close to the church hosting the clinic with my team of 5 and our translator Darlin. I met a lot of people who were grateful that we had invited them to the clinic, but there were two girls in particular who we spent the most time with. We got to revisit them every day and really intentionally build relationship over the four days. M is 25 years old and a believer. She has been married to her husband Alex for 5 years! G is 17 years old and a Mormon. Her grandma owns the store where we met them and visited them and she had been working there every day. After taking a couple days to share our stories and listen to pieces of theirs, we shared the Gospel and each day at the end we prayed over them. In total, we probably spent upwards of 7 hours with them! We had a great balance of deep conversation and light-hearted relationship building. They taught us all how to dance the Bachata, which is the dance of the Dominican! G was going through a hard time because her aunt was terminally ill with Cancer and was nearing the end of her life as we said goodbye on the last day, please pray for her and their family as the grieve the loss of Maria. I am grateful we got to pray through those intimate and hard moments, but please pray that G, and the members of her family who are also not believers can find Christ in this dark time.
Prayers:
-Praise God for all the people who got the help they needed at the clinic this week!
-Pray for each person we (and the other team) spoke to in SMT, that they would experience the love and life of God in their lives like never before
-Pray that M continues to grow her faith in the Lord and continues to go to church
-Pray that G would see what pure forgiveness from faith looks like and that she would see the light of Jesus in her life
-Pray for my group as share our life testimonies with each other and grow in intimacy. Pray that we would be Christ-like and intentional with each other in the weeks to come. Praise God for the relationships we’ve build this far!
Below I’ve added some pictures of my team with M and G, as well as pictures from the clinic!
