http://www.globaleffect.org/
This month my team and I had the incredible opportunity to partner with an organization in La Vega, Dominican Republic called Global Effect (GE). It was founded by a Youth Pastor and very experienced missionary by the name of Scott Steelman. Years ago the Lord gave him a vision to do mission work that soon after becomes sustainable and is the responsibility of the locals. The mission is to impact the local community by working alongside local pastors and churches to identify and meet immediate needs. After surveying with local leaders the biggest needs identified were the lack of male leadership in the Dominican church, lack of jobs that result in high unemployment and further chaos, and the lack of clean water. In the last decade GE has made a huge impact in multiple communities by organizing male retreats that develop Christ-centered leadership, providing microloans that create and multiply jobs, and distributing water filters through the facilitation of the local pastors. Those are just a couple of the many avenues they use to bring about change for Christ.
Meet Chave. She is the lady standing in the center with the white hair net. She is a single mother of three who at one point lived in a small, run down, wooden shack and was begging in the streets to provide for the needs of her family. But things changed for the better when she became a microloan partner of GE. She now owns a small restaurant and has saved up some money for the construction of her home (the building behind us). Throughout the month our team would split up to work on the construction of her home.
The other half of ministry was distributing water filters to homes that usually drank unhealthy tap water. This was door to door ministry at its finest because the water filter was an excellent representation of the gospel. The dirty water represented our sinful lives, the filter represented Jesus and his sacrifice, and the clean water represents us after we’ve accepted him. It was a very powerful and effective tool that led to many people accepting Christ while simultaneously being blessed by their local pastor. After spending a week distributing filters in specific communities we would then organize a kid’s camp on the weekend for their children.
One of the bigger blessings was probably our host family for the month. Cayce, Jasmine, and Katie are the three young women on the picture below who were interns for 3 months with GE. They took care of a lot of the behind the scenes stuff and were a major reason for us being able to partner up with GE. Without them we wouldn’t have had a place to stay or a way to coordinate logistics and budget. They were awesome.
Bolivar Reinoso, aka Moreno, is the DR representative of GE. He’s the man pictured above. He worked closely with the ladies to figure out ministry schedules for us and arrange meal situation. We were very privileged to get to know him, his wife Mari and their three children Jeremy (not pictured), Lisa, and Lari.
Lastly, meet Lisa, my favorite. 🙂 I started missing her as soon as I left.
There is a lot more to say about ministry this first month but hopefully I can share the details at a slower pace in person. More than anything I would like to reemphasize how appreciative I am of Scott, Moreno, Mari, Katie, Jasmine and Cayce. I am incredibly grateful because this month was amazing, much more than I could’ve ever asked for and a greater blessing than I ever expected.
