Hey friends! It is so hard to condense what God has done so far on the World Race into one blog post, but I’m going to do my best to catch you guys up.
JSquad getting ready to travel to the DR!
We began our traveling adventures on August 7 at 10am at the Atlanta airport as we made our way to Florida, and then finally to the Dominican Republic. Our planned flight overlay in Florida was supposed to be 8 hours, but 5 delays later ended up being 13 hours long, so we spent our first night sleeping on the dirty floor of the Fort Lauderdale airport. (Good thing training camp prepared us for situations like that!) We entertained ourselves with “What are the Odds?” (our squad leader, James’, favorite game) and getting in whatever last minute data usage that we could before we lost it for 11 months. At 5am on August 8, we finally made our leap over to the DR!
Santa Domingo, DR
When finally arrived at our ministry spot a little after noon that day we instantly fell in love with this beautiful country. We are staying with our host family, the Dominguez family, at their home and ministry campus called Hope Mountain in Santa Diago, Domincan Republic. Hope Mountain is a humble ministry that does work with the surrounding neighborhood children and women. Our hosts, Vicki and Ruben, have been more than welcoming to our big squad of wide-eyed adventured. We get 3 meals a day made by a local woman named Margo, who lives not far from the host’s home. The girls on our squad get to sleep in dorms with gorgeous views of the other mountains across the way, and it has a rooftop area where we hang out during worship and free time. The most important detail is that have actual showers! Although we sometimes have to pray for water, it’s so nice not having bucket showers on the race just yet. There are also animals on the property that like to randomly like to show up when you are not paying attention. The list of animals includes: two goats, a family of ducks, chickens, a horse, two cows, and several very friendly dogs.
The Dominguez Family’s Home
Adapting to the Dominican Republic has not been as difficult as I initially thought. It’s amazing the freedom received from not always having WiFi, electricity, and water. Good news guys, you can in fact survive without these things… well at least the WiFi and electricity part. You can also survive off of rice and beans too, apparently. Understandably, rice and beans is the easiest thing to feed 31 World Racers and their 3 fearless leaders every day for at least one meal. The desire for crispy, golden chicken nuggets is very real, but a big bowl of rice and beans definitely hits the spot after hours of hard labor. Most of our ministry is doing manual labor on the property, intercessory prayer, community outreach, or small miscellaneous tasks that help our hosts out. We’ve done a lot to help our host prepare their property for future ministry growth.
JSquad gathering for worship and prayer
My favorite ministry tasks that we’ve been doing is intercessory prayer and community outreach. Our host family has been under spiritual attack since the moment we got here. The day before we arrived, two of their daughters fell ill to the point of being hospitalized, they’ve also mentioned attacks on their ministry as well as experiencing bad luck after bad luck for quite some time now. For the first few days of our race we couldn’t leave the Hope Mountain property because our hosts couldn’t give us orientation about the community or their ministry. We stayed on the grounds until they could return from the hospital to give us the does and don’ts of the DR, so our squad dedicated those first few days to just doing intercessory prayer. (For those of you who have never hear of intercessory prayer, it is when you pray on behalf of a person, place, or cause.) We prayed for the family, the community around Hope Mountain, the Dominican Republic, and the squad.
In those few days dedicated to praying, we saw God answer our prayers in a unbelievably short amount of time, and in ways that exceeded all of our expectations. The most evident and encouraging prayer that God answered was our cry for rain. The DR has been in a drought for four months, leaving the waterfall and rivers almost dry where we are staying. We prayed for hours on our first day for God to bring downpour to the DR, both physically and spiritually, and by the second day we saw the fruits of our prayers. You guys… God brought the rain!!! For the last two, now almost three weeks it has rained everyday, with the exception of today and yesterday. Our team has celebrated and enjoyed the afternoon showers, and God has used the rain to give us encouragement.
During our second week here, our squad started to have a hard time because we hadn’t been able to do the mission work we were hoping we would be doing out in the community. The whole group has been so ready to ‘go’, but we had delay after delay from what we feel our “real” mission work was supposed to be starting with our flight delays and continuing with our host family’s illness. However, God revealed His power to us through a revelation from the rain. Early in the morning, as the rains could be seen forming beyond the mountains God told me that in the same way that He has answered our prayers for rain, our constant prayers over the country of the Dominican Republic stretch far beyond the property of Hope Mountain, and affect the country that we cannot see beyond the mountain. How powerful is God!!! This revelation brought some encouragement that despite feeling like we have been useless in waiting on the sideline that God is moving through our prayers.
It blows my mind that we can change the condition of a country without the requirement of physical labor. Although our physical labor is important and effective, our prayers are way more powerful than any other work we do. Our prayers lay the foundation for the success of our ministry and the work God desires to do for His people. I would love to encourage you guys to continue to pray for our mission work back home. God can use your intervening prayers in the U.S. to change to condition of nations around the world. Our God gives us that power to make a way for the gospel in places we have never stepped before. It is true that He is the God that goes before, stands behind, and walks beside us. Take advantage of that blessing!
Here are my prayer requests for you guys that I hope you will dedicate time weekly, if not daily to pray for: Please pray for the women and children of the Dominican Republic. The DR has one of the highest population of sex trafficking in the world, as well as gang activities that occur throughout the DR. Please pray for the women and children that get sold and involuntarily pulled into such darkness because of those things. Pray also for the men, that God would change their hearts to be protectors rather than provokers. Pray for rain to continue to come to the DR because the waterfalls and rivers aren’t flowing to their full potential just yet. And, please pray for the missionaries in the DR. The harvest is full, but the workers are few. Please pray that more people will fall in love with the beautiful people and community in the DR, and that they would have the courage to share the gospel with anyone they came across here. In praying for missionaries in the DR, please specifically pray for our host family. They love the Lord, and could use the continued prayers for themselves and for their ministry.
Our host, the Dominguez family!
Thank you guys for your continuous support. I apologize for taking so long to finally post something. I hope to share more of my heart for the DR soon. This place and people are so worthy of love and attention, and I am excited to share a glimpse of its beauty with you guys.
The Gospel Girls at church in Santiago, DR
