Hello from the Dominican Republic! The Dominican Republic is a beautiful country. The people are full of love and the scenery is quite breathtaking. The mountains off in the distance are covered with tropical trees and circle the city that we are in, Santiago. On top of them are rain clouds that will shower the city in the afternoon in a way that seems almost cleansing. There is much to do here ministry wise.
Out of the 56 people or so, my team and I are seven. Yesterday we talked to our ministry director, Manu, and today we talked to our contact and pastor of the church we are assisting, Stanley. Both are really sweet, good, and passionate about God. The way they speak about discipling others and sharing the gospel is truly beautiful and inspiring. They told us that we will be doing a variety of things, but the main ministry is, now get this, door-to-door ministry. Yesterday, before church (1/11/15) we split up into groups and started inviting people to church. I was scared to do this and actually quite terrified in fact, even crying a little bit while I was praying over a woman and her eye. Im not sure why but this next step is really intimidating to me. I will still make the step but I am still frightened.
Eariler that day, I was praying and doing my devotions and during it I prayed to figure out what I was afraid of in regards to sharing my faith. So I closed my eyes and waited for a response. In response, I believe God was pushing my spirit. Almost to the point that it felt physical, and it was as if He expected me to run. But it felt as if my spirit would only be pushed forward a little and then reluctantly stop moving any further. This happened several times and after thinking about it I concluded that this was God urging me to move on my own in the Holy Spirit. To run and be bold! I was convicted of being a child spiritually and now came the time to decide on whether I would continue to act like a child spiritually, or be spiritually like an adult.
Isn’t that crazy? One day into The World Race and God is already drawing closer to me. My only decision is if I will draw close to Him as well. I knew that walking those streets was going to be different today (01/12/2015). Today I was tasked with praying over the community before we went to plant the seed of the gospel in peoples hearts and I realized there that I only have so many words I can pray with in English. So once I exhausted all my words I just started to babble. I’m not saying that I spoke in tongues, but I simply let my tongue loose while my eyes began to water.
This is two days in. I have another 10 months and 29 days left and I am confident that I will be experiencing more things like this to come.
