Team Kaleo finished our first week of
ministry today in San Juan de la Maguana, Dominican Republic. We have been
blessed with amazing contacts, a great place to stay, and wonderful people to
minister to. Our contacts this month are Miguel, Kristin, and Silvia, who work
with a ministry called Amanece Dominicano, which means Dominican Rising. They
disciple young adults here in San Juan and train them to plant churches and
dedicate their lives to missions. Their goals are that by the end of their
lives every community in the Dominican Republic will have a healthy church and
that the Dominican Republic will become the leading nation for sending
missionaries in the western hemisphere.
With such ambitious goals they need a lot
of help, and that is where we come in. For this month we are serving as their
advance team. Along with Silvia, we are going door to door in four communities
in the San Juan municipality that are known to have little or no church
activity. Our objectives in these encounters are to establish relationships
with the people, spend time in their houses, pray for them, intercede for the
villages, and look for men and women of peace who could be helpful in the
future church planting attempts that Amanece Dominicano does. In this area
there is a lot of Santeria, which is
a form of witchcraft that is a perversion of Catholic saint adoration. Many
people put their faith in the symbols of Christianity and in the notorious
healing power of the witches, instead of in God. We are specifically targeting
several communities with a heavy Santeria
presence and praying over them.
The first community that we went to is
called Corral de los Indios. It’s a very old village where the indigenous Taino
people used to make their capital and have their palace until Columbus
encountered the island by accident and Diego Velasquez followed him a few years
later, bringing Spanish colonization and wiping out the Tainos. Although there
is a Christian presence in this village, many of the people are still very much
bound by the lingering influences of indigenous magic and witchcraft. In the
middle of the village we found a Santeria
center with a witch who people bring their problems to.
For the past three days we have been going
door to door in two or three groups, meeting people, asking them about their
lives, and praying for them. We have also been praying against the spirits of
witchcraft that hold the village captive. Rosa, Silvia, and I have been serving
as the translators. This has been a challenge for me because it puts me in the
position of being the outgoing one who first approaches the houses and
establishes rapport with the people. Also, Dominican Spanish is completely
different from any other Spanish that I have studied or encountered. If you are
looking for something specific to pray for, please pray that I would learn
quickly, adapt to the accent here, and be able to understand people clearly so
that my translating doesn’t get in the way of people understanding us.
Overall, our time in Corral was wonderful.
Dominican people are some of the most generous, hospitable people I have ever
encountered, and almost every person has invited us into their homes, pulled
out chairs, offered us coffee, and talked with us for as long as we wanted.
Please pray that this open reception continues in the other three villages that
we go to, because they are known to have a much more difficult spiritual
climate than Corral.
Thank you for your prayers over our
ministry. This week was very productive and encouraging. I’m going to post a
blog later that tells the story of what happened today that confirmed to all of
us that the World Race in general, and the Dominican Republic specifically is
where we need to be.
Here are some pictures of our first week in the Dominican Republic
The beautiful village of Corral de los Indios
One of the families we visited in Corral.
Team Kaleo with our contact Miguel at the site of his future house
Jeff with the magical rock in Corral de los Indios. Supposedly this rock was part of the old Taino palace and it was where the queen sat to brush her hair.
Baseball time in Corral de los Indios
Homerun!!
