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Wednesday, February 11, 2009
REPORT FROM THE DOMINCAN REPUBLIC!!
click here to see more pictures from the trip!WE had a team of 13 from various parts of the country travel with us to the Dominican Republic for a short term mission trip in January. We went to proclaim the gospel as well as to educate the population regarding two proposed reforms to the nations constitution soon up for vote before the legislature. The two primary reforms state that, "all human life shall be provided equal protection under law from conception until natural death." and that, "marriage is exclusively defined as between one man and one woman."
Most of our team were fluent in Spanish, a great asset while ministering in the DR. Our first day we staged a large press conference hailing ourselves as the Alliance for Life, a multi-national pro-life association. Members of our group were born in Guatemala, El Salvador, Mexico, as well as the US, so we represented each of those nations in our press conference - over twenty media outlets from around the Nation showed up and gave us top coverage! We made the statement that abortion is murder, it is a violation of the Law of God and is an extreme form of violence against women that MUST remain illegal in the DR!
The media was cordial and for the most part on our side. Everywhere we went we were received warmly. The general population is extremely pro-life. The Constitutional reforms up for vote look like they are going to pass despite the large sums of money left-wing, feminist, pro-abortion organizations (including the UN) have been throwing into the political machinery of the country.
Praise God!
We spoke at 3 high schools, two of which were public. We were able to preach the gospel, show graphic abortion videos, talk about abstinence, purity until marriage, biblical manhood, and hammer against sin, while principals, teachers, administrators looked on applauding!!! The hearts of the youth were extremely tender and had a humility rarely seen in the United States. No one got angry, no one got offended, no one threw a temper tantrum because we mentioned God in school or showed "horrific" images of what goes on inside the closed doors of abortion clinics. Most Dominicans, young and old, expressed vocal disgust with abortion and expressed gratitude for our coming to their country to help keep it illegal. Most were very open to our message and expressed sincere desire to learn more about the deep things of God and pursuing a holy life.
As you can imagine, it was difficult to come back home, and had I not had four precious children and a beautiful wife waiting for my return, I may not have!
We also had the opportunity to preach at a major prison to several hundred inmates as well as preaching at three local churches. If you have never been in a third world prison it is quite an experience. I had to use a bathroom and so one of the inmates, who was also the Pastor of the in-house church brought me back to his cell, it was a long trip to el bano that I will never forget!
All this was in addition to the street work that we did, distributing almost 60,000 hard-hitting tracts, plus daily media activity, newspapers, tv shows, radio, and meetings with government officials! Our team saturated the media for a full week! Each day we split the group between churches, schools, media outlets, and meetings in Congress with Senators and Representatives. We were blessed to have such a gifted team with us, most of whom did not need interpretors but were able to speak forth the truth boldly and powerfully in the native language.
PRAY!
Please pray for all the seeds that were sown and the labor that was done, may it yield an eternal harvest for His Kingdom! Pray that the spark of revival would be kindled in the hearts of the thousands of youth we encountered! Pray for the local Christians working in a third world country foregoing so many of the privileges and comforts that we take for granted, and especially for the Antonio family, whose family of ten have been faithfully ministering in the DR for eight years, single-handedly starting a home-school movement, in addition to countless other works they have their hands set to. May they be blessed strengthened and encouraged!
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