Berean Baptist Church

God is good! All 20 have arrived after a long day of flights from Minneapolis to Miami then to Santo Domingo. Everyone arrived safely, healthy, and with all their luggage! We were able to eat some pizza at the airport before jumping on the bus and driving 3 hours to our destination of San Francisco. Beautiful views of the blue/green ocean and then drove through the mountains during sunset. We arrived around 9pm and briefly met Pastor Luis and his family during a team meeting at the church. Everyone is looking forward to tomorrow and the up-coming week! Please pray for the community, the church, and all the individuals on this mission trip that God may work to open hearts to receive Jesus. With church in the morning, it is time to blow up the air mattresses, take a shower, and off to bed.

Refreshed by a good, long night of sleep, we were blessed to join Pastor Luis and his church for a morning service at the Fundamental Baptist Temple. There was singing, scripture reading, and translating as Josh prepared and delivered the sermon for the service (see picture). After lunch we had some conversational training and set out on a prayer walk in which God was definitely present! We invited children to our VBS program the next few mornings and prayed with and for people throughout the streets. We were amazed by the welcoming spirit of the Dominicans and their willingness to be open to pray and speak with us. A little down-time this afternoon with another worship service tonight, led by some of Berean's finest musicians :) Much more to come as the week continues. Praise God for this opportunity to see beyond ourselves and serve Him!

on our 2 ½ - 3 hour bus ride to our home base for the week!

Maddie & Emma inside the sanctuary of the church.

Maddie & Ashley with their new friends…Emma & Isa

Having fun in the park across the street from the church (home base).

Same thing….But posing! :)

We had a tremendous turnout at VBS with around 175-200 kids!! There were multiple stations with bible studies, arts and crafts, games, music, etc. You could tell a TON of planning went into this for weeks or even months and was definitely well organized. Incredible to be able to witness and share God and very excited to see the kids again on Tuesday and Wednesday. In the afternoon, we drove to a Children’s Home in Tenares, DR. Catholic nuns are currently caring for about 25 children from ages 3 or 4 up to 18. From the moment we walked in, we connected by singing and sharing our names, ages, and hobbies – in Spanish and English. These children are truly blessed to have this handful of women who give up so much to give a caring home where the kids learn about the gift of Jesus! It was great to see the teams pouring their love and compassion into the kids’ lives but also the impact they had back on us! I was blessed to hear many testimonies by the youth of Berean (during their "free night") and what a great group! My encouragement to them to stay strong in their faith as they face anxiousness and modern day social ‘norms’: “Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the Lord your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you.” Deuteronomy 31:6

Round 2 of VBS with a little more experience. Really fun to see many of the same kids returning again and we even had a few over 200 today! Everyone is excited to build relationships with the children and we are thankful to have several youth helping from the church/school and of course Pastor Luis and his wife Maribell. Also, their 2 sons and wives have been a HUGE help in translating and coordinating. In the afternoon, we were able to play on the school's basketball court with some of the older youth of the community and you guessed it, we played some baseball. A sport that does not need much translating here in the DR. We were able to play with the kids for almost 2 hours but then we were interrupted by a nearby thunderstorm. While we had a few more things planned to minister to the youth, we have tomorrow to still perform a skit and share testimonies with them. Everyone gathered at Pastor's house for supper and fellowship. We were lucky enough to catch some of the big soccer game, Costa Rica (Pastor Luis' home country) and the USA. Another tremendous day!

The last day of a great VBS program had even more kids than the past couple of days! The sports ministry had kids playing all kinds of different sports and we had all ages participate. As we were nearing the end we brought together all the kids to have them watch a skit that walks through a person’s earthly struggles and how we are all in need of Christ in our everyday lives. Afterwards a few testimonies were shared and several bible verses in Spanish were handed out for the children to take home with them. After supper, we had a church service in which several participated by playing music, singing, giving testimonies, and preaching a sermon. The community thanked us for coming and doing so many activities, but we equally had a lot to be thankful for with their hospitality, generosity, and general kindness.

To end our tremendous week we had our recreation day today. While the fellowship goes late into the night playing fun games, we started our morning even earlier than usual so we can head the two hours to Laguna Dudu in La Entrada. This place turned out to be amazing and possibly even better than going to the ocean! A zip line that sends you speeding over the lagoon ending with a 30 foot drop into the crystal clear blue water, a cliff to jump off also about 35 feet above the water, a cave to explore, and a nice picnic shelter. We had a delicious lunch including chicken, fried eggplant, fried platanos, rice and supper of porkchops, rice, and pasta. We had a short meeting to debrief the week and reflect on everybody’s highlights on the different activities and ways that God has blessed our trip. While some may truly be prepared to stay in the Dominican Republic we now have to pack up tonight and leave early in the morning. We will have a few minutes to say good-bye to Pastor Luis and his family and then make our way to the airport with lasting memories of the people met, relationships formed, and partnerships built between the community and the church. Praise God!