Fall DTS 2009 DR Outreach

 It has been a while so we wanted to update you on all of our goings on. Our team has relocated to our last location (Santiago) before heading back to the States.  It is amazing to see all that the Lord has done in our time since being in the Dominican Republic.  We have been here almost a week and have been working with Compassion.   Many on our team sponsor a Compassion child so it has been great to be hands on with so many of the children that people all over the world are sponsoring each month.  It has also been powerful to see how these children’s lives are impacted by their sponsors with the opportunity they have to learn about Jesus.  We have been going each day this week to a church where the children who are part of the Compassion program come.  We teach lessons on different areas of our lives, such as how to better take care of our bodies, environment, relationships,  and how to protect our personal space.  The students continue to impress us with their amazing ability to lead out and build relationships with the children who come.   

We are also looking forward to this upcoming weekend where we will join up with Santiago’s Kings Kids program called Suyo to do ministry in some of the poorer areas of the area.  More to come…

As a team we are located very close to Haiti being in the Dominican Republic. At this time we do not feel as though we should enter in to Haiti to help with relief work, as the need is more for medical aid and other professional care. Food and water distribution is mostly being handled by the government. We are continuing to pray about future possibilities, but for now, we will stay in the DR. We have been blessed with the opportunity to minister to Haitians as they have come over the border to seek aid. We are currently located in a town called Azua. We went to the hospital and prayed for victims of the earthquake, as well as handed out food to their loved ones. We will contiue in this ministry until Tuesday when we head on to our next location, Elias Pina, which is even closer to Haiti. We will continue to seek guidance from God as to our role in bringing relief to the Haitians. We will keep you updated. We are excited that some of the staff from our base are going in to help the base in Haiti. Also, that we as a base are helping ship items into Haiti out of Miami. God continues to open doors for us to be ministering to those in need and we are grateful to be used by Him. Thank you for your prayers!

This summer a team from YWAM Orlando came to Barahona for two months. During that time we began building relationship with a young man named Falo and his family. During the summer we were able to show him the love of God & show him that he is valued. Lisi and I were so excited to be returning to Barahona for this DTS outreach because we knew we would get to see him and his family again. We have continued to spend time with him and his family. The team has been praying for him to come into a true understanding of who God is and to enter into a relationship with God. We asked God to give us some encouraging words to share with him about who God has made him to be. He gave us great things to share! On Tuesday night, Lisi and I intentionally sat down with Falo and wanted to hear from him who he thought God to be. He was unable to give us an explanation, but that gave us the opportunity to explain the gospel to him starting from Genesis to Jesus. It was an amazing time! He was able to repeat back to us the main points of the story. We asked him if he wanted to enter into a relationship with God. He said yes! Then prayed out a prayer of acceptance of Jesus´ gift! It was so awesome. We went to his house and shared the good news with his grandmother, who also believes in God and said she will encourage him to grow in his relationship with God. We were able to give Falo a bible and encouraged him to start reading certain scriptures. We also left him with teachings on how to hear the voice of God and how to build a relationship with God. We are so excited for what God is going to do in and through this young man. For those of you that have been praying, thank you, it works! For those that have poured into him, your seeds have taken root! God is so good!!

Since being here we have done some Door-to-Door ministry, which is where we split the group up into two teams with a translator for each group. We then proceed to go through out the neighborhood and pray for people. There was a lot of amazing things that have happened. Here is just one story from the other day; we went out and at the first house we encountered a elderly lady named “Negra”. She told us background information about her family and illness. Negra has ten children and 55 grandchildren. She never gets to see any of them except one of her grandsons who lives with her and brings her food to eat. She also explained to us about what has been ailing her for over 40years. She began to tell us about her eye problem (Cataracts), and the fluid that builds up in her leg, that needs to be drained quite frequently. We also asked her about what she thought about Jesus. She said that she believed in God and talked to Him, but that she had never verbally made a commitment. So we asked her if she would like to make a commitment (verbally) today. She agreed to. Our team walked her through the “sinners prayer”. After we prayed she said that her heart felt lighter and that her legs and eyes didn’t hurt her as bad. At our next home we met too young adults named Oscar and his sister’s name was Jessica. They were both believers too! Jessica is a leader of a youth group here in Barahona. Oscar recently had quit attending church and was trying to find himself. Some of our team felt led to talk to them about YWAM and what we do. It was exciting for us to see how wonderful God is and how He connects his children to Him through complete strangers, who step out for the benefit of Gods kingdom.

Hey everyone I’m sure that some of you have heard about the earthquake/tsunami in Haiti. (For those of you who haven’t though I will mention it later in the blog.)We as a team just want to let you know that everyone is in good health and positive spirits! We just want to share with you what our team has been up to in the last two days, before and after this natural disaster. This blog is going to be kind of long but it expresses what God has been speaking to us about the Haiti as well as the DR. Yesterday, an earthquake hit the nation of Haiti. This is only about five hours away from where our team is staying in the Dominican Republic. It hit the capital, Port au Prince, which destroyed many important buildings, schools and other things that the country need to thrive and survive. So tonight, during our team time we had intercessory pray for the country of Haiti that they would turn to God and that His compassion would be shown to them once again. During our time here we have been working with a “Rice and Beans” ministry. We have been able to give rice and beans to many Bateys (Haitian refugee communities) totaling over 1875lbs of rice and beans or 7300 people! God never ceases to amaze us with His compassion for His children. In his word He speaks constantly about feeding his sheep. Not just with knowledge of Him but to give them actual food to eat. God is the ultimate Father so of course he is going to take care of our needs to the highest degree. One way he is allowing our team to do this is through the local beans and rice ministry. So that by feeding the people on the Bateys we are able to speak to them about Jesus’ love and share knowledge of Him. I’m so glad that God is using our team to change the people of Bateys life one cup of beans and rice at the time! Praise the Lord. –Tia Davis

Hey Everyone,

Information is coming out of Haiti about an earthquake that just hit there, near Port-au-Prince.  We don´t have any information on the earthquake itself, but we did just talk to our team (at approximately 7:20 PM EST) in the Dominican Republic and they are fine and are not affected by this earthquake.  We wanted to put out a quick update to let people know.

Dean Sangrey

Training Director

It was off again on the big “Red engine machine” to the Batey #7! The ride once again was amazingly beautiful and breath taking.  We were greeted at the Batey with kids wanting to play.

Our team once out of the “Red engine machine” made our way in two groups around the Batey. Each group basically went house to house and got to know the families there and pray for them. One man we talked to had lived in this particular Batey for 30 years since he was 17 years old. Upon meeting him some members in that particular group thought he was of older age. But we soon discovered that he was only 47 years old. You could tell that this man had many hardships in his life that he had to overcome. We were able to pray for him and his family. He also wanted prayer for his two brothers that he had missed opportunities to see because of circumstances that were beyond his control.

After this encounter we went along to other houses for about another 15minutes. Our group unpacked all the soccer balls, a baseball bat and some tennis balls to play with the children. We all split into groups of 2 or 3 DTS/Staff members and played games of soccer, baseball. Some of the children there had games of their own that they taught us. After about two hours without much trouble we lined the children up to give the candy. By the smiles on their faces you would have thought that we had given them a million dollars. But sometimes just showing a random act of kindness and love can be worth more than all the money in the world.

We arrived safe and sound in the Dominican Republic on January 1st and have been settling in and making many new friends ever since!! 

Upon our arrival we had a great Dominican orientation with Pastor Pedro (the man who owns the home and school we are staying at in Baharona); ate very good food, went on a prayer walk, and ended our first day with some helado (ice cream).  A great start to our time in the Dominican Republic (DR). Praise the Lord!

Today we were able to go to a hospital to minister and pray for the people there…it was amazing how different the hospitals are here.  We could  go pretty much anywhere in the hospital we desired to go.  Tia and Lori were led by a man to a side ward and asked to pray for the people there.  After a few moments and hearing some loud groans they realized that they were in the delivery room and that a woman had just went in to labour and was about to have her baby.  They quickly finished praying and left so that the woman could have some privacy as her newborn baby was brought in to the world!!   We ended up our day with working on the Orphanage building project our Summer Mission Adventure Teams started!!  Below are some quotes from our team thus far:

“The bus was great, the beds are great, and the rooms are nice. The people are great and the showers are cold. And Pastor Pedro called Angela  our God-sister and she is our contact person for America.”       –Elsbeth

“Im sweating like a man, but the breeze is very nice, Meeting people is great!” – Laura

“Everybody is driving on motorcycles.” –Frank

“The weather is nice and breezy, the people here are gorgeous and the girls have awesome hair, I am truly jealous. There is also a lot of need here in the DR that I didn’t realize.  I am excited to be used of God to meet those needs too, maybe He(God) will bless me with good hair while I’m here.” –Tia

Tia while looking at her feet commenting on how dirty they are…”wow my feet are black!!”