Well I'm back from an amazing trip to the Dominican Republic. Although I was only there for a short time (6 days) I saw God accomplish a lot of things through our visit. The purpose of the trip was two-fold: make preparations for a Panamanian team to come on a missions trip and also to gather and train the DR staff and students giving them a vision to reach their campus.
It is interesting how you enter a place with your own expectations of how it is going to be, what it will be like etc... I often find this happens to me on a day to day basis as I head out to campus or a Bible Study expecting one thing and God shows up with something totally different (and better!). I was pleasantly surprised at how beautiful of a city Santo Domingo was...and even more surprised at how HUGE and BEAUTIFUL the UASD (National) campus was. It actually reminded me of my UBC campus back in Canada...just tropical.
The Library
God also blew my mind with our training sessions. Each night over 30 Dominican students, staff, teachers and church leaders came out to listen to us give training and teaching on God's plan to reach the world, Spiritual multiplication, How to share your faith and living life in the power of the Holy Spirit... again I had expectations of only a few people showing up...and God blew them out of the water by bringing out so many faithful and excited people who truly want to see their campuses, country and the world changed.
Each day God seemed to do something unexpected in the DR. Friday morning, Tania, Jess and I had told students that we were to have a prayer meeting inside the library in the morning...only to arrive and find that the library was closed for student elections. Slightly frustrated that we couldn't get to OUR meeting point, we sat down in front of the doors and began to pray. Eventually all the students who were coming saw us there and joined in. As we sat there praying a girl came and sat beside us, also wanting to get into the library when it opened. She discreetly started eavesdropping on us, and eventually asked if she could join us in prayer. However when we asked her (Arquinia, an 18yr old student) to pray...she stumbled a bit and then asked if someone else could. After our prayer time, Tania began to ask her some spiritual questions. The girl said she was a Christian, but Tania continued in sharing the Gospel with her. At the end she realized that she never had begun a relationship with God through Jesus and prayed to receive Christ. (Equally exciting news is that she has been coming out to follow up appointments this week!!!) As amazing as that was, it was also so encouraging to be there with 1/2 dozen Dominican students and have them see how it is possible to simply share your faith with your fellow students.
Tania sharing...
So that is a short summary of my time in the DR. It is a beautiful country with beautiful people and if you feel like going on holiday there I suggest you do, and take a few days to go see the city and meet the people.
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