Hello from the DR soccer missions crew! I am sitting outside on a little porch area outside a Christian school where over 1100 students come to school each morning...we had an uneventful travel day and were warmly greeted by our Dominican hosts at the airport when we arrived on this beautiful island...to be honesat, we are all pretty exhausted after just grabbing a few hours of sleep on one of our two flights...it will be an early bed time for this typically late-night crew!
When we got to the Los Alcarrizos community where we are staying and serving this coming week, we had a chance to see all that God is up to down here...the ministry we are partnering with here is involved in all kinds of Kingdom activity...we saw the water purification plant they operate that provides clean and affordable water for the community while also employing local pastors to provide them income; the school we'll be working on to add 5 new classrooms providing outstanding Christian education to over 1000 kids in one of the poorest areas in this part of the country; a kitchen facility we will be laying a foundation for that will provide breakfast for 400 children each day; new houses for the poorest of the poor here; a fantastic weight room and workout facility we helped to build last year that is now finished and serves as a center for relational evangelism with all types of kids and young adults in the community; and a new community center site where we will be hosting an outreach event for kids in the community later this week...it is exciting to see our opportunity to join God and others from all over the world in the work He is doing here to change people's lives in Jesus' name here...
And as we walked through the community past people's homes and talked with hundreds of local children, I couldn't help but be struck by the incredible contrast in where we came from and then found ourselves in the same day...we left the blowing snow and found ourselves sweating on a twilight walk dressed in tshirts and shorts; we left homes and cars and clothing that were replaced with things some had only seen in charity specials late at night on our televisions; and we left behind lives cluttered with media and grades and constant communication and busyness for a place where we spend the evening writing and talking about why we came to this place and what we think God might want us to wrestle with both this week and in the future...
I always love hearing the hearts of young men as they share about their very real desires to know Jesus more deeply and understand in a fresh way what God is calling them to do in terms of how they live and what kind of impact their lives might be able to have...your prayers for their prayers really will make a difference this week...
Tomorrow we will be up early and get to work on the construction sites here...we miss you and look forward to sharing our stories in the days ahead...
Stay warm thinking of us down here! For all the soccer guys...
CHIP
1 comment:
praying for you guys! Excited to hear the differences you guys are making and the differences that God's going to make in all of you!
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