Ladies Missions Trip Day Three

I am absolutely speechless.  Our day today was phenomenal from start to finish.  As our team met this evening we were so overwhelmed with all God had done today that we were silent for the first few minutes.  It is so hard to put into words what God is doing here so I will try to the best of my ability.

We started our day with encouragement from Scripture from the lady who heads up the Missions Trip Event.  After her powerful lesson on hands reaching out we prayed and headed out to different communities.  Today was the day we went to a church plant to hold a small scale conference for the ladies in the surrounding communities.  We had 50 ladies come to this event in the town of San Padro.

The night before we went into San Padro we organized everything for our ministries all week long.  It was nice to get that out of the way so that we could focus on praying for the ministries we were involved in.  We met every night to pray over the next day, plus share testimonies of what happened that day.  This became a special part of each day for me personally.  It was amazing to see God's hand at work in our lives and praise Him for all of the prayer He answered that day.

On the way to the church we noticed a few things about the Dominican Republic.  First, we didn't see many children or women in the towns.  We saw a few ladies, but rarely did we see any children.  It was explained to us that many of the women work, but most men are not providers for their families.  They mostly congregate in the streets during the day.  Some of the children were in school, but I am not sure where the children were that didn't go to school.  Children could only go to school if they had money for a uniform.  Most children drop out of school very young to help make money for the family.  The boys drop out to play baseball hoping they will make it to the big leagues.  Many girls will drop out and go straight into prostitution.  The future for the Dominican children is not bright especially if they do not have a birth certificate, which many of them do not.  Higher education is only granted to those with birth certificates.

Dominicans earn livings by selling anything they can get their hands on.  This gentleman is selling phone cords in the middle of the street.  

Our time with the ladies was wonderful.  We really enjoyed meeting these ladies and sharing with them about the Lord.  Many of them are concerned for their families.  Each lady asked if we would pray for the salvation of their children or siblings.  I was able to share with these ladies that God can use us no matter our position, talents, looks, or past.  We had a wonderful time sharing with these ladies.  We were able to pray over the ladies before we left and had a few come with very specific requests.  Some even shared that they needed Christ.  Even though they didn't accept Christ that day I will be excited to see how God answers those prayers.

God blessed us abundantly through these ladies.  I am sure we learned more from them than they learned from us.  If you have ever been to a church in a different country you know well that its not the building that is important, it's the people.  It really confirms that the building is not the church, its the body of Christ that is the church.  We saw how simple and rugged the conditions were, but in God's economy these things do not matter.  God is all about the heart!

God is so good!