Lot’s of new experiences and things learned today.
We spent most of the day at the Go Sports facilities in Santiago. It’s quite an incredible facility. There are four baseball fields that are nicer than many of the fields I’ve seen in the USA. There are four basketball courts under a large roof that provides shade. Two volleyball courts that are under a roof. Two turf soccer fields—one large and one small. There are dorms for some of the players who are part of the program who live too far away to travel for practices. There’s a massive basketball court being built from donations from a pro basketball player, the DR government, and then Go Ministries. And that’s just in relation to the Go Sports ministries—on aspect of Go Ministries. On location is also Go Worship—a ministry that is focused on raising up worship leaders in the Dominican Republic. There’s also Go Plantadores—their church planting ministry, which is the ultimate goal of all these other ministries.
The goal of Go Ministries is to plant 1000 churches in the Dominican Republic. Right now they’re at 308 churches. Everything they do is focused on the mission of planting churches with a foundation of discipleship. You can see how they are using the athletic ministries to open doors and raise up future leaders in the church. Every aspect of their athletic ministry is focused on discipleship and we had the opportunity to get glimpse of that throughout the day. Then the Go Worship ministry is focused on raising up worship leaders for those churches. So, they are building up a foundation and a pipeline of leaders to continue to see the gospel spread throughout the Dominican Republic. It was a great opportunity for us to see the facility, hear about their mission and vision, and get to see it in action through all of their programs.
After our time at the Go Ministries facility, we came back to Hota de Yaque for some more afternoon sports clinics. Since I was with the volleyball teams yesterday, I went with the soccer team today. It was so much fun for me to watch our boys interacting with all of these soccer players—big and small. They were so engaged in what they were doing. They were focused not only on helping the learn good ball touches and ball control, but more importantly, they were engaged in building relationships with the kids from the community. There were jokes being told, nicknames being given, and smiles and joy all around. All of the even continued throughout a little competition between the Dominican boys and our boys. It was definitely competitive and everyone was working hard to win, but there was a lot of joy the entire time. To be honest, I’m not sure who won, because I spent the entire time playing volleyball and soccer with a bunch of community kids that were too small for the camps.
We headed back for supper to a meal that was more familiar to the students—spaghetti and meat balls. They were pretty excited. Supper also had a Dominican food that has been one of my families favorites since our time in the Dominican—fried plantains. I encouraged as many kids to try it as possible. It was fun for me to share some of these little memories with them.
After supper, we took a little excursion to a local super market. It was pretty funny to watch all of the faces as 58 white people barraged the store and wandered around looking at everything. The students were pretty excited for the opportunity to buy some Vive100 (kinda like Gatorade or Powerade), various flavors of wafers, plenty of chocolate and sugar, and a plenty of other snacks.
Once we got back from the super market, Dan led us in our nightly debrief. He asked three questions: 1) How did you see God at work in the life of someone in our group? 2) How did you see God at work in the life of someone outside our group? 3) How did you see God at work in a way you didn’t expect? It was great to see the kids so engaged in answering these questions tonight. I could have been the Buballoo gum Dan was giving out for answering OR, more likely, it was the result of God’s work in the life of our students. Their answers were deep and you could really tell they saw God working in and around our group throughout the day. We also had the opportunity to hear Keren Austin’s story and testimony —which had the kids paying attention and hanging on every word (she did such a great job!).
It get’s me excited to see the ways in which God is using us in the Dominican Republic AND the ways in which he is working in the hearts of these students. I’ve already seen some powerful fruit in the Dominican Republic as a result of the work we’ve been doing here AND I’ve already seen transformation in the hearts of our students. Praise God!
Keep on praying over this group. We can feel theme every day! Tomorrow is a little different day. We’ll be having out typical morning activities: breakfast, devos, and continuing our painting and cement work. However, after that, we’re going to have some down time in the afternoon for rest and reflection. We’ve been going hard ever since we’ve been here—without any down time—so it will be good for a little opportunity to reboot a little. However, we’re really pushing the students to use this for more than just rest—but also reflecting. Jon Martinez—our Go Ministries leader—has been encouraging the students to LISTEN to what God has to say. That’s what we want the students to do in this down time. Take the opportunity to reflect on what God has been saying to them throughout the trip, take an opportunity to listen to what God may be saying to them now, and even take time to pray and reflect on what God may be telling them about their future (What’s going to change when we get back home?). I mention all of this because we would love your prayers that God would be speaking in the lives of these students throughout the day tomorrow AND that God would be softening their hearts to hear what He has to say to them.
Thanks again for your prayer and support!
Jason Ruis