As I press pause on the last six months and take a moment to reflect on all God has done over the last six months it has been such an incredible time. I also realize that it has been entirely too long since our last update. It always amazes me on how life and ministry can take off and before we even aware so much time has passed. The last short-term trip of the year has left to head back to the States and I wanted to take a moment to recap for you all that went on this summer and fall.
We had 36 teams come down on short term trips, now that is a lot of ministry! God blessed us the last six months and construction wise we have been able to accomplish great things. We built four rock cages to help protect the Church in Hoyo de Bartola from the ever changing and flooding river. Continued construction on three homes and they are now set to be finished and moved into by the end of November. We started building a new Church/nutrition center and dorm in Phaeton Haiti. Continued the construction of Church’s and feeding centers in Batey Nueve & Batey Cuchilla, also worked on the parsonage in Halto del Yaque. There were also a lot of little projects like painting homes as part of community outreach in Panta Suenta, building basketball courts, starting the process of building a baseball field for children to have a safe place to play. G.O. also started the demolition of our old central church in order to build the new three story medical facility.
That was just the construction part! We also had many, many children’s ministry, three dental clinics, four medical clinics, sports outreach, family counselors, Pastoral training, music training, sports outreach and so much more. G.O. has been so blessed to be able to start another nutrition center for needy children, and we now have 11 centers on the island. Under the direction of Will Partin, our sports ministry has started a daily basketball clinic four days a week. It is great to see so many kids learning discipline, basketball and the love of God via devotions by the coaches.
This past year we have also seen our main central church move from our old building to our new temporary sanctuary. We have also watched as God has moved the hearts of so many as we have gone from 75 people of well over 150+ and are already out of space! What a great problem to have as we get ready to start the second floor of the building and future main sanctuary. The youth of the Church are on fire for God and are representing a huge portion of the congregation. We have had countless new people joining the Church and the impact hasn’t just been with the Dominican and Haitians. As many of you know the Americans who come down on the short term trips are often searching for God as well. Just with the teams that I knew if we had eleven people accept Christ and be baptized while on their trip. Can I get an AMEN on that!
It has been a great time of ministry! We are looking forward to a short break and having teams start up again in the New Year. This past year G.O. Ministries also spent some time laying out a new vision statement and over the next month I will be updating the blog and breaking down the 5 key components of it. It is extremely important to know why we do what we do and how it plays into moving God’s Kingdom forward. So stay tuned for more…….
We will be heading to the states in the next few weeks. Sunshine and Colton will fly back to the states 11/28, and I will follow them in about a week on 12/5. We are looking forward to a time of relaxation, spending time with family, seeing friends, and celebrating the holidays with family.
We wish you all a Happy Thanksgiving! We are all so blessed!
