So much good news!

I haven’t posted much this month, but in a nutshell, so many great things have happened for me personally, for our team, and with the ministry. Here’s a little recap:

In the beginning of the month, my parents came to Santo Domingo for a visit! It was so refreshing to see them and since it was my mom’s first time here, it was great for her to get to see where I’ve been living. The students were quick to welcome back my dad and I was impressed as my mom used her Spanish to introduce herself at the weekly meeting. What was perhaps the most encouraging part of their trip was when they participated in our team’s weekly prayer and worship time. My parents prayed over each of us and reminded us of the awesome work God is doing here. Sometimes it takes an outsider’s perspective to recognize those things!

The other great thing that I experienced was getting to go home for a quick 4 days to be a part of my sister’s wedding! It was a whirlwind experience, but so awesome to get to spend even more time with my family, meet my baby niece and brother in law, and witness the big day!

Finally, we experienced a lot of rockin’ things at UASD. We saw a student come to Christ during our weekly evangelism time with students, began discipleship groups with 15 students, and had students from our first ever leadership team conduct the weekly meetings! We are also become recognized on campus as Vida Estudiantil. A couple of students approached a small group of us sitting around one day and asked if we were the ones that had the weekly Bible studies and if they could join us that week. Cool!

Continue to pray for us as there is still much to be learned about our students and ministry at UASD. Pray for perseverance and a deepening compassion to drive us on!

First week back-Amazing!

What a great start to a new semester. We we reunited with our dear friends from Vida Estudiantil and planned an outreach to gather even more students to participate in our meetings. It’s really important for us to continue seeking new students for a couple different reasons. The first is that with UASD being so large (over 150,000 students on our campus), there are many students who haven’t been reached with the message of the Gospel. Also, as we’ve observed over the last few months, students who were strong leaders within Vida Estudiantil can come and go as they graduate or start working (we always accept their request to pray that they get jobs, but it’s bittersweet—and our loss—when they find one!)

The purpose of our outreach today was to meet and inform 300 students about Vida Estudiantil through giving away Survival Kits (Fundas Salvavidas). Our friend and long time member of Vida Estudiantil, Alvaro, gives us an expert explanation of what we did today (Might I say, his English is excellent! The subtitles are only there because there was a lot of background noise):

A student does a great job explaining our outreach today

Four students from Vida helped us accomplish our goal, and to our surprise and delight, three others that we just met today played a significant role in bringing their friends over to us. We met so many people today, my throat was sore! I never know what God’s complete plans are when we do these outreaches, but I’m praying that someone we met today will know Christ deeper as a result of their participation in Vida Estudiantil this semester. Can I dream a little more? That one of them is a future leader of the ministry, bringing even more into communion with God. Thanks for joining me in prayer since we’ve been here. Continue to pray that more people know Christ and that UASD is filled with true followers of Him!