Kerry Poucher, Grant Kellogg, Erica Windust, Colleen Bragg's team:

Please pray for our friend Josh. Our team has been depending on Josh to translate as we share the gospel with people. He does not have a relationship with the Lord and is counting the cost. Reiterating the gospel has been great for him to know truth, but it must be trusted in. His whole family is saved and he doesn't want to be a "typical Christian," one who lives like the rest of the world when he leaves church. He has expressed tons of love for the missionaries and seems very torn.

Please pray for favor on campus. English clubs have been great. People just keep coming up to us and want to talk to us. We are all out of Bibles and running very low on tracts. Sharing has been so fruitful as people know their need for God and hardly anyone rejects the existence of God. How different from the US! A French teacher came out to persecute us, telling us she was reporting us to security. We are meeting with the campus administration to acquire permission in writing as we have already done so verbally. Things look hopeful. 

There are countless stories of how excited the Dominicans are when they see Bibles with English and Spanish in them. Even tracts are received with great gratitude. One Dominican asked me (Kerry) to open the Bible and tell him about it. He opened to the passage on Salt and Light. He was glowing when he heard about it. In one afternoon three people prayed to receive Christ with one of our translators and members of La Vid! The campus is such a great place for sowing the gospel! Pray for health for our group. We have had most people in our group (we combine with Cole's team often) with sickness that has taken us out of the game for a portion of time. Diabetics, viruses, food issues, allergies have all posed problems for us. Also the general fatigue has been rough, as we are up early, out late, and constantly in the sun.

Today we are following up with people who have been saved earlier in the week. Gisela is a shy girl who heard that Jesus died when we were helpless and wicked (Romans 5:6-8). Many Dominicans grasp that they don't deserve God, but they struggle with the security of salvation, the completeness of grace. It helps to show them that God gave His only Son for us at the height of our sin. It is a free gift of love we only need to accept by faith. Pray also for continued grace to adequately explain the Gospel (what a challenge even in English)!

Pray that no one slips through the cracks. There are many Dominicans we have made contact with, and few local laborers. We have the task for our last couple days of introducing those with soft hearts to the saints here, preparing them for our departure, and encouraging the most important things: the word of God and fellowship. We will be dividing into smaller sub groups to try to tackle this huge task today and tomorrow. 

Lastly, pray for fruit that remains. Pray for energy. Pray for the works of our hands to be established. We trust that the Word does not go forth without accomplishing its purpose and we trust that the Gospel is the power of God! Thanks for all the support!

Bellas Pies - a.k.a. Team First Class

Alex, Dustin, Molli, Michelle
Our travel to Santo Domingo couldn’t have been anymore smooth. We arrived early Saturday morning. We are staying at an apartment 20 minutes away from everyone else. It has a really cool view in the morning even though it is not in the nicest of areas. After catching up on some sleep, we went to the beach area and played sand volleyball with some people we met there. We attracted a big crowd, and played for about 2.5 hours. We went out to eat at Adriana Tropical Saturday night with everyone on the trip. Sunday Morning we went to church with Evelyn and her daughter, Yonairy in their brand new building. It was awesome to witness the new building and how nice it was and how far it had come from last year. Later that afternoon we toured the UASD campus, and spent more time at the beach playing volleyball with some Dominicans. One of the biggest challenges we knew coming into this trip would be being able to talk with people who spoke only Spanish and so far we have run into a majority of people who speak it, so we have been learning some Spanish along the way!

Our first 3 days of English classes and sharing on campus have gone great. Dustin and Molli talked with Eric and Gabriella. Eric had a lot of questions about sin and the trinity, and although the language barrier makes it difficult, they were able to make things a little more clear for him. It has been really cool to teach people English and have them be so excited to learn. It is a totally different culture over here and they get really excited about learning. Not only is it awesome to teach them English, but just talking with about Jesus has been going very well so far! They have a desire to become the best at everything they do, and it is so crazy because that is not us at most of the things we take for granted back in the United States.

We got to spend time at an orphanage as well. It is so sad to see kids without parents, but at the same time it was so awesome to play with them and see the smiles on their faces. It brings joy to not only them but for us as well to just share love with them and bringing them things they can play with. When we are walking the streets at night or on campus it is also sad to see kids 5 years old carry around a wooden box with materials to shine shoes. It puts things into perspective of how much we have back in the United States and a lot of the things we take for granted. Things such as food and clothing and maybe having a job that we make money at, even if we don’t like the job, is something these kids struggle with every day. We live in a broken world and the only hope is in Jesus and the day when we will live with him forever. Being over here has definitely put that mindset into our lives more and more each day.

Prayer Requests:

• Continued grace with our Spanish, meeting English-speakers, and meeting people who can translate for us.
• Safe travels home
• People would accept Christ 

Hola Amigos!

This is the Tortugas! (Josh M, Liz V, Niki W, Taylor R, Emily C & Allison Y). We have had a great few days in the Dominican so far.

Saturday we were all pretty exhausted from our travel. It took just over 24 hours from the time we left Des Moines. After arriving, we unpacked, rested, ate, and went to bed! Sunday morning we visited a church with Evelyn, who helps host our teams. It was a great experience to worship with 500+ Dominicans. After that, we toured the campus and got into several great conversations.

Monday and Tuesday we hit the campus hard with the gospel. We have spent most of our time the last two days sharing the good news about Jesus with university students. We utilize Spanish tracts and Bibles, along with the help of some translators, to communicate relatively effectively despite our limited Spanish.

Yralissa was one of the first people we had met. Praise the Lord for a fluent English speaker!! She told us that a few years ago she was an atheist who had frequent, demonic dreams; each dream, she prayed, asking the Lord to stop them. And He did. After going through the Spanish track with her, and explaining the good news of Jesus Christ, she prayed to receive him in her heart with tears rolling down her cheeks. Yralissa told us how amazing it was to have a God who could forgive her sins.

Monday, while at the library, we were sharing with two girls, who knew ZERO English. Ronny was sitting next to these girls and scooted on over to help translate the conversation. After going through tracks with these girls, Ronny asked us why we were in the Dominican. He wanted to know why this university. And we told him we came to talk to him about Jesus Christ. As he left, he said this message must be really important to come all the way to the Dominican Republic from America to talk to people. Today, we ran into Ronny once more. Again, he translated the gospel for us, but this time for one of his best friends. As the gospel resounded in his friend’s life, he pleaded with Ronny to listen to this message. We sat down and discussed everything from creation to morals. Ronny said how he is searching for the answer, but just doesn’t know what it is yet. The conversation had to end, as Ronny had class, but he insisted that we meet again tomorrow. Same time. Same place. Same topic.