We have just bid good-bye to our Canada team, and have welcomed a team from Florida. They will also be with us for one week. We attended two church services today. God was moving in an awesome way. In the Sunday morning service we shared a testimony and a brief greeting with the congregation, and plan to finish several rooms on the back of their church later on in the week. In the evening, we led worship and preached in a church in Las Quinientas. Again, God shook the house. People were healed, lives were changed, and the pastor was encouraged. In fact, he made a very humbling comment to us, which went something to the effect of: “Whenever we see your faces, we have one question: ‘When will you be returning?’ ” Wow. God is, without a doubt, using our ministry to encourage, empower, and equip the pastors and their congregations.

Last week we had the joy of travelling to several different areas around Nagua to hold mini pastors’ conferences with the help of a visiting group from Canada. In each area, the pastors were touched supernaturally, encouraged, strengthened, and empowered to do what God has called them to do. Many gave testimony of how God marked their lives in an indescribable way through the Word of God that was shared through the visiting pastor from Canada. We were also privileged to hold a two-evening city-wide youth conference for Nagua and the surrounding areas. Both nights were packed out, and God rocked the worlds of those in attendance. It was such an encouragement for us to see the pastors hungrily receiving the teaching from the Word of God, and is confirmation that we are indeed doing what is needed and what God has called us to do.

The last few weeks have been very exciting. One day several weeks ago we travelled to two new areas within 30 minutes of Nagua, where we met with several pastors to get to know them better. One pastor lived in a shack in a village called Helechal. Literally, it was a shack - all tin. He hopes to build a home for himself, his wife and three kids. The other pastors lived in an area called El Pozo (The Well). There must be over a thousand homes all spread out around the rice fields with no running water. One pastor’s church has been under construction (and unusable) for about a year, and so his church congregates with another church a distance away. It is difficult for some people to travel that distance. This is a common problem here - there are many half-finished projects and churches. They are started in faith with what little the people have, and then left unfinished because the people have exhausted all their resources. Please pray for us that we would have the wisdom to know how to help them.

After our visits with the pastors, we sat down with some glasses of fresh lime juice in the house of a brother from the church. He and a former pastor were describing to us the process of the rice harvest. It costs about US$60 to plant a crop of rice on an area of about 0.155 acres (629 square meters) - this size of land is called a ‘tarea’ in the Dominican Republic. Each tarea with a good crop will yield about four sacks (125 pounds each sack), twice a year. The rice is sold to the local rice processing factory, where the rice kernels are de-shelled and dried. The rice factories buy the rice from the local farmers at about US$20 per sack, which is about US$80 per tarea. So if they get two good crops, they make about $40 for one tarea of land. However, our friends told us that this past crop was damaged, and the farmers are suffering loss because of it. This makes it very hard for them. They will hope to make up for the loss in the next crop, praying that it will be a good one.

Just over two weeks ago, we bid farewell to a group of 16 people - a youth group from Wisconsin - that had come down to partner with us for 10 days. What an incredible 10 days it was. The first few days were spent in a poor community called Rio Mar (River Sea, literally translated), working with the local pastor to fix up his church and home, and to reach the community with the love of Jesus. We smooth coated the outside of church and inside the pastor’s home with concrete, painted inside both buildings, did visitation and evangelism in the community, and held two evening services in the church. On both evenings, especially the last one, the church was so full that there were crowds of people gathered around the windows and doors to hear what was happening. The team built beautiful relationships with the people of Rio Mar - lives were touched, people were saved, and even the “bad boys” of the streets came out and were touched by the love of Jesus. When we left, there were many tears, and the pastor was so thrilled with what were we able to accomplish together. The group also held two children’s program for the children of a public school. We did an evangelistic outreach two evenings in a different community called Sabaneta - five people came to know the Lord as Saviour! We also did an outreach in Las Quinientas, a community in Nagua - the visiting team did a program for more than 200 children during the day, and then we showed a Christian film to over 200 people in the evening. It was a terrific time! God touched lives for eternity, and encouraged pastors - our vision moves forward!

On June 22 and 23, a Friday and Saturday, we were in Puerto Plata with Hope International and their team to do a pastors’ conference for all the pastors in the region. Friday night we had a service in the basketball court. It was awesome - the worship team brought us into the throne room of the Lord, and the Word of God was delivered powerfully and effectively. Many lives were touched that night, and the altar area on the basketball court was filled with people, including pastors! On Saturday, we served over 200 pastors breakfast and lunch, and held five seminars for them. Five different pastors from the States spoke powerful messages from the Word - and they fit together marvelously - in a way that only the Holy Spirit could do. There were unforgettable moments of repentance and desperation for the Lord, as all the pastors and leaders had their hands raised, crying out to the Lord. There were moments of great joy, as the pastors reflected on the great call and vision that God has place on and in them, and the great power of their God to fulfill all these things in their lives, churches, cities, and nations. Again, it was a joy for us as a ministry to see the pastors encouraged and built up. We made history that day - never before had the pastors united like that in such large numbers. Praise the Lord - He is doing a great thing along the north coast of the Dominican Republic!