Here is the recap video for the 2012 Spring Break mission trip to the DR! Praise God for an incredible trip!
Here is the recap video for the 2012 Spring Break mission trip to the DR! Praise God for an incredible trip!
Posted at 12:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
The Dominican Republic mission trip reunion will be April 29th at 6:30 PM in the Activities Center at Johnson Ferry! Invite your parents and bring your friends, it will be a fantastic time to rememer what an amazing trip it was! We will also be baptizing people who made decisions to follow Jesus eitehr for the first time or rededicating their lives to Him. If you are interested in being baptized please email Stephanie.Dherde@jfbc.org today so we can get you signed up!
Posted at 11:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
As I'm sure you are aware, every night we gather together as a large group and have a time of worship and teaching. And so you understand what I mean by worship and teaching...there's not really a time limit on it! These students are hungry to lift high the name of Jesus every night and to be fed by the Spirit because of how much they are pouring out everyday. So sometimes we start and it's tough to end because eventually we gotta get some sleep!
The last couple of nights have been incredible. Two nights ago Brian our high school pastor, spent time talking about worship. And our response to God. He used a great analogy of a ball, and how it responds to what we do to it. And just like that ball, we respond to what God does in our lives. The difference between us and the ball, however, is that God has granted us free will. So we can choose whether or not to respond to what he does in our lives. Many of us will go our entire lives soaking up God's blessings in our lives, and crying out to Him when we are facing trials and troubles, but will never respond to Him when He moves in our lives. I mean that outward, unashamed, fall on your face kind of worship. We looked at Luke 7 and the story of the woman who "lived a sinful life" that walked right into a Pharisee's house that Jesus was eating dinner with and simply fell down at his feet to worship him; not ever thinking about what the "righteous" people around her would think. Beautiful.
Then last night we expounded a little more on what we do with all this information. All week the leaders and staff have been having countless conversations with students about how they get the Gospel, they understand it, and they understand the implactions of believing it, but they are scared of fully committing their lives. Most are afraid because they know people will think they are crazy, they will ruin current friendships, they will feel abandoned. We were reminded of the scripture in Hebrews that God has called us to move on from the basics of Christianity that we know. That if we really want to see a difference in our lives then we have to stop soaking up all this teaching and information about the Gospel and actually start applying it. But because the free will God has given us, that is something WE have to do, not God. We can only be as spiritually mature as we are willing to be. So we have to stop getting fed just a pastor teaching on Sunday mornings or in our weekly Bible study, but we have to be PURSUING God ourselves...reading scripture! praying! worshiping!
Which brings us to Friday. Today we were really blessed to have a chance to hang out on an awesome beach on Catalina Island. We went snorkeling and swimming and just relaxing! What a huge blessing it was for our team to have a day and hang out with each in such a beautiful part of God's creation! Now we are sharing stories about things that happened during the week and hearing how God worked in different people's lives. This has truly been an incredible week, so there is much reason to celebrate! The latest number I heard was that 657 people committed their life to Jesus and allow Him to rescue them from their sin! PRAISE GOD!
Tomorrow will be a long day of travel. Be sure to look to the right hand side of this page to see the flight information! The only change that happened was the Charter flight is now leaving the DR at 4:55 PM, arriving in ATL at 8:30. PARENTS: Please be sure to pick your student(s) up from baggage claim at the airport...or the top of the escalator from the train if you really want to surprise them!
PS...there are a few new pictures up from the last couple of days. (Days 5 and 6)
Posted at 09:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)
Good morning! Here it is, Wednesday..we are HALFWAY through the week. We are already seeing students look exhausted both physically and spiritually so pray for strength as they start their day today!
We had an incredible day of ministry yesterday! Lots of great salvation stories! Your students are not ashamed to share their faith and that is super encouraging. Last night was a very powerful night as Bobby talked about confession. We saw the students nailing their sins to the cross and hearing that sound of people hammering a nail into the cross will forever be engrained in my head. As they dismissed to family groups we saw students circling up sharing things that they are struggling with in their own lives. Our challenge is for them to not be ashamed of their past, but to embrace it, confess it, and be freed from it. Without sin Christ's death on the cross would have pointless. As the church we are so accustomed to being together all the time but never fully allowing people to see what's truly going on in our lives. Aren't you tired of hiding your sin from people? How awesome would it be if we were open with our sin and allowed people to pray for us, lift us up, and encourage to grow deeper in our walk with Jesus; instead of holding on to this deep dark parts of hearts and hoping nobody ever finds out.
We are praying for more confession this week as we see our students and leaders open up to each other and to see the church really seeking God's face.
Check out a few pictures from yesterday and last night!
Posted at 09:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (6)
Today was our first full day of ministry here in the DR. We started at 7 this morning with breakfast, quiet times, worship, then were on the buses by 8:30 heading to our various sites. Many teams did VBS either at a church or a city center, or even under a tree in a small sugar cane village. Children and their parents will come from very long distances to "see the Americans". VBS is a great way to reach the kids but also spend time ministering to their moms and even dads who are curious about what we are doing here. Some teams worked on the large construction project we have this week, which is a large building with 4 rooms inside for sunday school classes for a local church. (Thanks to Ted Kennedy and Brian Wetherholt for heading that up!) Other teams did construction type projects at other churches and even at individual homes. And then of course our recreation minisry is here with us directing a huge sports camp, primarily focusing on baseball, basketball, and soccer. We want to say a huge thanks to Danny Downing, Shane Millard, and Patrick Sebasta for organizing such a big project and giving our students another avenue to minister to the Dominicans!
Tonight we met together for worship and Brian, our high school pastor, talked about compassion. Jesus' had the utmost compassion for people. Numerous times in scripture we read how he would go out of his way to help people in need. Brian showed us how the word "passion" means "to suffer", and that is what Jesus did on the cross for us.
I want to ask you to pray for your students. Pray that they will allow the Spirit to get inside their hearts and awaken them this week. This is such a great opportunity for the Lord to work in their lives because they are so disconnected from their normal way of living. And every day they are pouring themselves out, so we know every night they are coming to worship desperate and thirsty to be filled back up again.
Until tomorrow...Goodnight!
(there are a few pictures posted on the right hand side of this page!)
Posted at 11:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Day 1 we traveled. Bleh.
Day 2 we met with the families that we will be ministering to throughout the week. Each of our family groups has a family that they specifically work with for part of their time here. The students also did more prep for VBS and the other ministries that all kick off tomorrow morning! Pray for us as we hit the ground running!
And look to the right hand side for a few pictures from the last couple of days!
Posted at 11:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
If you haven't heard through Twitter, we are alive. Everybody made it with not a lot of trouble. The folks on the American flight were delayed in Miami and didn't make it until around 4:00 PM yesterday afternoon...and they were EXHAUSTED!
But, we settled in, ate dinner, worshipped together, then went to bed! We weren't in a huge rush this morning, but you can't really sleep past 7 here because it gets hot quick!
We are enjoying worshipping this morning and after lunch the groups are heading into the communities to meet the specific family they will be ministering to this week. Pray this will be a great "first impression" with our groups because we want an opportunity to get into the families' lives in the next 5 days, lead them to Christ, and connect them to their local church.
We are awakening.
(if you want more frequent updates, text "FOLLOW @JFBCDominican" to 40404 and you will start receiving our tweets as SMS text messages. It's free except for whatever it costs you to receive a text!)
Posted at 11:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
If you want up-to-the-minute updates on our travel status and work schedule each day you should follow us on Twitter!
If you have a Twitter account go to: www.twitter.com/jfbcdominican
If you don't have a Twitter account and don't want one, no worries! You can text: "FOLLOW @JFBCDominican" to 40404 and our Twitter updates will automatically be sent to your phone as an SMS text message. (standard texting rates will apply).
That's it!
Posted at 10:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)
If your team is trying to learn the songs for VBS, then look no further! Click the link below!
Posted at 11:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)