We woke up to a great breakfast as the cooks had prepared omelets with fruit. Our devotions for the morning that Brett lead were on the passage of Luke 4:14-30, which talked about how God wanted to save all people, and not use Jesus as a politician for the Jews. He wants to save all, insiders and outsiders, no matter who you are.
We then left to tour Go Ministries, where we went to the Go Seminary and met with Jeff who was one of the lead professors. He gave us a 30-minute summary of what he teaches on as “The Culture of the Broken World” and “The Culture of the Kingdom of God”. It pointed out the differences in the two and how we change the culture of the broken world into the culture of the kingdom of God. This is done by evangelizing through love and joy. Three main points are belonging, behavior, and believing. First, is to give an individual a sense of belonging, not by making people follow a set of rules before they can join the Church. Then, by the example of the church, the individual’s behavior will change for the better and will hopefully lead to them believing in Jesus Christ as their Savior. Another key point was that the Church is the people not the building itself.
On our way back from the seminary, Brett told us the history of Go Ministries. A quick summary of the start of Go: A pastor started preaching in a church on Sundays and sold insurance full time to support his family. Then, an American came along and saw what good he was doing and wanted him to do it full time, so he got his church to give him just over $200 a month. Soon after, the pastor became called to do more and more and Go Ministries grew into Go Sports, and Go Medical, and several other areas of impact.
We then were taken to the Go Medical clinic, a giant clinic for the community which provides extremely affordable healthcare. The medical center and staff are relatively new, but the community is being impacted significantly. Go saw the need and pursued it.
We also had the opportunity to go to class with some of the baseball players in their advanced English class. This class is completely optional for them. Brett lead the class and we shared our stories/testimonies in small one-on-one groups. The players also shared their stories with us. This was a really cool experience and we got to personally connect with them and hear about their dreams and what they want to pursue. A few of them will be going to school and playing baseball in the States next year and it is cool how Go has helped them with this opportunity. We talked about the importance of education and the pursuit of our goals.
Girls’ and boys’ soccer practice was tonight and our group got to help out with both. The guys from our team helped out with the boy’s practice and the girls helped with the girl’s soccer practice. The guys in our group lead the practice for the boys and played different fun games with them and had a blast. The girls followed the lead from Coach Kelsey and were assigned a team of girls to coach and encourage. At the end of practice Hannah and Rylee shared a little bit about their story and about what they have learned about God through their sport.
After soccer we went back and the Dominican intern coaches, Junior, Randy, Misheal, and Alan, who are our age shared their testimonies. Each of them shared their struggles of growing up and becoming baseball players, and all of them had dreams to make it big but all ended up becoming coaches for Go. This was very powerful because they all have a very deep love for the Lord and for bringing up the kids the way they were brought up through Go. Each of them also talked about how previous coaches had impacted their faith and put them where they are today. We enjoyed great fellowship with them and they are having a truly incredible impact on their community on the island.
Love and Blessings,
Rylee and MeKenna