I have been thinking about the words of Jesus to his disciples as He was about to leave them and ascend to heaven. He was telling them that He was leaving but the Holy Spirit would be here with them, and that this would be better in the long run. The Holy Spirit was going to give them power to tell of Jesus' love, and power to go to the ends of the earth for the purpose of telling everyone.
"But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you. And you will be my witnesses, telling people about me everywhere—in Jerusalem, throughout Judea, in Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” Acts 1:8
So...here we are, The Woodward family, and the Holy Spirit is telling us again to go...go to the Dominican Republic again this year. All of us, Vic, Monique, Ellie and Carly have heard or sensed this calling to go. We experienced unity in this message from the Holy Spirit (God).
We have been connecting with Children of the Nations, www.cotni.org, since the beginning of the year and also connecting with Dominican friends through Facebook. We are excited to build on the relationships we have with these beautiful friends and grow together in the message of Christ's love.
Our role will be a bit different this summer. Monique is going to serve as an intern leader for the five interns who will spend two months in country. Pictured above are interns from last summer at our despedida (going away party). One of them, Bethany, is returning to help Monique lead the interns. Our family will still serve as the host family at Casa Betesda for the many short term mission teams scheduled for projects this summer. We will help them experience life in the bateys and in communication with the national staff of COTN.
My heart (Vic) is being stirred to connect with and teach young men in the reality of being Fathered by God, embracing God as our perfect loving father, in spite of the realities of fatherlessness. The beauty of this long term mission, seven weeks, is that we have time to build relationships and share the love of Christ.
Monique and I will continue our marriage outreach in the Baharona area. Each year we have introduced Laugh Your Way to a Better Marriage in Spanish to local pastors. We have left them with Dvd’s to continue the outreach and they have been faithful to share the message of hope for marriage in the community. The people love this presentation, mixed with truth and humor.
Our tour of service this year is from June 14th - August 4th. Even though this will be our third trip the DR, we are still learning the culture and language of the Dominican people, thus we feel a strong need for your prayers. We have continued to study Spanish and we feel less of a language barrier, praise God.
We would like to ask you to partner with us through prayer and financial support. Should you decide to send financial support; donations can be made online at www.cotni.org. When donating online, make sure you include our trip code, DR_THW611, with our name.
The pictures above are some of the visual memories that will come alive again, in a new way, for us in 2011, God willing.
