Irresistible God!

Well, unbelievably, it is my last week of my one-month trip to the Dominican and I haven't written on my blog since my first week. While I will attempt to let you understand what I have experienced on my trip, please know that whatever I say will not do justice to the experiences that I have had while here. During my second week in the DR, I was with a church group from Ohio. Similar to the first church group that was here from Tenessee during my first week, we visited local villages of haitians and dominicans and shared the gospel with them. Unlike the first group though, we had the opportunity to go to the same village each day. The village was called Dos Hermanas (two sisters). As I am one who believes in relational experiences, I loved the idea of working with the same village the whole week. By the end of that week, around 30 or 40 people accepted Christ into their hearts. It was such an awesome experience for me. (See, since I was able to speak Spanish, they had about 20 girls who had raised their hands saying they wanted to accept Christ to me and I asked them if they understood who Jesus was and why he died on the cross. After they explained their understanding, we prayed a prayer to the Lord asking for forgiveness of sins and they dedicated their lives to Christ. It was definitely one of the coolest experiences that I have had thus far. That day 20 girls accepted Christ (including one girl, who at the age of 3, very obviously and passionately expressed her belief in Jesus). Sometimes we discount what their little minds can understand, but she got it. CRAZY!

The following week, I traveled with a softball group which was composed of girls from Atlanta (Woodward Academy), Tennessee and North Carolina. The two coaches were former pitchers for UGA and UF. The girls were full of spirit and energy and it brought back memories of playing softball. Of the group of 20 or so girls, about half did not have a relationship with Christ, and by the end of the week, they all became saved -- expressing their belief in Him, desire to know Him and repent of their sins. Two girls caught my attention the most. Somehow, they felt close enough to me to want to talk to me about how they didn't believe, yet were burdened by the fact that they didn't have a desire to know Him. So, over the next two nights, they talked to me and we talked about what it meant to have a relationship with Christ and about the importance of prayer and reading the Bible... We prayed, talked, cried... The next night, actually the last night they were there, they accepted Christ. It was such a cool experience for God to work through me to get to them. One of the girls was from Tennessee. She didn't have a Bible and often complained that on the few occassions that she had tried to read it, she just didn't understand. On the morning that she was leaving, I gave her mine. You see, I had a student study Bible. I never understood why 4 years ago I had bought it. I liked the Bible, but it pointed to a lot of things that would affect teenagers and not me. I had my favorite verses underlined and I knew that God had allowed me to buy and read and underline that Bible so that on that day I could give it to her.

It's amazing how God works. We don't have a clue what he is doing, but later we are able to see His working hand! Oh what an awesome God we serve.