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March 21
Dear Parents,
Yesterday, the students went on visitation with their translators and pastors or lay church leaders. They enjoyed it so much as they got to talk to people, see how they lived, and play with the children and animals. Several of the people they visited, who had missed the previous night's meeting, were encouraged to come back to the meetings last night and they showed up!
This weekend is a holiday weekend (Easter) which is a huge deal in a Hispanic country. All the churches show movies about the life of Christ and there are practically non-stop meetings in the churches over this weekend. Also many people party and get drunk. Please pray that we don't lose our visitors this weekend.
The topic of the Sabbath was covered last night and the kids told me that in their churches they had people who made the decision to keep the Sabbath. For most Anglo speakers, it is culturally uncomfortable to do an extensive altar call. However, in the Dominican Republic it is expected that the altar call will really draw them out. So we worked on the altar call yesterday before they presented the topic of the Sabbath. The kids were amazed that as they continued the call, more and more people stood up. One young man said that with his first appeal for them to stand that no one stood and he felt uncomfortable, but he prayed and kept going, and soon several people were standing throughout the audience, and some were crying. He said, “It was awesome to feel God working through me to help people make decisions to follow Jesus!”
When the topic of the Sabbath you can count on unusual problems. One young girl had her projector acting up so much that she and her translator knelt and prayed three times over the projector. Finally they gave up because all their “techie tricks” didn't work. So they prayed one more time, and without touching any buttons, the projector came on and worked perfectly. Then her microphone quit working, so she had to yell her sermon. Praise God the devil didn't win!
One young girl said that she never felt God before in that way when she was preaching last night. She said she was walking around and looking at people directly in the eye appealing to their hearts. Her fear was gone and she felt such a love for the people in her audience! God is good!
Then there were funny things that happened. One kid got the hiccups in the middle of his sermon which never left till his sermon was over. He said it was a bit embarrassing but he decided that the devil wasn't going to win so he just kept preaching and hiccuping. Another kid accidentally burped into his microphone. Nothing like keeping one humble!
Jason Carlson has been such a HUGE help on this trip as his technology knowledge has been so helpful. He has also worked with my youngest son David, who is only 11 years old. With Jason's help, David is starting to come out of his painfully-shy shell. David wanted to preach every other night so he is sharing the pulpit with Jason. Thanks, Jason! You are making an eternal difference in David's life, helping him to realize that no matter how shy he is, God can still use him! David actually told me, “Mom I want a site with even more people next time!” I can't believe it, as he has NEVER wanted to make eye contact with strangers, much less preach!
Last night, I went downstairs to get something I had left at the concierge's desk. The young man who was on duty is a very quiet guy. Immediately when he saw me he said, “Come here, I want to show you something I found on YouTube.” There he showed me a clip about the rapture and then one about the crucifixion. I asked him if he had a DVD player on the office computer but he didn't. So I went upstairs and got the movie about Jesus called “Matthew” which is in English and Spanish and brought down my laptop so they could see the movie. He and his friend watched the entire four hours during the wee hours of the morning. Pray for these young men in the hotel. They are open and willing to talk about religion.
Thanks so much for your continued prayers!
Sincerely,
Karen Glassford
March 22
Dear Parents,
Today there will be a few baptisms in the central church (where Kyle is preaching) for people from that church and area churches who are ready for baptism as they have been taking Bible studies already. This church has a baptistry and some of the smaller still-in-construction churches in the area do not have a baptistry yet. Last night I saw the first baptisms from this series. It was exciting!
Most of the churches where the students are preaching have between 11 and 25 members or they are church plants and the students are preaching in tents on an empty lot. Other places, there are 40 or 60 members. But the turnout has been good.
Thanks so much for your continued prayers. God has been good with always providing translators even if one gets sick. Some translators are better than others, of course, but the people are understanding the translation and are continuing to come to the meetings.
Sincerely,
Karen Glassford
March 26
Dear Parents,
As you can tell from my silence the last couple of days, we’ve been very busy. In addition to preaching we’ve tried to take the kids to do fun things. On Monday they went shopping around the hotel. Tuesday we took them back to the country club to play basket ball, volleyball, softball, and swim. Today at 7 a.m. we took the kids up in the mountains to hike to see a beautiful waterfall in a lush green environment. We walked on hanging bridges over the river to get there. The kids were able to swim in the river a bit downstream and climb on huge boulders. They all said it was one of the most beautiful places they had ever seen. Then we went down the mountain a bit further to eat lunch and most of the kids took turns riding a couple of horses for short rides along the river bank. We got back about 2 in the afternoon and the kids, the troopers that they are, went straight upstairs with the laptops to the conference room to practice their sermons. Now they are getting showers and changing before supper and then it’s off to the churches again.
Sunday [March 30] we are going to the beach at Puerto Plata. We will be taking most of our translators with us for the day. We will then return to the same hotel and be packed up by 9 a.m. on Monday. The buses will leave around 10 or 11 to get to the airport by noon for the afternoon departure. The last days of previous trips have been very sad for me because on previous trips the participants came from all over the USA and Canada, and it was very hard to say goodbye to the kids that I’ve come to love. So I am glad that this time they are all from Arizona because I will see them all again very soon. (I don’t fly out till a couple of days later as I have to see some of “my” kids in DR that we help sponsor in school, etc.)
I wish I could convey to you all the amazing things that have happened on this trip. Several kids have told me they are hooked for life. They can’t wait to go again next year. One shy girl gave a testimony today. She said, “I am naturally very shy. For me it was very hard to get up front that first night. But as I’ve been doing this I have discovered that God can use anyone...personality doesn’t get in His way. I want to encourage my shy friends to come next year because I know they will see God in a new way and they’ll see they can preach as well.”
A young man said, “I have felt I didn’t truly love people before this trip. I’ve learned so much about loving people and letting God use me. It’s been awesome!”
Monday night, the pastor who drives me around to the various sites asked me if I wanted to go to a particular site that night. I told him “No, that girl is doing just fine....I need to get to such and such a place.” He understood me just fine but suddenly I found myself in front of the church that I told him not to take me to. This really surprised me as this pastor is very organized and attentive to detail. But I decided to go ahead and go in. When I walked in that girl said, “Oh, Mrs. Glassford, I am so glad to see you! Look! My projector won’t stay on for some really weird reason! I have never had this problem! What do I do?” After we tried several things it was apparent that the projector had a real issue, so I got out my bag of extra supplies and simply hooked up a different projector. The girl kept saying, “How did you know I needed you?” I told her I didn’t know, but apparently God did because the pastor brought me here even though I told him not to! God is so good!
I could tell you story after story of such things on this trip. It’s been uncanny, because about 80 percent of the time, when I got to a church, they were having a technical issue they had never had any other night, and with God’s help I was able to fix it. And this was true, even if we changed our plans last-minute and went to different sites than we had originally planned. God takes care of us! As a result, the kids have had very few technical problems at the meetings since we prayed over the laptops early last week and with the pastor taking me to just the right places every night. (The sites I do not get to every night are always fine...it’s the one’s I go to that have problems that night. It has been truly amazing!)
We’ve had some strange ways that the devil has tried to stop the meetings. At one site a house in front of the church caught fire so everyone ran out for a time to help or watch. We’ve had accidents in front of churches, electricity go out for the entire meeting and they worshiped by candlelight, batteries that went from 100% when they left the hotel to only 20% upon arrival at the church which had no electricity and yet still lasted for the entire sermon without the electricity turning on. We’ve had an extension cord catch on fire during an altar call (no equipment damaged either), a drunk walk in just at altar call time, etc. You name it, it has probably happened....especially on nights dealing with the Sabbath, the state of the dead, and hell. But God is stronger and He has won in EVERY situation! Praise the Lord!
Last night, one young man came into the hotel with his eyes so huge that I told him to stand and start talking so I could video tape his story. I knew it was going to be good because he looked so amazed, shocked, touched, and excited all rolled into one emotion. When he got to his site, the electricity was off so they turned on the generator. The generator literally exploded and shot into two pieces...one hitting a fence at the end of the church yard. (For those of you who are physics or mechanics experts...I know it sounds incredible. I have never ever heard of a generator blowing up like that either, but I can assure you it happened). He decided to go ahead and set up his laptop and run off the battery but he was horrified to see that although he had charged his computer all afternoon, and it was at 100% at the hotel, it only had 20% battery now, which wouldn’t last more than a few minutes. He needed the computer to see his sermon notes. So he prayed and the computer lasted for the entire sermon! He also got a couple of candles and they began the meeting. He preached his heart out and personalized his own appeal. The audience cried and he about lost it as well. He said that he had never felt God in that way and that it was awesome! The minute the last person had stepped out the door of the church the electricity came back on. He said he couldn’t help but yell out loud, “Devil, you lost tonight! God, you’re awesome!” He then said, “You know, I had always heard that people’s lives changed on mission trips. I came here basically to see another country and have a good time — but my life has been changed! It has been incredible! God’s come through for me!” At this point Pastor Gisella Montana and I were crying and the poor guy was really fighting tears.
At another young girl’s site, a drug dealer came to her meeting. He was so touched by her sermon that he left a changed man. He wanted God for the first time in his life but he knew it would be very hard. You see, he knew that the next time he was to appear in court would be to be served the papers that would put him in jail for the next 19 years. How would he learn about God in jail? To his utter amazement when he got to court, the judge was very flustered. He said “Young man, I know you are guilty of drug trafficking and that you were sentenced to 19 years in jail. However, for some very strange reason we can’t find the paperwork anywhere. We’ve looked all day but we can’t find it. I can’t put you in jail without any evidence in writing. So I am going to let you go. Please do yourself a favor and turn your life around or you will be back here again and next time I am sure the paper work won’t be lost.” The young man was dumbfounded but he walked out of that courtroom a free man. On the way home he heard Jesus’ voice tell him, “Don’t worry, I am your friend!” God is in the business of rescuing lives!
But mission trips costs money! Yes they do, but the results are for eternity. Thanks for realizing that you couldn’t afford for your son or daughter to miss this mission trip! Not only have they made an impact in the Dominican Republic, they have come to know God in a different way. Oh yes, they are just as human as us adults...they have room to grow, but they’ve realized how good their lives really are, how amazing God is, that God can use anyone, and that for some, He is calling them to full time ministry someday in their future.
Thanks, Pastor Tony Anobile [president of Arizona Conference of Seventh-day Adventists], for the privilege of working for the Arizona Conference. I wouldn’t trade my job and these types of experiences for the world!
Sincerely,
Karen Glassford
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