Brian D. Johnson Ministries

Teaching the Gospel of John in the Dominican Republic

Posted by Brian on Jul 29 2008

I’m back from my summer 2008 trip to the Dominican Republic where I taught several of the national ministers. There were a good number of ministers who were able to make it for part of the week, but only a few could be there through the entire week. This was a very busy time for G. O. Ministries as there were three teams working on two different projects while I was there. Some of the ministers who had been in my class before were working with these churches on building their church buildings, and another medical group was working at another church so a couple of the guys who always attend were translating and traveling with that group.

Even with so much good ministry happening I had a good number of ministers who were able to participate in at least some of the week. There was good discussion and a number of good questions. Some of the ministers asked permission to bring some leaders from their churches when I’ll be down again (probably December or January–stay tuned). This is a really exciting development because G.O. Ministries is really encouraging these ministers to develop leadership in their congregations to help them with the number of tasks that they face on a regular basis. In addition to the needs of the members of the congregation, some of these ministers co-ordinate nutrition centers for the youth of the areas they serve. They all have quite a lot on their plates.

My friend and supporter, Paul Laiming, who went with me was able to see and experience a lot of what G.O. Ministries is doing in the Dominican Republic, and I think that he came away impressed. G. O. Ministries has a wide range of related ministries to meet the spiritual and physical needs of the people in the DR.

Another exciting development that happened while I was in the DR on this trip was the first fruits of a library for the ministers. Jeff Rogers is the guy at G. O. Ministries who coordinates the on-going training for the ministers, and he has had a passion to make good resource materials available to the ministers through a lending library. The first books were made available to the ministers the week I was there, and they were very excited about this. You can read about this here on Jeff’s blog. The last time I was down I noticed what a poor selection of reference and resource materials these ministers had available to them in Spanish. I’ve worked with Jeff to find other resources available in Spanish. If you want a concrete way to help out the ministers in the DR, you can go to Jeff’s Amazon wishlist and find a whole list of books that haven’t been purchased yet. Just click here. You can purchase them and have them shipped to Jeff’s office in Louisville and he’ll coordinate having them carried down.

In addition to the teaching for the week, I spoke at Edward Gabriel’s church in Santiago on Sunday. This was their first week meeting in a government building. I then spoke Monday night to a group at a rehabilitation complex for men going through drug and alcohol rehabilitation. These are guys that have decided on their own that they want to be helped, so they were a very receptive audience. On Wednesday night I spoke to Isaias Gabriel’s youth group. They had so many questions we stayed a half-hour later than normal! Even with all of this speaking, this was the least I’ve had to do on one of the weeks I was in the DR!

Thanks for all of your prayers and your financial support. It’s very difficult to communicate exactly how much good your support is accomplishing. These ministers are having an opportunity for the kind of study we take for granted, and this is material they use immediately in their ministries.