Day 4: 2026 Dominican Republic
No barriers
In 2003, the Evangelical Church of Cielo began with ten people meeting in a borrowed second-floor space in the Dominican Republic. Over the years, God kept bringing people until every seat was full and the congregation had outgrown what anyone originally imagined. What started as a handful of neighbors, is now a church with its own building, its own voice, and its own witness in the community. That building is the fruit of many hands across many years—local workers, faithful givers, and visiting teams who came and served without ever seeing the whole picture at once.
This week, our team joined that story. We spent our day pouring buckets of cement in the Evangelical Church of Cielo’s new parking lot, a space that didn’t even exist a few years ago and is now becoming a place for gospel conversations with neighbors passing by. Emmanuel, a local leader with Mission Emanuel, reminded us that we cannot all be hands and we cannot all be hearts, but when the body of Christ comes together and everyone contributes what they have, God does immeasurably more than we could ask or imagine.
This morning, many in our group volunteered to serve in a Vacation Bible School with elementary school students from the Mission Emanuel school. We sang in both English and Spanish about God’s character and love for us. Leaders taught a short Bible lesson about the armor of God and we spent time drawing four images of God’s promises to us on a large cardboard shield the kids could take home with them.
During our evening meeting, those who spent time with these children noticed the joy they carried with them and into a new relationship with Americans, despite the language barrier. We struggle to communicate with words, but at least among kids, a simple game of tag, hopscotch, or running a short race is all it takes to draw out a child. Our own kids love the Dominican children; there is no barrier when we are loving them in the name of Jesus.
HOw we saw god at work today:
In joy: the bright faces and laughter of the happy children!
In time: We are consistently bumping up against work we are doing that seems unproductive, slow, or inefficient. We need to be reminded that the Lord is giving us space and margin to be in relationship with one another, whether it is our peers and families of West End, our translators, the staff with Mission Emanuel, people on our work sites, and the Haitian men who are present with us mixing the cement. Our focus is not about efficiency but rather building relationship within our work.
A home dedication: For one of our families, this has been a return trip to the DR with Mission Emanuel. They were able to continue the work of building a home for a particular family. It has taken five years of ceaseless patience and God's timing to get this done. This week, this family's home will be completed!
prayer requests:
Patience as we learn to slow down, and for our constant state of hurry to dissolve as we learn to rest in God's pace
That we would invite God into all parts of our day (our work, home visits, time with children, all of it) through prayer
To use our conversations intentionally as a way to know each other better, asking those around us how we can pray for them, even when it seems uncomfortable