At the beginning of this year I had the opportunity of going to Haiti with a group of staff of GO Ministries. It was really fun to be able to hang out with the people that work with us side by side every day. Most of the time we are all so busy doing ministry that have not much time to spend with each other. We spent 5 days there getting to know there are of phoeton (don’t know if that how is written) where lukenel is the pastor.Very soon we are going to start takinggroups there so it was great for us to go be familiar with the area. There are great projects going on there and we helped a little with the construction of it. I was blessed to be able to preach there at the congregation, on Sunday night.
While we were there I was just thinking how many changes we have seen in batey 9, I keep thinking in how it used to be and how it is now. I know in 5 years we are gonna be looking back at this community saying woooowww, cause I know God is gonna restore it.
Last month I got a huge blessing from the ministry. For years I have been doing evangelistic activities with my youth group all over the country. With little we had we were doing our best. God is always in control, he knows what we need and when we need it. The ministry decided to bless us with a new vehicle and a new sound system. We just got empower to do what we do in a greater way. I’m honor to be God’s instrument; we don’t deserve to be use by him and yes, he still uses us. As soon as we were blessed by these gifts, we decided to start a new calendar of outreatch activities around the country. We wanna reach the youth of Dominican republic for Christ. Here are some pictures and videos of some of the things we have done already J
we also had the opportunity of going to the opportunity of going to the community of los perez, where pastor Nico’s congregation is. The youth group from their church was super exited to have us there and it seem like the invited the whole community to that activity because as soon as we got there the place was already full. It was a fun night, it was a big encouragement for the youth of that community.
2012 brings lots of more things for the youth of DR. Please keep praying for us, pray for our youth retreat this summer july 20-22 and for all the projects we have been preparing for this year, God bless!!
God still doing great things through music. Even though I´m a youth pastor and i love what i do for the kingdom and i love kids; I still find time for music. Our music ministry is great, God is doing great things with us and I´m bless cause i get to do it with kids from my youth group. I know one day I won´t be able to do what I´m doing right with music cause our church keeps growing and growing. One day my prodigy Christian Flow aka Angelito is gonna keep up the good work
This picture that you see on the right was taken in front of the baseball stadium of our city, at the parking lot. It was for an activity where all the christians of the city got together and we spent 2 days preaching at the streets of santiago praying for people and inviting them to the this event. It was a powerfull weekend. We were surprise of how many ramdom people in the streets were asking us to pray for their diferent needs. We were at the street light and every time the light turned red we stopped and talk about christ to as many drivers as we could. Also, all the people that walked by through the sidewalks, we stopped them and prayed for the, it was awesome!!!
About a month ago we were invited to a radio station to talk about how rap can be a tool of ministering the lost. We were exited about that interview because people questions every rappers´ integrity all the time. Because many people still think that rap is satan´s music, so we have to battle that all the time with our testimony. Because of our fruits people know we are diferent.
Two weeks ago all the christian rappers of santiago got together to play basketball against a group of non christian kids. Our main goal was to share the gospel with them through our music and basketball. It was a fun day were our team won and a comunity of non believers experienced the begining of a big transformation
Recently I had the opportunity of going to the states to visit some family and friends and also to perform and speak to some youth groups. My album came out like 4 months ago so I was very bless to be able to go to the states and share my music with some people that really needed to hear the gospel through rap. I was originally invite to come and perform in the states by my dear friend Adam Everett, whom I just met this summer and while he was here he had an amazing Spanglish concert with his youth group and mine YG together. It was amazing to be able to share with his kids back in texas about the amazing things that God is doing down here. Many of them are very encourage to comeback down in next years’ missions trip. I also had the opportunity to share my music and our ministry in the DR with kids from Louisville, KY, Illinois, Lansing and Grand Rapids MI. It was an amazing trip. I was also invioted to share at some Hispanic congregations at grand rapids MI, it was sooo much fun. Here are some pictures and videos for you guys to see:
Summer 2011 wooooooow its been a greeeeeaaat summer so far. God is good, God has been great. We apreciatte soooo much the support you guys provide so our ministry can grow. I have a lot of things to share with you guys from these past few months... I´m gonna show ya some pictures and videos and explain ya a little from each one.
this video was at the celebration of the last vitilla tournement we had like two months ago. In that ceremony the guy that organized the tournement this year had all the rappers from the area come and performed. Out all of them, we were the only christian group to perform that day, being a light in the darkness. I know we planted the seed of the gospel that day cause the 90% of the crow was non christian and they got to hear the gospel through our songs.
on mothers day we had a few of our youth doing something special for all the mothers at church. It was really funny. We had some of the guys that had never sing in their life and lip sing this song by the katinas... It was a funny presentations that the entire congragation loved cause they really into it....check it out, and remember that they are not singing, just lip singing :)
About 3 months ago we whent on tour to la Romana which is like 4 hour drive from santiago. We when to perform in their church and also to spread the word about the upcoming youth retreat ¨cristo urbano¨ In ths video we recorded some of the youth from their church inviting other people to come to the retreat, it was fun, we had a great time up there. At the retreat we ended up having almost 15 people come from their church.
THis radio interview was at the city of San Francisco de Macoris talking about the great results from our youth retreat cristo urbano and also talking about album that after 6 years in the making its finally done. God gave me the oportunity of finishing this proyects that i began with some friends while i was at college. Thanks to all of you who somehow colaborate to make this dream come true :)
This year in our youth retreat CRISTO URBANO we had 300 people...That´s a big acomplishment for us. about 20 people came up foward wanting to know more about Christ. it was powerfull weekend that nobody wanted to end. We had people from all over the country. In the video you can see the pastor from batey 9 William Decena dancing on stage....Everyone love that song, it was very special having him come up and teach everyone a creole song :) You can tell they were enjoying it Here are some of the pictures from that increible weekend Arrival During worship
During a sermon Performing There is not much to say about this video....You can see that everyone was going crazy with that performance, just enjoying being a christian worshiping the lord. Right after that was the sermon that brought like 20 people to Jesus´feet. :) Gloria a Dios.
More Fun
Thanks to those of you who have been praying like crazy for our ministry. God is doing great things. Thanks to those who helped support all the expenses for this retreat to happen, may God bless you and your families. I´m gonna keep posting videos and pictures from the retreat @ www.cristourbano.net please check it out when you have time. God bless!!
DEC-JAN-FEB 2011 How is everyone doing? I’m doing great, thanks for taking the time to read my blog. Lots of great thing have happen down here since my last blog update. Even though I’ve been posting lots of pictures and videos of all our ministry’s activities, I still want to also update you through this blog about some of the key events that we have done is the last few months. Youth group keeps growing thanks to your prayers. We have a lot of new Christians in our church, a new location and new goals for this year. These are some of the biggest accomplishments that our youth group has had is the last few months:
This event was back in December is the biggest mall of the city. First time that a Christian event takes place in such a public area like this. We were invited to be part of it and by us being part of it; it opened up a lot of new opportunities for upcoming events in different areas of the city.
On January 1st, we had a concert call NEW YEAR WITH CRISTO URBANO, it was a blast! It was the first concert thrown at our new church, the place was full and people from different parts of Santiago came up to support the event. We also invited different rappers for the activity, it was great!
This video was recorded at a concert we had in the streets of a community of a friend of us. He wanted to put together this activity in front of his house because he was starting a small group at his house and he wanted his neiborghood to hear the gospel event before his small group began. I was really happy because that day, a new generation of rappers from my youth group performed and the did really good.
We had a little competition: You gotta get a strike otherwise this could happen to you... I was a victim too :) of the pushups
Within my youth group, we organized a bible ball from all the bible studies we have done in the last 3 months. During the bible studies I gave them a paper to take home and study what we have in each lesson. I told them that we were going to organized a contest with a bunch of questions from those bible studies and that the price of the winning team was going to be to go bowling…Well, it was great idea. I was impressing with how much they learned. We took them bowling and they had the time of their lives
Every February the college where I became a youth pastor, Great Lakes Christian College, brings a group of student down here for a missions trip. It has become a tradition that every time they come, because it’s during san valentines, we have a big dinner with their group and our youth group to spend time together and have some fun. A good time to relax and just share with each other
The next vitilla tournament is coming! We already had a day that we called “spring training” before the actual tournament starts. People are exited and we can’t wait for it to start. Check it out New church building First service @ our new place
Here are some pictures of some of the baptisms of these new Christians
This girl grew up in church and finally made the decision of giving her life to Christ completely. Its crazy to say this but I hold this girl when she was a baby so for me to have the opportunity of baptize her it a big honor (Samantha) Last year a group from East view came on a mission’s trip and some of the girls from that group began a friendship with this girl that lives almost in front of our new church building. This friendship lead her to Christ, to day she is a strong Christian thanks to the way God works on people’s hearts through a missions trip.
Thanks for keeping up with our work down here, for your prayers and all the support ya’ll provide to us to make this possible. Keep praying because we have lots of activities coming up. May God bless you and always provide for you and your families. In Christ Isaias Gabriel
SEP-OCT-NOV 2010 God bless you everyone. I hope things are going well for you all in the states, God is being good to us down here. We've have a lot of activities in our neigborhood and at other places too. I was very honor to have the oportunity of ministering at the local prison of our city, where we have like 15 inmates from our comunity are serving time there. It was very encouraging for them to see us there and we were very fortunate to be able to go and spend time with them. The first time we were able to visit them was about three months ago, we were invited to play softball with them. A month later we when back to play softball again, and a month later we whent back in did a concert for them, they love it. That day 4 inmates accepted Christ and many lives were touch by God. It was an experience that i will never forget. I wish I could have taken pictures and videos to show you but the didn't let camaras in. In the last couple months we have been all over the country doing concerts, vbs, and other activities. For those, I did took videos for you guys to see. I hope you can capture a lil bit of what we experience during those times. 1. This videos was taken at a outreatch activity that we did inside the club house of the basketball court of the comunity. We were very bless that night, we witnessed 10 people giving their life to christ at the end of the night
2. The following video was taken at a place neir Santiago call "Tamboril." It was a new area for us. It was a fun night, this even took place at the main basketball court of their comunity. About 200 people came up to support that night.
3. About two months ago we took a trip to batey 9 with will partin's sports crew. Usually we go there and do sports clinics for 3 or 4 days. This time, I took about 15 kids from my youth group and we plan a vbs, and a special concert for the people in the bateys. It was an amazing experience. We took two vehicles with a total of 35 people. OUr vehicle was the smaller one, and if you can imagine, a 5 to 6 hours trip can easily be boring, so we decided to do a lil kareoke :).....hope u enjoy it.
4. This short videos was taken during a vbs sections in BATEY CUCHILLA. It was funny to see some of the guys from my youth group showing a diferent side of them. Watch the video and i know you'll know who I'm talking about....The guy wearing green. At the end of the trip he said that he did things for others that he didn't know he was capable of doing. I'm very proud of him, because from a street fighter, God has turned him into a person that cares for others more than anyone. This pictures were taken at the concert we threw there for the bateys at the basketball court. It was a dark night, we tried to video but there was only one light for the whole court. I know in the picture you cannot tell how manny people were they that night, but just so you have an idea most of us agrred that there had to be 400 to 500 people jumping aorund throughout the entire concert. Gloria a Dios.
5.The following video was taken at a special concert we did in the basketball of our comunity. That night we had special artist invited, and everyone enjoyed everything we did. The neighborhood is supporting everything we are doing, because they know our main focus is to bring God to them.
If you like MAMBO AKA MERENGUE, i hope you like this remix we did.
6. Down here November is the month of the family. Every year we do a church dinner to unite all the member together in one big celebration. We do difernet kind of performances to have a good time. This year our youth group did something they have never done before; they got on stage and dressed like kids and did an interpretate dance. It was supper funny, everyone loved it.
7. In the city of Santiago, many things have been changing. Violance has grown a lot in the last few months. A lot of confrontations between people that are involve in bad things and the police. As a result os the corruption, many people are dying. I have a song that talks about that, and we decided it was time to make a music video to it just to talk about those thing and how you can get out of that and find God. We wanted to send the comunity a message of hope. Everyone have embrace this video, because the positive message that its sending. I hope you like it.
May God bless you and your love ones during this hollidays and thank you very much for your support. Please ke us in your prayers all the time. Merry Christmas!! In Christ Isaias Gabriel
JUNE-JULY-AUGOST alright guys, it has been a long summer. Lots of blessings, great things continued happening in our ministry; more groups, new buildings, and the most important of all, lots of new christians... THis is what it´s all about. Remember this, if you a product in which you do not belief, you are not gonna have any possitive results. Everything that we have acomplished this summer its because how great and awesome is God, and for the hard work of all those pèople who have seem our vission of changing the Dominican Republic for God. I´m gonna post here some videos and pictures of some of the activities we have done throughout this summer. I´m super happy, God has done great things, the youth group keeps growing in number and knowledge, so please keep praying for us. Do you guys remember the youth retreat I always talked about?? THANKS, to all of those people who made that retreat come true. Last year we had 150 kids, this year we grew to 250. With all my heart, THANK YOU, it´s never easy to go around asking for help for an activity that many people haven´t even heard of, but the love of God made it easy for you guys to adopt this vission and make it possible. Only God know the number of lives that were changed because of that retreat. I have so many testimonies of diferent kids coming to me and telling me how much they learned or how much they have change as a result of cristo urbano. People in diferent radio shows want us to come share about it, people in diferent T.V stations want us to come visit them. So many kids have been baptized after God opened the eyes of their hearts at that camp...Here are some videos and pictures of Cristo Urbano. These were two of the main rappers of the weekend. They were great!
A lot of people helped us sponsoring busses for kids from all over dominican to be able to come to the camp. Thank you, Only from batey 9 we were able to bring 63 kids because of that help. Here is a group from batey 9 having fun in the pool
here are some pictures the time small groups: This are some college age students who came to the camp from other churches. In the video they are saying how much the enjoyed the camp and some of the things they learned at the small groups.
The theme of the weekend was ¨not a fan¨ we took that idea from a series of sermons that Kyle Idleman taught at south east christian church. Many fans of christ became followers that weekendThe youth group that I have been bless with ;)The group of gringos :) that came to help us organized Cristo Urbano. Without them this wouldn´t be possible. A big group from Michigan and Okolona, KY lead by my two brothers Mr. Tyler Sherman and Jesse Deyoung, thank you guys.My cousin Wellington made the desition of becoming a follower of Christ at this campThis was right after cristo urbano... These kids decided to give their all to Christ
Talent show at los guadules church. This is the 4th time we did it involving more than three churches. It was a great fellowship night.
The ladies of the church did a car wash to raise funds for the ladies retreat. Part of the youth group was there helping the cause. It was a fun day. The Haitian church of Hoya del caimiti invited us to do a service together with them... It ended up being a Haitian-Dominican-American service all together, it was great. This is one of the songs we did. The great thing about this song is that we did it live with the kids from the youth groups that last years had no idea how to play an instrument and now they are making magic with it. God has listen to our prayers.
One of the things that the youth group did on their own was to take the inisiative to start a baseball team within the youth group. I was super proud of them because they started the team with the purpose of bringing to the team kids that are not christians so they can get to know God. This next videos was made by a friend of mine from another church. He was part of our youth retreat -Cristo Urbano- and he loved the way we bring the gospel to kids in the street, so he asked us to bring the mentality of cristo urbano to his church for a night. He put together a concert at his church with the hottest rappers of the city. This activity was amazing, we were proud of our work... Everyone knew about this activity, this time organize by a church of God that at the time we haven´t even been there before. He named the activity ¨Cristo Urbano-The concert¨ It was awesome, kids loved it. This video was the opening videos for the night with all the ministries that were gonna be part of it, hope you enjoy it:
This is one of the songs I did live at that concert....so much fun :)
after a long summer with a lot of work, not just for me but also for the youth group, we decided to take a time to go to the beach a relax. hahaha it was a great day, we had a lot of fun, a lot of crazy things happened but still was fun :) we need it that time together. 10 of the kids got stung by jelly fish and 5 got hurt really bad by a wave against some rocks :) yeah, we still enjoyed it ...
Gracias to all of you that support me and pray for me every night and day. You help to make this journey a lot of easier for all of us. thank you and may God bless you!!
APRIL-MAY Hey guys, I´m really glad to be able to share with ya´ll everything is happening in ministry through this. These last two month, I have been super busy, travelling a lot, getting ready for the nest vitilla tournement, ready for Crsto Urbano, all the talent shows we´ve been doing at diferent locations, etc. I haven´t have much time to sitdown and update you guys, but I tell you, if it wasn´t for you I wouldn´t be able to do all these things a love to do. From all the activities we have been doing, I have been making videos about it. Many of these videos I have also post it on our wedsite www.cristourbano.net which is the site we created to keep the youth comunity update it with everything is happening at the retreat. They have been able to download music, watch videos, pictures, interviews from people they know, etc. You guys should also check it out so you can practice your spanish lol and also know what we are trying to acomplish at our retreat. Here is the list of all the videos we have posted:
This is a video from the Men´s Retreat that took place at Maimon camp. It was awesome!! We asa leaders of churches here don´t get together often to just relax, because everytime we get together we are working on something. At this retreat we had some good time of worship, great teachings and great fellowship. I know by watching this video you can tell how much fun we had. This is Pedro. Most of you that have been here before know him from the little colmado that is in front of the main G.O. dorm. We have been witnessing to this kid for years, you guys have also. He has been part of many of our baseball camps and basketball as well. I know that through the years, he has watch you guys buy drinks at his mother´s store... If you didn´t know how much impact you have in our community when you come down, now you know. He became part of ou youth group since january when we have our yearly retreat at the mountains. Since that retreat I have seen major changes in him, God is really working on him and his familly. I just found out that his sister has been so impress with everything God is doing on him that she is gonna b baptize very soon too. Keep this familly in your prayers and next time you see him make sure you give him a big hug.
This is a video I put together from all the places I went to while I was in the States. I really love you guys for making me feel at home. We are a familly and you better know you all have my respect. It was really fun to be able to see everyone, this is one of those videos that i´m gonna put in www.cristourbano.net because i know that when the kids see it, is gonna bring a smile to their face, and they are gonna want to go to the camp :)
Let me tell you that last year my friends Jesse, Matt and Tyler and myself organized the first cristo urbano retreat and it was awesome. But the way we planed our teachings and all that was through facebook. It was really hard to comunicate about specific things we wanted to do but we did it and we had great results at the retreat. This year, Jesse´s youth group from okolona christian church got me a plane ticket so i could come up there, raise fund for my ministry while I was there, we could get together and plan cristo urbano (face to face this time) and I could visit those people that have been behind me supporting me all the way. This youth group also got me a sound system for my youth group´s activities...They out of anybody know how much we needed it that because last at the retreat we burn one of the speakers out hahaha, that´s how we do!! My friend and supporter Bob Tone got me a ticket so i could visit him in las vegas and i could visit my supporter and some of the churches that are big supporters of our ministry in california. Thank you guys for that. You guys help a lot by being there supporting us through every situation.
Every two months we have been doing a talent show in a diferent church every time. The first one was in hoya del caimito, second was hato del yaque and now the third at Hoyo the Bartola AKA ¨the hole.¨ Guess what!!! we rock!!! we had 8 diferent churches represented that night and place was full. Maybe 250 to 300 people there that night. It was awesome and I was so proud of the work that Felix and Jenny have done there cause many of the kids that were there representing the hole, were awesome in their dramas, dances, everything they did. Some of them were kids that I remember 2 years ago were the biggest trouble makers but God has ben transforming them. That´s what is all about, we go after the sick and bring them to the doctor...
Some of you know that my father´s health is not very good right now, he had a stroke 2 days ago. His right leg and arm are very weak, he talks but his dialect is not very clear right now. Please keep praying for him. The doctor said that is a couple days things are gonna come back to normal but is gonna take time. His whole life he has been a strong man, who never been on a hospital bed. So imagine how hard this has been for him. I´m trying to be strong, to not think about stuff to much cause if I do i start crying and he doesn´t need that now. PLease pray for all of us, we know God is in control
