END OF 2012 AND BEGINING OF 2013

Tell the story of one person who accepted Christ in your ministry.  Who are they?  What was their life like before they came to Jesus?  How are they doing now?  How can we be praying for them?

I believe her name is Judith. She was encouraged by some of her friends to go to our youth retreat in the summer (she was just giving me her testimony about all this yesterday) she was saying that her mother goes to a church and she was never interested on visiting any church, nor going to any youth retreat because she understood that it wasn’t her thing.

She told me that ever since she went to our retreat she has been visiting one of our churches and she loves it. She is now becoming a member of that church even though she tells me that what is happening to het its something she can not understand. Even though the church its really far away from her house she still goes every Sunday.

Also she mentioned that as soon as she heard that we were throwing a concert, she wanted to be part of it too, and she started telling me how much she was touch by some of the songs we did. She said that she took some of her friends to the concert and they also loved it. God is now using her to be a minister to her family and friends. What its funny to me is that the youth retreat was two months ago and I am still hearing testimonies from it, God is good. Please keep her in your prayers because she is a baby Christian and its just starting to understand what God has for her.

How have you and your ministry been stretched?

A few days ago we just had the release party of our new album “Mas Que Rimas” which means MORE THAN RITHEMS, it’s the first time that we throw a concert this big ourselves. We had over 300 people came and loved it. In the process of promoting God opened a lot of doors in the secular world for us to go and minister to them. We have the opportunity of going to lots of secular tv and radio shows. I would say that the 40% of people that when to the concert were non Christians and they loved it. We made sure that we deliver a word from God to them. Evn though we had some difficulties with the electricity, no one left the building, everyone was having a great time and many of the non Christians that were there were really surprise of how much fun the were having on a Christian event. There were some people even crying while listening to a song that spoke to their hearts. We already have new kids coming to our youth group after this event, because they loved, and I love how God is continuing using music to help us reach the lost.

At the end of the concert we had a “gray carpet” to take pictures. It was really fun cause created that so people can take pictures and remember the concert and also we have one of our guys interviewing people and asking them what they though of the concert. It was something totally different and people loved it, they felt appreciate by us.

ANOTHER STORY:

Every beginning of the year we organize a concert for the neighborhood call “new year with Cristo Urbano” in this concert we celebrate the coming of a new year. We did it 3 years ago and people loved it so ithas become a tradition. Well, this year we did it a little different… towards the end of the concert we had our friend Elido Mendez came and preached, it was powerful. People enjoyed having like 6 or seven different rappers performed, also our dance crew did their thing and then at the end pastor Elido ended the night with a message inviting people to open the doors of their hearts, and this one girl did.

Another story:

Last month we were invited to go and performed for a community that needed to be encourage. During Christmas time, this community over the mountains has big problems with alcohol. They say that their young community do not have much going on, so their only way to get together and have fun its to go out and start drinking.

We decided to go and do a concert for them hoping that they would look at Christianity different from what they have seen in the past. We were very surprise of how much acceptance we got from them. We used the main basketball court of their community and literally there are no houses around that court; everyone lives really far away and they all have to walk really long distance to go to work or to go to school. Somehow when the concert began the basketball was full of people craving to hear God’s message for them. We had a bunch of people outside the court also watching what was going on. God is good! We were super happy with the opportunity we had. They received the message and I know that in God’s time the seed of the Gospel is gonna grow in their lives.

Another story:

For years we have been visiting the men’s prison in our city and also the juvenile prison, but we never we have been at the women’s prison. This was our first time there. William, the pastor who invited us, preached to them after we have already performed around 6 or 7 songs to them. They loved our visit, they were so welcome and happy that we were there. During the songs you could see the joy in their faces and during the sermon many of them were crying cause they were convicted by the word. They want us to comeback at anytime, that what they said. This is the kind of things in ministry that brings us a lot of joy, to know that we were able to help somebody in need.

Another story:

We were invited to a city call jarabacoa, which its also at the mountains but at a different direction and location. It was awesome to see God working with the church there. We hosted a concert at the main basketball court of the town and it was also full inside and outside the court. We were happy because  the gospel was share to a lot of people that night. We are already planning when we can go back there because they wants us back, but please keep praying for all the places we go sharing God’s word through our music, may God always get the glory and honor for everything he does for us.

Here is the last music video we made. it was very special cause we filmed at our youth retreat last july, everyone had the oportunity to be in it, and it was really fun, i hope you guys like it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SwOHsy_l_KE