EvangelizingtheWorld

2011-11-14T06:28:00.000-08:00

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:

2011-08-04T11:25:00.000-07:00

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!!

2011-03-16T07:40:00.000-07:00

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

2010-12-07T11:15:00.000-08:00

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

2010-09-13T07:16:00.000-07:00

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!!

2010-06-12T05:25:00.000-07:00

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

2010-04-22T07:37:00.000-07:00

MARCH 2010
Check out this video i took while we were at the national youth retreat that takes place every year during easter. All the christian churches gather there and it´s a really good time, because we get to see friends that we don´t see throughout the year. Anyways, this video was taken during worship one of the nights there, it was awesome
About three weeks ago our youth group was invited to a comuniti that its located about 30 minutes aways from where we live. They asked us to come and prepare a service in the streat, open air for their comunity. They know that we love doing that and that we have been doing it for a long time, so we put an explosive service together and whent and shared the gospel with that comunity. It was a fun experience because not only we got to preach in that community that needed but we also became better friends with the youth leaders of that church. From that day on we started making more plans to collaborate in ministry in the future. That night we had rappers, dances, praise & worship and great reflection. Check it out:

In our youth group I could say that the 95% of the boys that are part of our group, live with their mother and don´t have their father figure at home. Others d have their fathers around but don´t have a good relationship with them, therefore we decided to have a special speaker to come and speak about how to built a good relationship between father/son. To those kids that don´t have a father we said they could bring their grand father, their uncle, older brother or someone close to them. We didn´t have as manny people as we wanted to because those who don´t have a father didn´t want to bother other familly members. It was sad to hear one of the kids saying that he invited his grandpa to come and he said no :(....For those who whent to the activity, this was special because they had a bounding time that they never had before with their father. Many broken relationships are being heal because of this.

You guys know about CRISTO URBANO, the retreat that we are doing again this summer. This year we decided to take an step farther. We created a web site WWW.CRISTOURBANO.NET for those who want to stay in touch with all the activities we do. It´s been a challenge for us because we are in the process of learning how to do web sites (thanks Toby). In this site we are gonna have information about the next vitilla tournement in June, the cristo urbano youth retreat, MP3´s for people to download, sermons, music videos, chat room, and many other features that we are gonna have for the future. This site also helps us promote our retreat more because we also are gonna post a bunch of pictures from every activity in there. Please pray for us as we take this new journey, and pray for me in my trip to the states, I´m gonna be raising funds for the vitilla tournement in june, cristo urbano in july and for my monthly support. I´m gonna be in the US for a month visiting diferent churches, if you guys wanna no more how you can help in these projects contact me through facebook or isaias_gr22@hotmail.com God bless!!

2010-03-11T09:18:00.000-08:00

Febrero 2010
At the begining of this month I had visit from Great Lakes Christian Collage, the school were a became a youth pastor. It was great to have them around, they are very special to me and through the years they have become a very special group for my youth group too. We really apreciatte the way they care about us. They not only keep in touch with us but they also take the time to come visit and support the work we are doing down here. Without you guys encouragement, our work wouldn´t be the same.
While they were here we worked at the central church, which we are planning to have the first floor finish by the begining of the summer and also we worked at the airport sending supplies to Haiti. Thank you guys so much for being a living example of what Jesus came to do on earth. Keep spreading the Gospel!!
Here is the group of students that came on the trip

Here is the Mountain Dew that they never forget bring for me 

Here is my world religions professor Kendi, she lead the trip. Much respect for you Kendi

Here are some pictures of the new champions of the Vitilla Tournement... They worked hard to get to this point
Here is the team with their medals

Here is the MVP of the finals

January and February have been two crazy months for us. We´ve been super busy with many activities, specially with the Haiti Relief operation that our ministry is doing. I have explain you guys alredy how much my youth group has been involve in this project, I have been very proud of their work. Since day one they have been doing whatever they could to help. Well, in response, G.O. Ministries decided to have a special time for them to relax and to thank the hard work that they have put in this. We took a group of 35 youth bowling. We had lunch there and it was a great time of fellowship where they enjoyed themselves and they realized how much we apreciatted their work. We also had Mark stuart from Audio Adrenaline coming to the bowling place to say thank you to them for all the work that they have done. Because part of the help that we´ve been sending to Haiti has been going to the hand&feed project, a ministry that Mark´s parents run. Here are some pictures and videos of that fun day.

I had the opportunity to go to Pignon, Haiti to take a load of food with one of the Pilots name Scott. It was a great experience, even though it was a short trip, I could see how much the Haitians were apreciatting our efforts. Here are some pictures of my quick trip to Haiti.

A week ago I had the privilage of baptizing Paul, a 15 years old kid that I´ve known since he was born. He´s been very active in our youth group activities and finally he came foward and said that he wanted to get baptize. We are really exite because he is a kid that grow up in church and he is one of the few musicians in our church that learned to play an instrument because he knew that the church need it. We love his heart for God, so please keep him in your prayers.

2010-02-24T19:09:00.000-08:00

JANUARY 2010
The month f January has been full of challenges not just for us but for the world. The Haiti earthquake was something that nobody saw it coming. It was a big tragedy, I don´t need to mention all the bad things that happened because you already know it.
For those of you who haven´t seen my video updates, I´ll take this oportunity to show them to you, its been a busy/crazy month and most of us haven´t have so much time to sit on a computer, so i thank you for your patience.
To make the story short, right after the tragedy G.O. ministries put a Haiti relief program together to support Haiti with their needs. We have been sending food, medicine, water and many other supplies. For those of you who have ben praying and contributing for his cause thank you very much. This people really need it, and we have been documenting all that we can so you know that your donations are going to the right places. Thanks to those who have taken the time to come down and support this cause; friends from Great Lakes, Pilots, reporters, mechanics and all of those who have given their time to come down here to help. I don´t have many word for you today, but I do have lots of videos of some of the stuff that have been keeping me busy in the last months:
This next video was taken after a long day of work at the airport. Our youth group has been great helping out every day. This specific night, after working all day, we came to my house and celebrate some people´s b.days
We also took some time to keep the outreacht going in our comunity, we had a Talent show and we invited 4 other churches to be part of it. It was a great night, alot of people came from the street to see what was going on :)
This is gonna be an event that its gonna happen every two month in diferent churches. This video has the guys from the SDJ´s dance team.....enjoy
Time for the girls

we also had some time of praise & worship together

We also had a time for Infant worship :)

A time to jump

I want you guys to stay in touch with everything that its going on with Haiti, I know many of you want to help but maybe dont know how; check out this website:
www.gohelphaiti.org
all the information you need if there, and please keep praying for us.
I love you all
I.G

2010-01-12T06:35:00.000-08:00

DECEMBER 2009
Happy new year everyone, I hope ya´ll had a great time with your familly and friends during the hollidays. I have some news from last year, we had a blessed end of the year in out church for many reasons:
You guys already know that we have two bible studies going on every wensday in two diferent locations/Neighborhoods. The first one is lead by me in our community and its been going great because that´s the day where our students grow spiritually. Now, I´m super happy for the things that are going on at the other location; The other study is lead by two brothers that are part of our youth group and both of them I played baseball with when we were younger. They are three brother total, one of them played profetional some years ago, the other one plays for the Orioles in the big leagues and the other just got a schollarship to play for Miami university. The one that no longer plays baseball its the one who is leading the study right now. Its great to have them leading that study because they mostly have baseball players in their study, players that we spend a lot f time working with during baseball cinics and now also at the bible studies. Their group is growing and its a joy to me to see a baseball player helpng other players understand the life of Christ. during the last bible study of 2009, after I finished my study in my community I whent to hangout at the other location. We had a great time, a lot of fun and ate some food (important for baseball players lol) Here is a picture of all the people whom where there.

Another activity that whent better than we were expecting was the secret santa trip to the mountains. Its a trip that we do every year and we go to spend a night up in the mountains, have some fun playing games and going to the cold river during the day and at night we have a bunfire, have a time of reflection and them exchange gifts at the end of the night. We also talk a lil about the plans for next year. The great thing about this trip its that we always had a 30 to 40% of the students that go are not christians which help us use this trip as an outreacht opportunity. If you know me, you would know that everything I do is Intentional. We are trying to teach our youth group to do the same thing, because in order to grow we have to have people sharing the word of God in everything they do. If you play baseball don´t do it just to hit the home run, do it also to built some relationships. As a result of this trip with some nonbelievers in it, we have some of them visiting our churches every time we have a service, because they enjoyed the time we all spent together having fun in a good way and learning more about God. This time we even had people from 4 diferent churches joining us and they love it. We had a total of 35 students...Praised God!!!
Here are some pictures of the trip and a video of us having fun doing a freestyle

The 3er Vitilla Tournement has come to an end and we have new champions in the neiborhood. I know that I keep telling you guys about Vitilla but understand that its something that I can see it becoming an official sport. The whole country is into it, its crazy. Check out this video and enjoy it.

2009-12-14T06:18:00.000-08:00

NOVEMBER 2009
This is consider to be the month of the familly so every year, at the end of november/begining December we organize a special dinner for the entire church to be part of like a big familly. This year we did it the first saturday of December. It was a lot of fun, many people that have never visit our church were invited to this event and they had a great time. We hope that this dinner opened the doors for them to comeback and visit our church and meet Christ. Here are some pictures of that special dinner.
The Vitilla Tournement is almost coming to an end. Out of ten teams, now we only have 2 for the finals. Things are getting better and more exiting. Withing the next two weeks we´ll now who the champion is. I made another video with a combination of some games from the regular season and some playoff games. For the finals I am going to make an special video with some interviews to the key players of each team, so you guys get to know what they feel like about the tournement from their own mouth. Enjoy the video and pass it around, maybe some day we make it to ESPN lol

We had a Kareoke night with the youth group.... hahaha, great memories, lots of fun. People that can´t sing were singing/ making noise, people with good voice did not had a great voice that night and everything that was happening was all in a good fun time. Check this video and tell me what you thing :)

God bless you all and have a wonderfull Merry Christmas!!

2009-11-20T09:48:00.000-08:00

October 2009
Hey guys,
We just started our 3rd VITILLA TOURNEMENT. I made a short video with some clips and pictures for you all to see. Once again, this season we have 10 team and 100 players. Please keep praying for this project because the last two time have been sucessful. You already know all the great things that happened in the past two tournements so pray that God moves in this one too.

Here is a picture of my friend R.L. a christian rapper from la Romana that really is being use by God. He was here a few weeks ago and I had the opportunity of interviewing him on a radio talk show.

I´ll be posting more videos from the vitilla tournement soon!!

2009-10-12T11:16:00.000-07:00

SEPTEMBER 2009

How is everyone doing today? It´s great to be able to contact all of you through these updates. It´s a placer to me tol et you know how God is using our ministry down here.

I am going to Stara off by asking for your prayers for both of my parents, because their health has not been very good lately. They are both doing great right now but a few weeks ago they had to goto a lot of doctor´s appoitments because of their blood presure and others issues. Everything is good now :)

I wish some of you World have been around for the TALENT SHOW NIGHT that we had with the youth group two weeks ago, it was awesome. Everyone show the talents that God has given them. It was a powerful night, we had a loto f people visiting that night. For mosto f the performers, it was the first time for them to perform in church because believers. We encourage all of them to invite their friends from the neiborhood to come match their performance…Everyone loved it. We had people dancing, rapping, doing dramas, songs in the pianno, hip hop dancing, and many other things. For me it was priceless to see all the effort that all of them put into their presentations and to see the reaction of the non believers that were at the church that night; they loved it and most of them were surprise because they never expected to have that much fun at a christian activity. Here are some pictures of the event:

I know I have mentioned to you all befote about a kid in our youth group that about 2 months ago was sign by the new York yankees to play baseball. Since he signed, he had to go to Santo Domingo, which is the city where the Yankee org. Has their baseball school (2 hours away from Santiago). Well we have been discipling him for about a year now and it wasn´t hill alter he got signed that he told me: ¨hey, I want to get baptize.¨ It was a great feeling for me to hear that but for weeks and weeks, it was hard to do it because couldn´t get together because now he was living in Santo Domingo and he World come to visit to santiago for like two days and then he was gone again. I remember the last time he cameback to visit his family, he contact me and told me that in a few weeks he was going to be in Santiago for 3 weeks on his vacation. with a big smile on his face he tells me ¨now we gonna be able to do it.¨ It was funny because before that he was always busy with practice and all that but now, the time finally came and its a great feeling for me to know that now he is part of God´s familly.

This past weekend I was part of a group that Will Partin- Sports director took to the mountains for baseball/ basketball/ volleyball clinnic. It was a blast. We enjoy the time with the kids and we also enjoyed the time we spent with the guys. We hado ver 20 young men with us in that trip helping us with their talents in each sport. 50% of the are non believers but this weekend was a great step for the to becoming closer to God´s presence, we had some great devotionals and sharing times. This is a trip that we look foward to every year. Here are some videos and pictures….Enjoy J

Check out this funny cat that we found at the mountains :)

2009-09-16T07:06:00.000-07:00

AGOSTO 2009
God bless you all!! I hope everyone had a great summer because I did. I´m very thankful to everything my God has allow me to accomplish. I want to share some things that have been happening in the last couple weeks.
I´m exite to say that we are still seeing the results that CRISTO URBANO brought into our ministry… That retreat really was something ¨great.¨ Many lives were changed and we are already preparing for next summer for the next Cristo Urbano. I wanted you all to see a picture of three of the new youth who gave their lives to Christ at Cristo Urbano. These three have been craving God every day. One of them told me that God has been the best thing that has ever happen to his life. I didn´t ask him about it or anything He just wanted to let me know how much his life has changed because of Christ. He was saying how God has help him repair his relationship with his mom, his girlfriend and his friends. Here is a picture of the moment where they were being baptize (Jose Miguel- 15, Isamar- 15 and Yoel 22).

A few weeks ago our youth group was invited to Los Guandules´church to do a special youth event for them. It was great, we had a lot of fun, they loved and God received all the glory. We performed some dramas, raps, dances and we had one of our guys in the youth group preach. It was a night that made me really proud of the group because they all perfomed with passion and they knew that our goal was to spread the seed of the gospel in that community. Here is a video and some pictures of the things that happen that night.

We are starting to built our new church. It´s gonna have a better location where more people can come, parking areas, lots of trees, bigger space, basketball court, and many other cool things. The youth group has been part of this, we really want to see this project finish. Please keep it in your prayers because is gonna be a big blessing for the entire community. God bless you!!

2009-07-22T12:14:00.000-07:00

JULY 2009
Thanks to you all we were the first organization to put together a youth camp where the students for the price of 500.00 pesos/ 13.00 U.S. Got:
1. To spend Friday to Sunday at a camp with food and everything they needed.
2. A free T-shirt
3. A free CD
4. Hangout with with a bunch of cool gringos and my youth group lol
5. Transportation
6. Free concert
7. Great worship band, great teachers, and many other things.

You guys made this possible and for that I´m very thankfull. You all were part of changing many young people´s lives. From those who never been at a Christian event before to those who have been going to Christian events their whole life and at the camp God touched their lives.
- I am going to tell you a few positive things that have happen as a result of this camp:
For the last two months, our youth group has been working really hard putting things together for the camp. They have been making decorations, and preparing a drama as a group. They have had to come together in order to make this happen. All this time rehearsing and preparing for the camp has helped them become closer, which is awesome, because they all whent to the camp to serve, not to have fun but to make sure everyone else enjoyed. I´m very proud because I got to see them having a lot of fun but always thinking about others first.
- For the decoration of the camp, we needed to have some graffiti on some of the walls, but we didn´t have anyone in the youth group who did graffiti so we whent after the best graffiti guys of the neiborhood. We asked them for their help, and explained them what the camp was all about… Even though they are not Christians, they support our event with a lot of passion. They did a great job that everyone loved and being at the camp, involve in all the activities, made them realized their need for God. That was our real goal for them, to bring them to Christ through their service. I have kept in touch with them and now they are coming to all our youth group activities. They even came to the big church service without nobody telling them. They know they need God and God is working in their lives. Keep them in your prayers (Erick & Carlos).
- I have a friend that I know since I was like 10 years old, his name is Yoel. We have been through many fun experiences together: same baseball team, vitilla team, basketball, etc. All these years we have been really good friends. His mom just became a Christian about a year ago and she knows that we do a lot of things together. Well, she has been telling me to bringing to church somehow because he needs to straight his life up. Well I always told her that to bring him to church is a slow process that we have to go through, a process that all I can do is show him love, and that I care for his salvation but never using pressure. Well, at the camp I saw him and his girlfriend coming forward to accept Christ… That moment was priceless for me. They were crying like babies, because they knew that God was calling them and they finally listened to his call. A few days after the camp was over his girlfriend came up to me to tell me how much he has changed since the camp. She says that he wasn´t very good with his mom and when he when back home from the camp, he when crying to her because he knew he wasn´t being a good son. She says that even with her he is now different… She also told me how she used to be a mormon, and how se has been baptized in the name of the dead like 5 times. She says that they both wanna be baptized in the name of Jesus. WOW, I do not know how you feel like hearing this story but it just blows my mind, and makes me so happy. The last conversation I had with him, he was calling me cause he needs a bible. He also tells me ¨¨Hey, I´m doing this man, you gotta help me out in this process. ¨¨ as he is telling me this, I just wanna cry lol I know, i´m a cry baby whenever I see God´s power. By the way, alone with my friend and his girlfriend, like 15 more people came up to give their lives to Christ that night.
- Another big impact about this camp is that many people heared the name of the camp Ürban Christ¨ and they did not know what to expect. They probably though they were gonna be playing games all day long. Well they were wrong and we got them right were we wanted them. We used that name to attract people and we did. We had 140 to 150 people and I can say that 50% of them were not Christians. People from different corners of the country that I know that for next year´s camp they will spread the word and we are gonna have more people. Our job now s to disciple those around our community and pray that those who came to Christ from other parts of the country, someone is teaching them the word. By the way, our worship team and speakers for the weekend were awesome!!!
Here is a little video I made... Hope you enjoy it!

This has been a dream come true for all of us. We were bless to have a group of Americans from Okolona Kentucky helping us putting this retreat together. Without their help this would not be possible. My Great Lakes boys (Jesse, Matt and Mr. Tyler) that came down to help me out with this THANK YOU, we have talked about a trip like this for a long time, it finally happen and know is not gonna be the last. Thanks you guys, and thanks to all of you who took time to raise money for this cause. The results were better than we expected, people´s lives were touch and the young community of D.R. was bless with this camp. God bless you all!!
In christ,
I.G.

2009-07-22T12:04:00.000-07:00

JUNIO 2009
Final video of the vitilla tournement....

come to the conference video

2009-06-16T08:30:00.000-07:00

MAY 2009

Once again, here is the video that talks about the camp. We edited again and now is shorter and has some cool music in the background. Why did we do it? Because we really need you guys to show this in your churches, small groups, work, etc. We still need scholarships; for the last two weeks, I have been going to different churches spreading the word about the camp. Everyone is exited, Our youth group is afraid that we are gonna get more people than we are expecting. Everyone is talking about this camp, we have a bunch of people praying for this weekend, and I know God is gonna do something amazing there. Please keep praying for this and if you are gonna be able to help us get more scholarships for the camp, let me know.

About two weeks ago, we had an special activity for the youth group. A combo of things that we have never done before. We had: A big screem showing Christian videos, mostly rap, we have some food, some games, and some karaoke… It was awesome, they loved it. I saw people at that activity that I have never seem before. A lot of non Christian, which that was the purpose of the activity. They loved it, and here are some pictures and videos of some of the action of that night.
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I wanted you guys to see this video of two young men that we baptized last month. Why am I so happy about these two? Because I knew who they were before they were Christians and I know who they are now that they have Christ. One of them was a gang member that in his community and school everyone looks up to him because he was always street fighting, stabing people and things like that. Now he is a different person. He is just 17 years old and he has share with me how glad he is that he found Christ… That´s what we are all about, making people realize who they can become in Christ. The other one (the shorter in the video) is a resolt of sports ministry, specially vitilla; now he has this passion for doing ministry. We were in need of a drummer for our worship team, now we are training two kids from the youth group….He is one of them. He played with the worhip team for the first time last week, and people keep saying that he was great. He is staying humble, just trying to do God´s will in his life. Please keep them in your prayers.

2009-05-06T04:48:00.000-07:00

ABRIL 2009
How is everyone today? Things are good back in the Dominican. I got a cold but I´ll survive and be alright. I made a lot of videos for you guys to enjoy, the first one is about the youth retreat that took place at salcedo about a 3 weeks ago. It was great, we had a great time and I saw the hands of God working throughout the camp. Three kids from y youth group accepted Christ… Angelito (17), Carlos (15) and Rafelito (16). The cool thing about this is that we got in touch with them or I should say, we reatch to them through the VITLLA game. Isn´t that just cool? This is a game that has given us great results, Those three have been making big life changes. They have been searching a lot and talking to us a lot about how much they wanna change. This retreat lasted four days, we had about 35 youth that came to it, it was awesome. We had a lot of church challenges, compitting with chunches from all over the country, it was a great time. Thos challenges helped us to come together as a group. We even had a kid that broke his ancle playing one of these games hahaha He is still laughing about it.

In the Vitilla tournament we had the ALL STAR game the other day…We put together a group of the best players in the tournament by positions. He National league defeated the American League. It was awesome!!! We even saw players with the Dominican flag waving around, they really enjoyed this, we tried to make it feel like we were playing a major league all star game J I made a video of the HOMERUN DERBY. You might now understand what they say in the video but by watching it you can tell the energy of the guys playing, you can see how much into this they were. The last guy in the video won the derby, and the one before him was in second place.

We have been organizing a youth retreat for high schoolers n college kids, its gonna be great.The nname of it is CRISTO URBANO (urban christ). Expectations are already really high and we can´t wait for July to arrive. My Friend Jesse is gonna help us put this retreat together along with his youth group from kentucky. They are gonna bring t-shirts for the campers, cds, great lessons about the theme of the camp and many other things. Now, we wanna make this camp posible for many people to come, but the price of the camp por night once you added up to two night n three days, its 700 pesos, which is 20 U.S. We are trying to low the `price down so more people can come. By finding these schoolerships the cost of the camp would only be 15 buck por person. The money we r gonna raise is gonna help them go to camp, and will provide transportation for people all over the country. so what do I want you guys to do? simple, I know that you all are pastors and leaders in your churches; it would be great if you could spread the word around about this camp and show this video to all the peoople you can contact, we need to raise 300 schoolarships, which is 1,700 U.S. If we could all work on this together it shouldn´t be hard. So I encourgare you to help us...Spread this video around, send it to all your friends, show it to your church, youth group, small group, softball team, etc. Some people may not have 20 bucks but they may wanna give you 10 or even five... at the end of the video there is the G.O. ministries adress for you guys to colect the money from your area and send it in a check, you just gotta make sure on the check you put ¨¨isaias gabriel- youth retreat¨¨¨otherwise the money will go to any of our proyects in construction, like a feeding center or a church.
This retreat is gonna touch many lives and you can be part of it. If you have any questions about the retreat let me know, this video is being edit it as we speak, I have a friend that is gonna put music to it n stuff so once that´s done I´ll send you the link to the new edit video but for now this is what we got and we don´t have much time. Hope I don´t look too bad in the video :p
I know That we all have stuff going on at work, school and diferent this that keep us busy, i totally understand that but If you think you can be part of this help us to raise this money, please write me back n let me know. We are not expecting all the money to be raise from one single group so let´s get together for this and make it happen. If you are IN write me back
Two weeks ago we were at the MEN´S RETREAT with Dave and his group from bloomingtong. This is a retreat that G.O. puts togethers every year for only men from age 18 and up. 10 of the vitilla players whent to that retreat. I was super exited, I couldn´t believe what I was witnessing. These guys are the one who basically control what goes on in the streets of our neiborghood, they control the are ahead of all the parties in the streets and all the drinking. This guys have NEVER been in church. I mean NEVER, these are the people Jesus wants us to reatch, the sick not the healthy. Again, thanks to the vitilla game now I have a close friendship with them, I have invited some of them to my house to eat and they all invite me into thir houses all the time to eat and just hang out. There is a mutual respect between us. They know what I represent and they respect that. They have seen me as the guy that love them and not jugde them no matter who hey are or what they do. It´s a great feeling to be able to connect wih them, I feel like God found some kind of favor on me and for that I´m very thankfull because someone needs to reatch out to them and I´m willing to be that guy.
It was interesting that for the men´s retreat I just invited the leader of them, I knew that if the others knew that he was coming they would it tag alone. Once they found out that their leader was going, they joined the trip lol. They were vey respectfull towards the message at the retreat, they didn´t miss a service and they were always in time with their bibles in their hands. Two of them accepted Christ the last day of the trip (yes, I was crying J) and one of them got baptize that same day…WOW, it was a powerfull day. The one that got baptize, we have been working with him for years. He has been part of our softball outreatch at church but through the vitilla we all got closer relationships with him. Check out the video, I hope you enjoy and God bless you!!
Isaias Gabriel

2009-04-01T15:28:00.000-07:00

MARCH 2009

The youth group is growing more and more. In every activity we are getting new people and we are getting ready to baptize a about 5 more in the next couple weeks.
We are getting ready for our anual youth retreat which is in two weeks. We are planning on bringing 30 to 40 youth from our church, they are very exite about it and the are getting ready for some bible competitions that they are having at the camp.

bout weeks ago, we put together an activity for a sister church in the comunity of La Mosca (means the fly because its located in a garbage dump). Their pastor came to me saying that they wanted a special activity for the youth of that community because there is a lot of corruption there and they need some encouragement from youth from another church. We were happy to help, Our youth group prepared an event were we performed:

Mimes

Dance

Drama

Rap

Black Theatre

And a 10 minutes sermon.

We were all involve in the program of that event and it was great, really fun. We enjoyed and they loved it. When Hendry, one of my youth leaders, lead a time of reflexion, they ready to recieve the message. About 7 kids from that comunity and 3 more youth from my group accepted christ as their lord an savior that night. It was great, I have some pictures for you all to see and a few pictures from that activity as well

People worshiping

Wilmer enjoying the service This is what we call ¨¨Teatro Negro¨¨ (black theatre) Picture with Pastor Jonas This is another video I made from the Opening day of the vitilla tournement...Enjoy!!

2009-03-11T11:31:00.000-07:00

Febrero 2009
I put a video together from my friends from GLCC who were here last month in a missions trip in Batey Cuchilla.

This other video is from the vitilla tournement that just got started two weeks ago. THis are clips and pictures from the inauguration ceremony. It started at 10:30 AM and lasted like 20 minutes. After that we played game till 4:30 PM. It was FUN!! throughout the day about 500 people came to the field coming in and out. This has been a blessing for the church and the community, people love it. And the best part of it, is that is growing: last year, we had 6 teams, now we have 10. From 45 players, we whent to 100. From 200 screaming fan we whent to 500. PLayers are planing on coming to church with their entire team, diferent gangs are now friends, people with bad languague now try to think before they speak so tey can stop saying bad words, moreandmore relationships with non-christians are being built... Keep praying for us because God is amazing, and he keeps doing big things, we are just happy to be part of it.

Fans watching the game

Behind the right field

Behind Left field

Some of the players

Lady cooking sweet corn to sell at the game

2009-02-22T10:52:00.000-08:00

January 2009

-About two weeks ago our friends and supporters Ken and Karen George decided to invite the entire youth group to an activity where they could hang out, eta some food, play some Dominoes and have some time to share the word of God. Well, I must say that for this activity, we used the ¨food¨ and the ¨games¨ to atrack non-christians youth from our neibordhood... We ended up having a lot of people in that activity and the coolest thing was that 50% of them where not christians. It was a total of 50 to 55 people. The enjoyed the time they spent with us and the recieved the message very well. All we wanted was to plant the seed; God will make it grow in his time.

- About two weeks ago we had our final meeting with some of the players of the next Vitilla Tournement. At the meeting we took some time to sing song praise songs and we had a short message that was very clear and direct. They diren´t know we were going to do that at the meeting but they receive it well and enjoyed. After the service I had some of the key players coming to me saying how much they enjoyed the service and some even committed to come to all the services we do every other thuersday at the basketball court. Please keep praying for this because God is going to continue doing things that we never expected to happen.
- I spent last week working in batey 9 and batey cuchilla with the construction crew, some of the members of my youth group, and a group of my fellow students of Great Lakes Christian College. We had a great time and we accomplished a lot. We started what in a near future will be the church/ Nutrition center of Batey Cuchilla. I´m Very proud of all the students of GLCC because they spent the entire week showing God´s love to this community through construction, BVS, and feeding the kids there.

- Even though I was gone to the Bateys last week, the leaders of the youth group that I left behind organized an excellent activity to reach out on Valentines day. Before I left I told them that they need it to take responsibility on this activity and make it happen. They did, and for that I´m very proud of them. Our leaders Leandro and Carolina were leading this activity along with the helped of many other from the YG that came and help. Again, they had about 60 people coming to that activity, most of them not Christians, and many of them we never even seen them before. We are very happy because God has seen our hearts and he is answering our prayers. He has seen our intentions of reaching out the lost and he has support our moves along the way.

2009-01-18T06:37:00.000-08:00

December 2008

The Vitilla tournement has come to an end. It has been great, we have had great results, new frienships and new doors have been opened for the Gospel. We just did the awards ceremony last week and we had a full house. Within the awards we had a reflection time where we had a great feedback.
The first two videos You´ll see here are from the tournement´s finals. I don´t think you have seem those yet. The third video is all about what we did at the awards ceremony night. I Hope you enjoy them, past them out to other friends you think might be encourage by them, and most important, I hope this videos keep remain you to keep praying for our ministry here in D.R.

This is Part two

Awards Ceremony

About three weeks ago we had the oportunity of going to the mountains, just like every year, it has become our costume to go to the mountains at the end of the year for two days. We had a great time, we had a time of testimonies, and overall, everyone liked being able to relax and share with everyone. Here are some pictures:

We took this one after our game time in the cabine

There is no mountain trip without the bunfire

Leandro, Wicho and wilmer were a lil´cold

Arianny y Albania checking out the view of Santiago

At the river

Happy new year to all of you and might God bless you and your families.

With Love, Isaias Gabriel

2008-12-05T07:04:00.000-08:00

November 2008
I have lots of videos and pictures for you guys to see. I have spent a lot of time recording videos and taking pictures because i want you all to see what is happening down here and I also want you to be as exited as me about this. It is always better for your prayers when you have a visual of something.
This time I´m posting pictures of a trip that I had with the youth group to the mountains, also some pictures and videos of a concert that we whent to a few weeks ago, where we had part of the youth group along with some non christian friends. And I edited some videos with pictures, videos, interviews, etc of the Vitilla Tournement that we organized. I know that many of you have been praying for me and our ministry down here; I apreciate it, because it has given me strenght to continue going foward.
Here is the first video of the vitilla tournement...For those of you who don´t know what the game of vitilla is, I tried to explain what we play it with ion this video. It has the same rules of baseball. THIS VIDEOS ONLY SHOW THE GAMES OF THE REGULAR SEASON. I WILL TRY TO POST VIDEOS OF THE FINALS ALSO.

Before I show you the second video, I want to explain some of the reasons why this tournement has become so special to me:
1. Is the first time we do it and we have around 55 players in it. In which those 55 people, we only have 3 christian. Which is what God called us to do ¨to be a light in the darkness.¨
2. In every game, we have a total of 200 to 300 people that come to watch the games. Again, most of this people are not christians and they are loving the tournement.
3. 95% of the players are gangsters and thugs of the comunity that are involve in drugs and gangs.
4. The players have a voice...When my friend Hendry, from my youth group, came up with this idea, we did not know what we where getting ourselves into. We didn´t know what the rules where gonna be, where we were gonna play, things like that, and along with all the player, we all came up with ideas and we put everything together. They all have been very respectfull of the rules because its a christian tournemnent and because they help made the rules.
5. It has help me make new friends. They have realized that I respect them and love them just as they are, so have shown me their respect too.
6. We are planning to plug them into our thuersday nights services as soon as the tournement is over.
7. Some of them have talked to me about how much they apreciate this tournement, saying that this game is keeping them out the streets. And that they were being pick by the police before for doing nothing in the street.
8. The neiborhood is thankfull because they have seem a change in many of the guys. We have witness that many gang members that used to hate each other now are friends because the tournement.

Picture during the Aguilas game

@ the game

@ the concert

@ the Mountains

God Bless you all, I know that i will always keep you in my prayers, just as I know that you keep me in yours. Thanks for your support, for always letting me know that I can count on you for anything. It is good to know that we have brothers and sisters all over the world that got my back. Thanks

In Christ,

I.G.

2008-11-15T09:14:00.000-08:00

October

I came across some videos that maybe some of you have not seem. Two of them are from songs that I translated from english to spanish.
I also want to tell you guys about the Vitilla Tournement we started. For those of you who have been here in the past, you probably remember watching kids from all kind of ages playing this game on the streets that looked like baseball but it wasn´t. Well, one of the boys from my youth group came up with the idea of starting a tournement of this game call ¨¨vitilla¨¨ with the guys frm our neiborhood. It´s been great! The teams are represented by streets; and we have a total of 6 teams. Each team has players from 15 to 28 years old, cause for this sport there is no age, ths is a game that everyone knows how to play. We say here that you are not Dominican if you didn´t play VITILLA when you were a kid. :) It´s true. The great this about the tournement is that out almost 50 players in the tournement, only 3 of us are christians. We belief that when the bible says that we have to be the light in the world/darkness, this is what he meant. These are the guys that the community look down on because their adictions and bad behaviors. These are the gangters, dealers and drunkers of the community. I´m so happy to say that they have seem our intentions with this tournement. They even helped us organized the tournement rules, location, schedulle, everything, and there has been a lot of respect shown to every individual on and off the field.
PLease keep this tournement in your prayers and I´ll make sure I´ll keep ya´ll updated on how is the tournement going. My team from calle 2 (street 2) was in first place, but last weekend we felt short and now we are in second place. It has been a tight race for every team, it exiting. Last monday it was a hollyday and we had about 300 people that came to watch the games... It´s crazy!!
I recorded a short video of one of the games for you to see, check it out cause I´ll be posting more throughout the tournement. God bless!!
Su Gloria/ My Glorious

Rey Perfecto/ Perfect King

2008-10-13T11:12:00.000-07:00

MINISTRY HIGHLIGHTS:
We are very proud to said that our dance leader from our youth group started a dance class for those who were interested in it. Carolina, the dance leader, started the class that lasted a few weeks and in the class we had 4 churches represented in it. We are really happy because those churches are seeing results already, they already started teaching others what they learned. Also, we just celebrated the graduation for those girls who finished the class. It was a very exited day because they came with their families, friends and their pastors. I had the oportunity of preaching a sermon of encouragement to them because they have to be ready for what´s coming. Sometimes you have the desire, the passion and the heart to start a new ministry within your church and you don´t always receive the support and encouragement you want. But now I know they will be fine, and we are going to be there to help in anything they need.

Our church is going through some remodelling right now. I lot of new things happening in the building. We broke some walla down, we painted and fortunally we had some of the youth there to help, check it out:
A service at a near Haitian church, leaded by one of our good friends call Romano and pastor Indris, was REALLY fun. We enjoyed sooo much. They invited our youth group to lead worship, have a few dances and a sermon, we did it all and we did it well, praise God. I was really proud because two of the girls who just learn to dance from the dance lessons, they were all over the place. They even did a solo and they are like 8 and 10 years old. Also one of our young leaders had the sermon…he did a great Job (his name is Gabriel.) The Haitians really enjoyed the service and we did too, it was just like a familly that haven´t seem each other in a while having fun. Check it out:
PROJECTS WORKING ON:
Planning a retreat to Batey 9.
Planning a retreat to Puerto Plata
Putting together a retreat for next summer

PRAYER REQUEST:
1. A kid that we have been trying to help out in his spiritual life. His name is Jan Carlos, and he has lots of personal issues. Please keep him in your prayers.
2. My friend Ray had a motorcycle accident. He is doing better now

MINISTRY CHALLENGES:
(We are trying to clean the insiders before we go after the outsiders)
¨He who conceals his sin does not proper, but whoever confesses and renounces them finds mercy.¨
Proverbs 28:13

Enyor helping Jose on the new stage of the church

After the dance graduation

Singing @ the Haitian service

How is God working in you?
I feel like my relationship with Christ is getting better and better. I thank those who are around me who take time to mentor me when I need it, the truth s that we all need that. In the last couple weeks God has tough me lots of new things that I´m exited to share with those around me, I thank him for that. Every day I have the opportunity of being an embassador of his kingdom, that´s a privilege. Thank you all who take the time to read this blog, the only reason I do it is because I want to keep you all inform. Thanks for keeping me in your prayers and making me part of your families. Your support is very appreciate.

2008-09-03T13:45:00.000-07:00

August 2008

MINISTRY HIGHLIGHTS:
well, we had our last team down here two weeks ago, so things have been calm lately. Ha, is a weird feeling but it´s been good to all of us to be able to relax a little. Now we have more time to dedicate to our diferent ministries, which I´m very exite about. I have been already planning some big things for next year and also some cool thing for the end of this year. Two weeks ago, my friends Lisa and Wilber got married and we had a good time with friends from all over.
About three weeks ago we had the oportunity to visit Hato del Yaque´s youth group, we had a great time. Our youth were exite to see each other because it has been since the retreat back in april that they haven´t share with each other. We had a great service fill with worship, dramas, songs, dance and a powerfull message by Leandro. They were really encouraged by our visit and we are hoping to visit them again soon.
We were also invited by a church in the other side of town to come and be part of a service with them. They had us lead worship and bring the word of God. I was the one with the priviledge of doing that (preaching.) It was great, they asked me if I could bring a message about youth conquering other youth to Christ…I was happy to do it. I talked about the tools you need to be able to conquer people for the kingdom, it was powerful, I really felt that the holly spirit used me that night as I preached. Great feeling!!!
About a month ago, we started a new service twice a month at the basketball court of our community. Will Partin, our sports coordinator brough that idea and we supported it. The plan is to be able to reach all the gangsters of our community. We have been working with these kids through sports clinics for a long time but it has been hard to bring them to church just because they are diferent and they are afraid of being judge by the community. So we are basically bringing the church to them so they feel confortable. The name of that service is ¨Come as You are¨ meaning: if you are derty from working all day and you smel back, we don´t care just come. If you are wearing earings and a baseball hat, we don´t care just come. If you are high or drunk, we don´t care, just come…In the first two service we have have full house with the 100% sitting in the room being not christian, that what we want. We have a service of worship and a sermon of 30 minutes. We are planting the seed like God wants us to do and eventually he´ll make ir grow. These guys know that this service is a save place for them to come… we are starting with this service just twice a month but we know the more they learn about Christ, the more they are going to realize the importance of meeting with the church, a group of believers that serve the same God, please pray for this project.
PROJECTS WORKING ON:
The ¨come as you are¨ service.
Preparing for another meeting with the youth pastors.
Planning a retreat to Batey 9 (church in the south part of the country, 6 hours away).
Putting together a retreat for next summer

PRAYER REQUEST:
1. Come as You Are project
2. Hurricanes situation here, Haiti and all the Caribbean( over a 100 people dead in Haity.)

MINISTRY CHALLENGES:
I´m in the process of uniting many youth leaders of my city. We already have talked about a lot of projects, and we are hoping to start at the end of this month we some of the activities we have plan. We are thinking big, trying to help those who are in need, and trying to brake some barriers of tradition that keep the youth outside in the streets. I know God is at work and we know that he is going to use us to make a difference, and is already happening, but it going to get even bigger.

Know that I´m always thinking about all of you who are supporters of my ministry, by praying, financially and giving me words of encouragement, which I need a lot. Thanks for that support that you provide to my ministry. This s my life, n this is what I enjoy to do, you guys make it possible and I appreciate it.

In Christ,
I.G.

2008-08-11T08:21:00.000-07:00

July 2008

MINISTRY HIGHLIGHTS:
1. Busy… it´s the best word to describe my summer down here. We have been really bless with all the staff we have because everyone has work so hard all summer long, it´s been great. One of the thing I got to do was to go back to batey 9, I love that place. While we were there we worked on the new chuch/feeding center builing for three days, it was great. We had a group there from Illinois, they worked really hard. And for myself is always great to go back there, work hard and get to see old friends.
2. Another areas we have been working on all summer are in the houses of Luis and Rene (These are two of our construction workers who have been working with the ministry for over 10 years,) the church/feeding center at the HOLE and the church/feeding center at Brisas de Ocampo. We have acomplish a lot in these locations. Thanks to all the groups we have receive, there has been a lot of progress in these three areas.
3. Lastnight we baptized another girl in the youth group, Im really happy because she has been hungry for the lord, she never misses bible study and she is always asking deep question about how she can live her life better. She came up to me saying that she wanted to get baptize and since the moment she told me that I have notice that she couldn´t wait to be under water. She has shown that she wants to live a new life for christ and we are happy to be part of it. Here is a video of our worship team singing ¨renuevame¨while she got baptize.
PROJECTS WORKING ON:
1. This week we start a new service at the basketball court of the community. Will, our sports coordinator has put this together. This is going to be service exclusive for the those guys in the community who would not come to church because they are involve in gangs, drugs, etc. But they would come to the basketball court for a service. Pray for this program.
2. Preparing for another meeting with the youth pastors.
3. Planning a retreat to Batey 9 (church in the south part of the country, 6 hours away).
4. This Saturday we are going to Hato del Yaque to have a service with both youth groups together.

PRAYER REQUEST:
1. For many upcoming activities that we have planed this summer
2. Keep praying for the youth who are involve in gangs and drugs… we have a hard battle against that here, because for the kids in my community, if you are not part of these things you are not cool. We are glad that many of them have make clear that God is their priority.

MINISTRY CHALLENGES:
This year we have been teaching that God has to be in the first place of our life. If he is in the first place, then we won´t have to worry about following a bunch of sets of rules like the Pharisees. As this year goes by I want everyone in the group to live their live according to what God wants not by what the world says.

Again, thanks for your prayers and all your support. We are gong to continue doing what we do and the kingdom of God is just going to continue to grow. I pray that God bless your families and those of you who have been here, we hope to see you soon and those who have never been here, make sure you plan on coming soon because God might have some big things for you. Peace!!

In Christ,
I.G.

2008-07-01T08:35:00.000-07:00

June 2008

MINISTRY HIGHLIGHTS:
A very exiting day for me happen about two weeks ago when I had the priviledge of baptizing this boy in my youth group name ENYOR. Many of you know him, he is a great kid, very talented and with a lot of leadership. He is a fruit of VBS in our church. I´m really happy for him because I´ve been wanting him get baptize for a long time, but through that I tried not to putch him to do it. It had to be something that come from him. I know God is going to use him more now that he has the Holly Spirit in him.
We just got done with a week full of sports clinics. We had men basketball, baseball, volleyball, women basketball and aerobics all at the time in diferent courts. It was awesome, we had a lot of people involved in it. This time we got to reatch all ages. Thanks to all of you whom keep us in prayers all the time because without your prayer support non of this would it been posible.

PROJECTS WORKING ON:
New lessons for our book study/ bible study.
Preparing for another meeting with the youth pastors.
Planning a retreat to Batey 9 (church in the south part of the country, 6 hours away).

PRAYER REQUEST:
1. For many upcoming activities that we have planed this summer
2. The youth in my community

MINISTRY CHALLENGES:
This year we have been teaching that God has to be in the first place of our life. If he is in the first place, then we won´t have to worry about following a bunch of sets of rules like the Pharisees. As this year goes by I want everyone in the group to live their live according to what God wants not by what the world says.

FAMILLY NEWS:
1. Two of my nieces really like this praise song that we sing in our worship team. They also wanted to dedicate to our base player Gabriel because he loves playing this song too. I know they are gringas but they still represent their half Dominican side really well. Check it out:

Again, thanks for your prayers and all your support. We are gong to continue doing what we do and the kingdom of God is just going to continue to grow. I pray that God bless your families and those of you who have been here, we hope to see you soon and those who have never been here, make sure you plan on coming soon because God might have some big things for you. Peace!!

In Christ,
I.G.

2008-06-18T11:15:00.000-07:00

May 2008

MINISTRY HIGHLIGHTS:
1. It was great to have the oportunity of visiting the U.S. for the first time this year. I had the chance of seeing old friends and meeting new ones. Also, while I was there I had the chance of meeting with some of my friends from college who are youth pastors and minister to talk about a trip for next summer; is going to be a trip that is going be a big impact for the youth community of my country. I´m very exited. It makes me very happy to know that friends back in the States are we me in this idea, which means that the also see the big picture…A youth retreat that is going to be awesome!!
2. This Saturday we start using the books for the guys, we are very exite to start this study. Keep this study in your prayers because is going to be a big blessing for our youth group.
3. A month after having a meeting with the youth pastors about UNITY, I have received several phone calls about having activities with diferent youth groups around the country. They are open to colaborate with our vision of reatching the whole country. Two weeks ago we hosted a service at los Salados´church…it was great, check out the pictures.
4. While I was in the States I also got to work with all our staff and many volunteers at the Kentucky Derby. It was a fun, crazy, busy week that helped to be a blessing for our ministry. Every years we find volunteers to work and this company call ¨the Game¨ gives the ministry a donation for our work. So thanks to all of you who were part of this event.
PROJECTS WORKING ON:
1. Planning the next meeting for all the youth pastors to talk abou some upcoming activities.
2. Preparing a retreat to one of the churches at the mountains.
3. Planning a retreat to Batey 9 (church in the south part of the country, 6 hours away).

PRAYER REQUEST:
1. My aunt´s family is going through some hard times right nowwitha situation they had to deal with in their neiborhood.
2. My gramma is sick.

MINISTRY CHALLENGES:
This year we have been teaching that God has to be in the first place of our life. If he is in the first place, then we won´t have to worry about following a bunch of sets of rules like the Pharisees. As this year goes by I want everyone in the group to live their live according to what God wants not by what the world says.
I´m trying to get everyone in the youth group understand the big task that s ahead of us. We are starting big things this year and I want the support of every person in the group.

FAMILLY NEWS:
1. After a few doc appointments in Louisville, my mom found out that she cancer clean. Everything is good with her system. Praise God!!

Here are some more pictures of some different events that I was part of:

At the Hole

With the worship team at Los Salados´Church

2008-05-11T13:37:00.000-07:00

April 2008

MINISTRY HIGHLIGHTS:
Remember the meeting for the youth pastors that I was planning?? It finally happened. I´m really glad to let you guys know about that. I spread out the word and about 15 youth minsters from all over the country came up for the meeting, it was great. IN the meeting we talked about unity, we talked about what would it take for us as youth pastors to reach our whole country. At the beginning of the meeting, they did not know why they were there or what was the meeting about but when this meeting ended, you could just see the joy in their faces,. They are exite to work together and they liked the program we had for them. We are planning to meet up again soon to plan an activity for one of the youth pastors that needs our help. We wanna be able to colaborate with the work of every youth pastor of the country. They liked the ideaand now they are just ready for their first challenge, which is coming soon.
As a result of playing football every week, my new good friend Jimmy just got baptized, and I can already see a lot of changes in his life. Our youth group is clear about our goals, they all know that each one of them plays a very important role in reaching out to others. Every week we see new faces in the football field because the simple fact that the youth group takes the time to invite non believers to come play with us. God is blessing us through sports… We are taking a lot of avantages of it.
We have a new bowling place in santiago, so for the first time we took part of the youth group to play a game they never experienced before. It was really fun, check it out:

We just got the books to start our acountability groups with girls and guys. We are very happy because we have been waiting for a month or so to get them and now they will finally arrive in two weeks.

We were celebrating our church 24th birthday last month and we got the oportunity of prasing and worshiping with our dauther churches. Check this out:

PROJECTS WORKING ON:
Translating new songs to Spanish for the worship band.
Preparing a retreat to one of the churches at the mountains.
Planning a retreat to Batey 9 (church in the south part of the country, 6 hours away).

PRAYER REQUEST:
1. My mom´s health. She is having doctors appointments now.
2. My gramma is sick.

MINISTRY CHALLENGES:
This year we have been teaching that God has to be in the first place of our life. If he is in the first place, then we won´t have to worry about following a bunch of sets of rules like the Pharisees. As this year goes by I want everyone in the group to live their live according to what God wants not by what the world says.

FAMILLY NEWS:
1. My mom has a doc appointment about her surgery from a few years ago.

HOW IS GOD WORKING IN YOU?
I´m clear about where I am at and where I am going. I just praise God that has put things so clear in my heart. Like always, just trying to do his will, he has been blessing my ministry and I´m just thankful. In the last few weeks I have been talking to my good friends from college, God put this in my heart. We are trying to bring our knowledge together for the kingdom, to bring all our gifts and ideas to the plate for the sake of the Youth in the Dominican Republic. Maybe next year we are going to be able organize a weekend youth retreat that is going to change many lives. I know we have all the tools to make this right and I think the time has come… Please pray for this, because this is going to be big and is going to take the work of many people to make it happen, so keep it in your prayers, peace.

In Christ,
I.G.

2008-04-03T06:10:00.000-07:00

March 2008

MINISTRY HIGHLIGHTS:
Basically, we just got back from the last National Youth Retreat. It was great, in our youth group with had a lot of first timers and they just loved it. It´s awesome to see them share with other youth group from the country. This year we were a total of 500 youth I believe, from my church we had about 25. It was a big blessing. While we were there, I had the oportunity of teaching a class about Ïnfluences¨ I was very honor for the oportunity of teaching in such a big setting. This picture that you see in the right was taken after we won the CUP for number one place in Volleyball. Yeah, that´s right, our youth group wasn´t even ready before the retreat to play volleyball and we kind of just signed up for it at last second, and we made it. My youth group is very proud of winning that award; in the picture you can see the happy faces. This video below was taken during a time of praise and worship the second night we were there. It was crazy, fun and you feel God´s presence in that place… check it out.

This month we also had the oportunity of visiting Nico´s Youth group. This is a new church that needs all the encouragement they can get, we are trying to be there for them. For this year we have some big plans that have them involve, it´s going to be good for them to grow out that experience.
A new girl just got baptize. Her name is Albania and she is very exited about growing into a new creation. She began visiting the youth group about two months ago, and just a few weeks ago she decided she wanted to be baptize. I´m really exite because since the day she was baptize she has been reflecting Christ in her life and she has been giving testimony about what the lord has done for her. I have seem how some of her friends from the neiborhood treat her now that she is a christian…Many of them have been teeling her that she is not going to make it, but she has been proving them wrong. I´m happy for her and for what the lord has done or her. She is an impact in the youth group and now everyone looks up to her because of her humbleness. Praise God!!
PROJECTS WORKING ON:
We just started last week a new bible study with the girls and the guys separately to help each other out and keep accountable. Now we are working on geeting the books ready for next month because we have to get them in the States.
Next coming Saturday I´m hosting a meeting for youth ministers from all over the country. I am gonna try to find as many as I can because we want to make a National impact but in order to do that we have to be well connected first. Also we have to share our goals and be in the same page, so I will meet with them with the purpose of connecting everybody and work together for the kingdom. Because there are many things that we could be doing great in this country for our youth but we haven´t because we haven´t take the time to analize them. I know that once we meet with all those youth leaders we are gonna be able to help each other out figure out new plans for reaching out the lost. Also this meeting is going to open the doors for all of us to collaborate in each other´s ministries (going in mission trip around the country, preaching, etc.).

PRAYER REQUEST:
1. My trip to the States at the end of April
2. This week our church in going to be celebrating its 25th aniversary. This entire weekend we are hosting a revival from Thuersday to Sunday.

MINISTRY CHALLENGES:
This year we have been teaching that God has to be in the first place of our life. If he is in the first place, then we won´t have to worry about following a bunch of sets of rules like the Pharisees. As this year goes by I want everyone in the group to live their live according to what God wants not by what the world says.
FAMILLY NEWS:
1. My mom has a doc appointment in may about her surgery from a few years ago.
2. Pray for some of my extended family in the U.S. They are going through hard times with some love ones in the hospital.
HOW IS GOD WORKING IN YOU?
Little by little the youth group of Hoya del Caimito is spreading out Nacionally. I´m very proud to e part of it because I know God has been preparing me for this moment and I´m willing to take on the responsability. This coming meeting with different youth pastors from all over the country is going to be very important. This meeting might change the results of our work in the kingdom this year. God has call me to unite everyone and work together, and I know these leaders have been wanting to get together and colaorate in each other´s projects; they just haven´t take the time to do it. Please keep me in your prayers because I have been planning a lot of stuff for that meeting and I just want everything to go smoothly. I will keep you all update in the results of the meetings, so please just keep praying for me and thank you very much for the support you provide to make everything possible.
In Christ,
I.G.

2008-03-12T13:01:00.000-07:00

Febrero 2008
MINISTRY HIGHLIGHTS:
For the last three months me and the youth group have been praying for the students of Great Lakes. We prayed to God to bless them, provide for their trip and to prepare their hearts for a wonderful experience. They made it!! They were here a few weeks ago and it was a great blessing to have them around. We were very encourage by them. I could see how the youth group connected with the students of GLCC and how it was a blessing from both parts to share with each other. Many of you already know that I graduated from GLCC in 2006, so to have them come down to support our efforts to spread the gospel was great. I couldn´´t more thankful…
Last weekend I had the chance of getting a selected group from my youth group to go encourage the youth of a sister church in Montecriti (two hours away). We whent up there for two days and we prepared a program of evangelization, VBS, and a special evangelistic Youth Night there. We had a full house that night and also during VBS we had over 60 kids with not much time of notice. It was great! We had a great responsed from the people of Montecristi, telling us that they like our creactivity and they want us to go back soon. I really enjoyed our time there, that night I have my friend Brian preach (another staff of G.O) and next day, the missionary there asked me to preach for the big church on Sunday mourning… It was a wonderful experience to see everyone in the youth group grow from that experience. We have become like a family, helping each other grow spiritually, and also growing from each other. Some of the kids that have never evangelized before, they were all over the place going house to house spreading the news about Christ. That´s what he wants from us.
PROJECTS WORKING ON:
The National Youth Retreat of the Christian Churches of D.R. is next week. I have to prepare for that because many of my youth group are going to it and also I was invited by them to teach a class while we were there. I gotta get ready for that.
We are also planning new bible studies with the girls and the guys separately to help each other out and keep accountable.
For next month I´m planning a meeting with all the youth leaders of the country. I am gonna try to find as many as I can because we want to make a National impact but in order to do that we have to be well connected first. Also we have to share our goals and be in the same page, so I will meet with them with the purpose of connecting everybody and work together for the kingdom. Because there are many things that we could be doing great in this country for our youth but we haven´t because we haven´t take the time to analize them. I know that once we meet with all those youth leaders we are gonna be able to help each other out figure out new plans for reaching out the lost.

PRAYER REQUEST:
1. We just celebrated my parents 40th anniversary. Please pray that they can continue strong being a good example for others to follow.
2. Upcoming Youth Retreat
3. My grand mother (from my dad´s side) is sick.
MINISTRY CHALLENGES:
This year we have been teaching that God has to be in the first place of our life. If he is in the first place, then we won´t have to worry about following a bunch of sets of rules like the Pharisees. As this year goes by I want everyone in the group to live their live according to what God wants not by what the world says.
FAMILLY NEWS:
1. My parents just celebrated their 40th anniversary.
2. My gramma is sick
3. My mom has a doc appointment in may about her surgery from a few years ago.
HOW IS GOD WORKING IN YOU?
God is shaping me to be the man he wants me to be, not what men wants me to be. I´ll tell you what… It feels great. Every time I see growth in the church I´m happy. For a long time I asked God to give me visions of what he wanted me to do, and I´m finally seeing the big picture. It is not that I didn´t know what God wanted to do with my life because I always knew he was calling me to ministry. But I told God that I wanted to be part of something big, I want him to use me in big things where I could reach the whole country. Now I can see myself doing great things in a near future, but you guys are going to have to continue praying hard for me and continue your encouragement. I have been preparing the youth group for those big things (to reach the whole country) and the feedback I´ve gotten from them is great, because I can tell that we are all in the same page…Learning the word to spread the word. Thanks for your support! Is great having people like you pushing me forward every day, and sorry that my updates are not too long, I´m never very good writing stuff down, but I encourage you to come check it out. It´ll be great for you all to see the great things God is doing in our country. God bless!!!

2008-02-07T06:27:00.000-08:00

JANUARY 2008

The youth group is finally getting where I wanted to see them. They have been showing a great spiritual growth and we have been growing in numbers also. I spent a whole year working with them, trying to make some changes and everything just seem to fail, but now we are starting to see the fruits of the hard work. I have always been pasioned about going around the country with my youth group and just preach the word of God with the different talents we have. I realized that in order to do that, I have to work first with the insiders. I had to clean up my house before I tried to clean up somebody else house. Just like in the bible when Jesus tells that woman that the children come first (Mark 7:27).
Right now I´m confident with everyone in the youth group. I´m sure they know what their believes are… now they have their own faith. Now they are prepare to go out and tell others about Christ. Hopefully next month we´ll get to go to Monte Cristi for two day and do a outreach program for that community. We know a pastor there that stared a church there not too long ago and he has been asking us to come there for a evangelism trip.

It´s really exiting for me to see them throughout the week talking about some of the subjects we hit in the bible study. they have been encouraging each other and every day they have become more passioned for the Lord.

Last week, the ladies group of our church decided to make an activity specially for the youth, for all of us to go sit and relax. they said they have seem our hard work and they wanted to give somethng back to us, it was great. we had more than 30 people there. Good food, the ladies prayed for each one of us, and all i can say...it was powerfull.

Last saturday we hadan activity in our church where we invited many non christian youth , it was very good. Next day, on sunday service, one of the visi we had the night before acepted Christ... Check it out.

PRAYER REQUEST:

I know that many of you have been praying for our church, it you have, keep doing it because is working. God is doing big things in our church. In this year only we have reach about 15 people to Christ maybe more. Pray that God gives us the wisdom to continue feeding this people in the word of God which is what they need.

My youth group is very exited about the GLCC (my college) that is coming in like a week. Please pray that God can provide for them and take care of all their expenses because this is a trip of encouragement from both sides. I pray that there can be a spiritual conection between the GLCC my youth group because I want them to all learn new things from each other. I´m really exite to have them come...mi familia.

One of my childhood friends is getting married this saturday.

This is a year of many changes, and many outreach plan. Please keep me and the rest of our church leaders in your prayers.

2008-01-15T07:52:00.000-08:00

December 2007

MINISTRY HIGHLIGHTS:
During the month of December we did a lot of activities not just the youth but the whole church… all the activities we performed during December, lead the youth group to grow closer. Here is a ist of some of the things we did, and some of the results:
We organized a concert with one of our sister churches around. Our youth group was incharge of putting this activity together. Through this concert this church was trying to raise some money for their youth group. I´m very proud of what my YG did because the other church (Guandules church´) was bless by what the youth of our church put together.
After that week we started what we call an ÄNGELITO¨ which is a s Secret Santa. We do this every year for fellowship and is always good to involve non Christians in it cause many times that works as a way to bring them to Christ. For the last day of the secret Santa we took the youth to a retreat up to the mountains for two days; it was awesome, we all had a great time. We were bless by it. I could say that in te way there I saw different circles of friends within the group but in the way back everyone was united as one, and during our devotional time one of the guys took the decision of getting baptized.
At the end of the month we when in a retreat up to the mountains. It was an awesome experience, everyone loved it and it wasn´t just about the fun…Lives where change in those two days. We had some non Christians with us and after that weekend they have come opening their hearts to us; talking about how much they want to change and how much they want us to help them through that change. By spending time with us they realized how great is the fellowship within Christians and how much they need Christ in their hearts.
Since I graduated from GLCC almost two years ago, I have been talking to my friends about how much fun American football is; well, the time has come… last week we got it going for the first time. It was great, all the guys from the youth group loved it and never stop talking about it. They were amazed about how much they enjoyed because non of them had a good impression about football before. Since this is a baseball island, no one ever plays football, but right now we are. We are trying to used it as another tool to connect people to Christ. First day we played we had 8 people, three days later we played and we had 17 people and almost half of them were not Christians… Do you see where we are going with this? Keep this outreach plan in prayer please. We wanted to give the youth another tool to enjoy themselves and we are all loving it. Also pray that we can all learn the game rules quit lol.
outh group feel that pain.
I am very exited to see what God is doing with our youth. I really thank you guys for the support you provide because without you support we wouldn´t have many facilities to reach other kids.
Two days ago I had the privilege of baptizing one of the girls in the youth group. She is college age, anyways, we have been working with her for the last 5 months and she finally decided to be baptized. When the whole group heard about that everyone was exited about her, and for me personally that was the best feeling of the world…
Thanks for being part of my journey and my God bless you and your families in this new year.
In Christ,
Isaias Gabriel

2007-12-05T12:36:00.000-08:00

NOVEMBER
New Video...During the storm Olga

Video about the storm Noel

• This has been a month full of activities. A lot of this happens here lately. One of those things has been the church dinner that we do every end of the year. This is a dinner were the entire church community brings out food, we meet in a different place outside he church property and we just hang out and have a good time. In this year´s dinner we had to find a bigger place to fit everybody. Many of the people that came were visitors which are great because being at the diner; they felt welcome to the family of Christ. The special thing abut this year´s dinner was that the youth group was in charge. We were making all the calls and we had to organize every single detail of it. We tied to make some things a little different than the past years and it was fun. People had a good time and the best of all or youth group was very proud with the work we did…Check it out.

• Last week we had a movie night with the youth. We saw FACING THE GIANTS… It was a great movie, if you haven´t seem it, you have to put it in your going to see it list. We had a great feedback from the youth, we all love it, haha. There were people crying and everything, it was great. Some people told me how the message of the movie fit perfect in their lives; I though that was great.
• As you know, for the past month or so we have been collecting food through G.O. to take it to those who lost everything in the float. This time we when to La Yaguita del Pastor (La Barraquita)

Please keep us in your prayers, cause we need them.
In Christ,
Isaias Gabriel

2007-11-12T05:53:00.000-08:00

OCTOBER 2007

MINISTRY HIGHLIGHTS:
As many of you know, we were hit by a tropical storm two weeks ago; it was desaster… This storm has been one of the worse stroms that has ever hit the country. A lot of people die and many desapear. The reason why this strom was so bad for the country is because the media didn´t do a good job telling people about the storm coming. It got us by surprise. The good thing about this storm has been that the country has come together helping each other out. In our community, my brother and I when around asking people for donations. We used the radio station and the church to spread the word about it…Let me tell you that I was surprise with all the things that we got from people. People I was never expecting anything from, that were not even from church, came up to us to give up clothing. G.O. Ministries also made a big constribution for the cause. After we got enough stuff, we drove them up to Batey 9 (almost 6 hour away from here) to help the people there because their community was also a victim of the storm. I ask you to pray for these people because it is a really bad situation to be part of.
Last we we had a mini-familly conference for the families of those in our youth group. It was good, we also had visitors that I have never seen in church before and they had a good time. This was seminar that we want to have at least three times a year.

This has also been a month full of blessings for me. One of the things that I wa bless with was getting a lasek eye surgery for free… Dr. Schmitt did for me. This has been something that I have need it for a couple years now, because as many of you know, with the ministry we travel a lot, specially to the bateys and those are places where it was hard for me to keep my contacts clean. I always has irritate eyes (not fun) specially after working construccion, but now, thanks to Mr. Schmitt and his wonderful staff I now can see perfect and that is just a dream come true.
We just got an emplifier for our base player. We have been needing one for the last 4 months and we finally got it. We are exited because the church´s sound system is good but it is not good to plug the base into it because it can drestoy it quit. Now we don´t have to worry about that anymore. There still some other things that we want to get like: another pianno speacially for our trips, a sound system and some mics. So please pray for these things and if you hear of a church that is getting a new sound system and is not using the old one or if you know of anybody who wants to give a contribution to a misionary let me know because anything can be useful for us.

PROJECTS WORKING ON

A new bible study on wensdays.
Preparing a play for this Christmas

Getting ready for a mission trip to a church that invited us to another city.

PRAYER REQUEST:
1. For the people that lost everything in the storm.

2. My grandma is sick.

MINISTRY CHALLENGES:

¨¨To bring new faces for our college nights events.¨
FAMILLY NEWS:

My niece Zoey Love is doing better.

My bro Samir is getting married next january

HOW IS GOD WORKING IN YOU?

Last couple months a have been growing spiritually a lot. This is something that I have been seeking not just for my self but also for the youth group. We have the thirst of learning more from the bible, we are seeking to have a genuine relationship with Christ. We don´t all the answer to be given to us, we want to find them ourselves, that´s the way it should be. By doing this, we are going to grow spiritually and we´ll encourage others to do so.

In Christ,

Isaias Gabriel

2007-10-20T07:52:00.000-07:00

September

This has been an interesting month for me; I have been everywhere visiting friends and family. Everything started when a family of supporters (the George Family) invited me to come to the U.S. for their sons weddings, which where only two weeks apart. It has been great to spend time with them and to be able to be part of their family.
I also took some time to visit some churches and to let them know about the ministry opportunities that we offer in G.O. It was a great time to catch up with some friends from college; I was really happy to see what God has been doing in their ministries, their youth groups have been growing because they have trust God first. I really enjoyed speaking and being part of worship in my friend Matt´s youth group.
I also got to see my worship adviser John Dario. I met this guy last year in Colombia and our friendship grew fast, we became really good friends. His experience leading worship has tough me a lot. I have to thank God because of his influence in our church. He basically came down for ten days to teach people in my church to play instruments and because of those lessons, today we have a new worship band in my church and we love it.
Thanks to those who opened the doors for me while I was in the States. I appreciate your hospitality and sorry for those who I didn´t get to visit. There were a lot of people I wanted to see, a lot of churches I wanted to visit, but it wasn’t possible… Maybe when I come next year Lord´s will. God bless you!!

2007-08-30T11:10:00.000-07:00

AUGOST 2007

MINISTRY HIGHLIGHTS:
1. Our new worship band is improving every day, just getting better and better. Please keep praying for us because we have seemed God’s power working through the worship of his people.
2. Next week we are going back to batey 9 for 5 days to do a sports clinic. It’s going to be great because the young community of Santiago that has never been there are going to have a humble experience when they see the way people live in the bateys.
3. Last Sunday I preached at church and my dead best friend´s mother accepted Christ as her lord and savior. This made my week, she is like a mother to me and I know that my friend Tony would have been really happy or her decision; I told her that and with almost tears in her eyes she said ¨yes, I know.¨
4. I translated for a New Testament teacher from Lincoln Christian College for a week. It was such a blessing for me because since I was translating all his knowledge, I stole some of his knowledge for myself. It was a great seminar.

PROJECTS WORKING ON:
1. We are planning to start working hard in or drama ministry, we are planning to start a full schedule of activities to go everywhere with the youth and the college age starting at the end of October.
2. In the worship band we are planning to prepare some English songs for the future. We are going to translate them and perform them in both languages at the same time.

PRAYER REQUEST:
1. For our new worship team.
2. I want God to develop my counseling abilities.

MINISTRY CHALLENGES:
¨¨To bring new faces for our college nights events.¨
FAMILLY NEWS:
• Samira fled the country yesterday because she might have to have the baby early. Please pray for her.

HOW IS GOD WORKING IN YOU?
He has set in my heart to improve the worship in my church… since he moment I took that responsibility he has been giving me many ideas to make things better. I am blessing to have a worship team that was put together by God because they all believe in what we can accomplish with this band. And they all see the big picture of the things that God wants to do through or worship band. I´m glad to be part of that vision, please keep praying for me and I´ll be dong my thing I love you all!!!
In Christ,
Isaias Gabriel

2007-08-08T06:39:00.000-07:00

JULY 2007

MINISTRY HIGHLIGHTS:
Our college age class just began studying a new book. We have had a good response already… there are people studying the book with us that had never been in church before and now they are into it. I have had people telling me how exited they are bout this book because they recognize that they have to make some changes in their lives.
Two weeks ago I was invited to performed in a concert downtown. For me the important thing was not to perform in from of bunch of people but to stablish new friendships with some Christian artist that are going to have great influence in this country in the next couple years.
We spent almost a week in batey 9 doing construction and several medical clinics there and it was a blessing for all of us. Once again I had the opportunity to share with the youth from their church and I even had the chance to sing with one of them at church.

PROJECTS WORKING ON:
We want to create a better follow up program with those people who come to our service and accept Christ. Especially with the youth; we want to create an environment where they feel save and the can learn more to be Disciples of Christ.
I´m working on a rap CD that will be ready for sometime next year. God has been opening doors even when I wasn´t looking for opportunities. God is giving me the opportunity to reach kids with something I like and I just say ¨¨why not.¨¨ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXZzCKafZLo

PRAYER REQUEST:
1. For our new worship team. We want God to keep us together and to continue growing in him so we can impact others.
2. God to give us wisdom to disciple those who have come to us for help.

MINISTRY CHALLENGES:
¨¨To bring new faces for our college nights events.¨

FAMILLY NEWS:
My sister ISALINA and her husband RYAN are coming this week to visit us all the way from Michigan. We are exited for having them.
HOW IS GOD WORKING IN YOU?
I want to show you guys a few videos that I have taken during worship time. Enjoy it and I will try to keep uploading more of these videos. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nktU1u5SfnU
Once again i want to say thanks for everything you all do for my ministry. God has been blessing our college service... Every week we have more new facesñ thanks for you support and prayers.
In Christ,
Isaias Gabriel

2007-07-17T07:10:00.000-07:00

JUNE 2007

MINISTRY HIGHLIGHTS:
We had a two days seminar with three professors that came from Dalton Tennessee. They came to train the pastors about marriage relationships and mostly church history. It was a good for me to be able to translate for them because the seminar refreshed my memory about many things that a learned at college.
We have been doing a lot of construction. We have been working in the church of Hato del Yaque, The Hole and Los Salados. It has been great working at those places because the people of these communities have been really exited for their new building. Once those churches are finish, they are going to have plenty of space (which they don´t have right now) to hold their church service.
June is also known as the BASKETBALL month. I´m talking about the week in the entire year that takes away all of our energy because it keeps us busy 24/7. But at the same time this is the week that all the kids of our neighborhood are looking forward to because they just love it. It´s a really fun week for us to because we get to see how little by little God uses people through sports to change young kids´ lives.
During this month we also took the time to start a new college age night in our church; with some great worship, and great teachings. This has been a big challenge for us because we have work so hard for this to happen, and after month of planning we finally made it happen. We have our first college service 3 weeks ago, and it was awesome. Everyone loved it.

PROJECTS WORKING ON:
I just started a new worship band for our college service. It´s an on going challenge for each one of us since two months ago non of us played any instrument and now we do. We are putting a lot of effort into this and God has been blessing us with talents. I never in a million years though that I was going to be a worship leader, but God called me to it and I´m here to do it.
In two weeks we are starting to study a new book… Is going to be good. Is going to challenge the youth group to make disciples I want to train them to be able to train others in the country.
I´m working on a rap CD that will be ready for sometime next year. God has been opening doors even when I wasn´t looking for opportunities. God is giving me the opportunity to reach kids with something I like and I just say ¨¨why not.¨¨

PRAYER REQUEST:
1. For our new worship team. We want God to keep us together and to continue growing in him so we can impact others.

MINISTRY CHALLENGES:
¨¨To bring new faces for our college nights events.¨
FAMILLY NEWS:
My sister Samira is having some kidney stone problems – PRAY FOR HER.

HOW IS GOD WORKING IN YOU?
Lately I have been challenge by many people to think BIG and I have; they were some things in ministry that I always wanted to try and I never did because I though it was impossible but I was wrong. Let me explain myself better… for those of you who know about South East Christian Church, they have this awesome service for college age students call The Vine. While I was in the US I loved going to the vine whenever I have the chance I always dreamed about having a similar service here in my church but I always though it was going to be impossible to break all the tradition barriers. Well my friends, God has been breaking all those barriers, I always dreamed about having a service where people didn´t go to it because they feel obligate but to go because they don´t want to miss it.
The next goal that I have set for the future is that by the end of this year our worship band is going to be rocking the world. Also in the fall we are thinking about a couple mission trips in the country and also in Haiti.
Please keep me in your prayers and always remember that you are always welcome here. Thanks to those who have been supporting me financially and through your prayers, I hope you all can get the chance soon to come visit and see with your own eyes what God is doing here. I love you all and God bless!

In Christ,
Isaias Gabriel

2007-06-04T08:17:00.000-07:00

MAY 2007

How is everyone doing? I have been doing great, i just got back to Santiago last thuersday. As many of you already know, I was in the states last month and I had the chance to meet with many of you, got to visit some family members and some churches. It was a blessing for me to be able to go back.
I reaaly enjoyed the opportunity of being at my friends´graduation and also one of my friends´wedding. I apreacitte those who were praying for my visa because if I wouldn´t gotten it, non of these adventures would have been possible.
For all the G.O. staff it was a lot of fun to be able to work together at the KY Derby. We were all volunteers for the entire week of derby.

Thanks to those who gave their time I came up and help… we really appreciate your hard work for God and for the ministry.
Again, it has been a blessing for me to be able to spent time with some of my supporters and to those people who I really care about. It was also good to see how my former classmates have taken big leadership positions in different churches. I am happy for all of you, i´m glad for the time I got share with some of you youth groups; thanks for the opportunity.
Please keep praying for our ministry down here and remember that the doors are always open for those who want to come in mission trips.

In Christ,
Isaias Gabriel

2007-04-27T06:35:00.000-07:00

APRIL 2007

MINISTRY HIGHLIGHTS:
This month had a combination of many things; we had youth retreats, church plays and a nice conference with all the G.O. staff. Let’s see, I am very happy with the results of these months because I accomplished things that I haven’t tried before:
This was the first time I had to carry the responsibility for all the youth that when to the National Youth retreat. It was awesome; we got a lot of good results. We took 40 youth to that retreat between 14 to 24 years old, and I’m very proud to say that most of them where not Christians. They didn’t accept Christ that weekend but now they have the seed of the gospel in their hearts.
This was the first time we made a play about the passion of Christ that lasted like 35 minutes. We have always been active in the church with dramas for all occasions but this is the first time we made a play out of a drama. We involved like 30 people in this play and the entire church came to support us I watch the `play; everyone loved it. The coolest thing about it was that we have people in the play that have always been in church but they where never part of anything at church, so for everyone was cool to see them using their talents. Also, for this activity we involved a lot of kids from our church school… that brought a lot of non Christians to church that night. To be honest, I thing that the 50 per cent of the crow that night were unbelievers. Drama was a good tool to get to them.
Last weekend was the conference with all G.O. staff. It was a good time where we had the opportunity to share with each other.
PROJECTS WORKING ON:
We are planning a tri to Monte Cristi only with the leaders of our youth group to encourage them hold on to God and to look for more spiritual guidance. Also to show them the vision of what we want to accomplish with the youth the rest of the year.
A trip to Haiti... it hasn´t happen because we have to find the best time so those who work and go to school can go.
I’m going to US this coming month, I’ll get to see those people who have been encouraging me with their prayers and financially. I’m exited; I will also try to get some of my friends to bring their youth groups down in mission trips next year.
PRAYER REQUEST:
1. My trip to US.
2. I hope every goes good with my mother doctor’s check up.
3. My grand mother is sick.
4. I want God to keep opening doors for my ministry to grow.
MINISTRY CHALLENGES:
1. I want to make some changes in the worship style of my church… It will take time but if it is God’s will people is going to accepted it. We want the worship to be more contemporary, to have a better quality so people who come empty to church can walk out full.
FAMILLY NEWS:
My mother is going to US check up with her doctor to see how her health is… please prayed for her.
HOW IS GOD WORKING IN YOU?
I have been involved in different ministries lately, enjoying each one of them but I’m trying to focus my vision in one only so I can try to do my best at it. God has been showing me different things, different passions I have; I want to be his vassal to do whatever he wants me to do. I know that with some of the activities I have been doing, God has touch a lot of lives that do not know him but I know I am call to do something bigger than that, so please keep me always in your prayers, I will be praying for that purpose to.
I have a big praise this time, I got my visa back but this time they gave me 10 years, do you know what that means? For the next ten years I can go back to the states whenever I need to. This is something I did not expected to happen because for us is really hard to get a visa but God decided to bless me. Thanks to those of you who where praying for me because without your prayers this would not be possible.
I’m exited for this summer, it seems like we are going to have more groups now, we are going to be busier and I love it. I hope you all can come down and see the wonderful things God has been doing in this island. Again, thanks for your support and for some of you, I will see you soon.
Isaias Gabriel

2007-04-22T11:12:00.000-07:00

MARCH 2007

Ministry Highligths:
This was a really busy month for me. In our church we accomplished a lot of things that meant a world to us. I spent most of the time preparing for the youth retreat and the Easter Passion Play. It was awesome, this is the first time that we make the passion of christen in a drama that lasted about 40 minutes. We involved a lot of people from church from 6 year old kids to 50 years old, there was no age barrier we gave the change to be part of it anyone from church who wanted to help. It was a powerful night. We are going to try to make this every year from now on.
I will try to post a video for you guys, because I know we video tape the play and it was great… ¨¨the passion of Christ, Dominican style.¨¨ I know we don´t have any fancy equipments for a drama like that but I am really proud to say that with what we have in hands we made a great job and people at church just loved the play.

PROJECTS WORKING ON:
We are planning a youth retreat to a city call Monte Cristi, with the purpose of getting the youth plug with Christ.
I´m working on getting mi visa back so I can go back to US and visit those people who have been surporting my ministry.

PRAYER REQUEST:
This week i´ll be going to the American consul to request a visitor´s visa. I want to get the visa on if it is God´s will.

MINISTRY CHALLENGES:
I want to challenge all the leaders of my church to love those people who don´t know Christ so they can have an affective ministry towards them.

FAMILLY NEWS:
My sister Sandra is visiting us with her husband Brook this week… is always nice to have them around.

HOW IS GOD WORKING IN YOU?
Like I say before, this was a very challenging month for me and my youth group. We challenged the entire church to get involve in this play of the passion of Christ. Our purpose was not only having people acting things up, we wanted those people to get plug with God´s work. Most of the people that were part of the drama never were part of anything like that before, so this experience has help them grow spiritually and grow in their talents.
Most of the things that happened in this month, were thing that I was preparing for the upcoming month, so in my next update I will post a lot of pictures from the youth retreat, and the Easter passion.
May God bless you and your families and keep working for the kingdom of God because our work is not in vain.
In Christ,
Isaias Gabriel

2007-03-19T06:47:00.000-07:00

FEBRUARY 2007

Ministry Highlights/ Praises:
I have been feeling really good lately because I overheard some church people talking the other day saying: ¨the youth group is on fired…¨¨ that really made my day. In these last couple months I have felt so proud of our youth group; it feels good to know that your work is having good results. One of those good results is that I spent a lot of time praying and consoling one of my friends from the youth group because he stepped away from church for a while, and while he was away from church his life was not going in a good direction… Today I can testify that he is back in the church and he even started going to school again and his mom is really happy because he is in God’s ways again.
In the last couple weeks we have been invited to many churches to bring activities and to share with them. It has been good because our youth have had the chance to grow more spiritually and to help others grow with their example. I am really proud of them, they have so much potential to do anything they want and they are doing it. Each one of them is really using the gives God has given them.
I was very happy to see the results of the baseball clinic we had in February. It really was one of the finest weeks in my life as a youth minister/rapper/translator/missionary/team facilitator/construction worker, etc. ha ha. Because I got to spent time with kids that do not know Christ and many kids lives were changed through the sport I have always love (baseball). It was really cool. I pray that God continue bringing groups down for clinics like this.
Projects Working on:
We have our annual national youth retreat coming next April. We have been preparing for that because we want the whole youth group to go.
Along with our ministries sports coordinator Will Partin, we have been putting together an interchurch basketball tournament with the purpose of having a good fellowship with all the youth from our community.
This week we have been working construction in one of the churches of Santiago (brisas del campo). We are pouring part of the floor this week.
We have a bible study in my house and it’s having great results. Like 5 of the people who attend the study accepted Christ and have been visiting the church.
Prayer Request:
Please pray for the upcoming National Youth Retreat on April 5th to 8th. We are really hoping all the youth can come because it is a weekend that changes many lives all over the country.

also my grandmother form my father´s side is really sick.

Ministry Challenges:

¨I want my youth group to grow weekly not only in number but spiritually. I also want to be a good model for them to follow because we as leaders get attacks from the enemy all the time and we can not let the evil win that battle. We want to continue being an impact in our community.¨

Family News:
My family is doing well and we are exited about having my sisters coming down sometime this year to visit us from the states.
I have been doing all my paper work to go to the states this year. There are lots of reasons why I want to go to visit before summer. I want to visit my family, my mom has to go to KY for her doctor check up every once or twice a year (she is ok don’t worry) and I figure I might go with her, because she has to go sometime in may and around that date, my friends are graduating from college, I want to be there for that. Also I really want to visit those friends who have been supporting me financially and with your prayers. I know you guys want to hear more about what its going on here; I’m sure if I’m standing next to you I can show and explain more everything I have been doing down here, at least it would be better than just a reading update… so please pray for this purpose because it is really hard for us to get a visa, I know it should be easier for me because I have been in the US already but with them you never know.
My appointment with the American consul is on April 19th, in other words, this is the day when I find out whether I will be able to visit you guys or not (at least for now).

How is God working in you?
God has been showing me what he can do in my life only if I let him. He has been sowing me all these great projects for the future that some might seen impossible but with his help I am going for it. I have been preaching in different churches around our city and the youth from those churches are really on fire for God, this really inspires me to continue doing God’s work.
God has been opening a lot of doors through music, there have been happening things that I never expected to happen in my life. There has been so many people inviting me and my whole youth group to perform songs and dramas; it has been hard to believe. All these activities we have performed are free, we are not charging money or anything like that and somehow God always provides when the money is need it. Also it makes me proud to see how our youth group has become the youth group that all the churches look up to; like our youth group has been acting with a lot of leadership everywhere we go, and I can see that other youth groups have been appreciating that. They really have become role models, and I’m proud to say that. I really hope you guys can come down here sometime in a mission trip or just to visit me because I want you all to see with your own eyes what I’m talking about, it’s really cool to see it happening.

Again, thank you for all your prayer support and financially also. Many of the activities we do wouldn’t be possible if it wasn’t because your support, so I pray that God can continue blessing you and your families and your churches, thank you for everything and hopefully one day I’ll get to see some of you down here.

In Christ,
Isaias Gabriel

2007-01-30T13:30:00.000-08:00

JANUARY 2007

NAME: Isaias Gabriel

Ministry Highlights/Praises:
1 All the youth are very exiting about the up coming youth conference. Also I have been talking to a lot of no Christian youth about it and they are very positive about it.
2 In the month of February we have some cool activities coming up. One of then being a special service for Saint Valentines´ day.

Projects Working on:
• I just started to organized a new small group that I´m going to start with some friends who have step away from church and they have tell me that they need some kind of mentoring to stay strong in their faith; I believe a small group can be very effective.
• In two weeks we have the baseball clinic that we organized every year in our city.
• Writing new songs for my music ministry. I get to perform every time we have a youth activity that requires a couple songs; I’m just ready for it.
• We have been writing a drama to perform it at church, it´s going to be cool and full of excitement; we are very happy because it has been coming together very good, and hopefully we´ll have it ready to be perform by next month.

Ministry Challenges:
¨To start a fire within every leader of our youth group so we can conquer our community for Christ.¨

Familly News:
1 Last weekend I when and visit some cousins I have in Santo Domingo and I had a great time, they always visit me but I never get to visit them.
2 Some of my family members when to Cuba to visit a pastor there, I´m really hoping Fidel Castro does not die this week because the country would go crazy.

Prayer Requests:
• The worship team of our church.
• Kendy´s family (one of my teachers at college).
• The revival in February.
• My father´s health.

How’s God working in you?

In the last couple days God has been showing me ways to be more effective in my community. I have been learning more and more about how to be a man of testimony, I know it is hard but we have to be. The testimony is the most important weapon for the Christian because everybody has their eyes on us. People are just waiting to watch us fall so they can take us down.
I remember a pastor that said: ¨preach the word of God in every circumstance of your life and if you have to, open your mouth.¨ it was something like that, the thing is that at the moment the preacher said these words, I realized how effective that could be. I´ve been trying to do that with my life because if I can do that, I will be able to bring more people to Christ without even talking, can you imagine how powerful could that be? I believe that is my goal for this year, I want to be a light in my community 24/7, I want to impact lives with my testimony, not with my knowledge. The bible says:

¨Seek first the kingdom of God above all things, and live righteously, and he will give you everything you need.¨
Mathew 6:33
Love,
Isaias Gabriel

2007-01-30T12:15:00.000-08:00

DECEMBER 2006

NAME: Isaias Gabriel

Ministry Highlights/Praises:
1 I had to receive a mission group (the George family)during Christmas week. I have to say that everything when smoothly.
2 The youth group has been very exiting about this New Year. They have been attending all our activities with joy.

Projects Working on:
• We have been organizing an evangelistic revival that is going to take place at the local basketball court next February 11.
• We are thinking about organizing a youth retreat maybe next month.
• Writing new songs for my music ministry. I get to perform every time we have a youth activity that requires a couple songs; I’m just ready for it.
• Getting ready for the national youth retreat in April.
• Going to a youth conference in January 28th.

Ministry Challenges:
¨To rescue those Christians who have step away from church.¨

Familly News:
1 This was an awesome Christmas because I had a good time with my family and also a bunch of my cousins came to visit me and spent New Years eve with me. I really enjoyed having them around.
2 On December 28th my dad turned 60 years old; we had a b-party for him.

Prayer Requests:
• This year I don’t want to do anything that is away from God’s will. I want him to always be the center of my decisions.
• We need a sound system. Most of the churches we go to do not have sound system available and the ones that do have one, it sounds terrible.
• Kendy´s family (one of my teachers at college).
• Our church is planning a huge revival for this coming February that it is going to be huge. We are going to need a lot of prayers because if this revival goes smoothly our church is not going to have space to hold all the new Christians that are going to come.

How’s God working in you?

Well this was the first time ever that I took care of a missions group. During that one week I learned lots of new things; I have always worked with missions groups but this one was diferent because it wasn´t a group with a bunch of diferent people from a church, this group was a family, a very nice and humble family. It was a cool experience, I learned a lot from it. I kind of feel like I can be of more help now for the ministry, and I also thanks the ministry for trusting me with a group.
In this last two months I have been thinking about a lot of new things. There have been lots of questions in my head about ministry and my future. I want to be doing the right thing; I don’t want to waste my life. I know, I have been doing ministry non-stop since June, but I never like to stop and say ¨¨ this is what I’m suppose to do¨¨ I wish it could be that easy but is not. I’m the kind of person that is always open to start something new. I never know what my next move is going to be, so what I’m saying is that I want you guys to keep me in your prayers because I know God wants to do big things with me, I want him to keep showing me the way of how to do things properly because I just want to be his vassal.
I have been really happy with the youth lately because they really have been enjoying the activities lately, I could see they have been having a lot of fun and at the same time they have been learning more about God which is the main thing. Over Christmas break bunch of my friends back in the states got married, I really wanted to be there for then but I could not… maybe next time lol.

Well, you guys be good, and I love you all…
In Christ,
Isaias Gabriel

2006-12-13T07:17:00.000-08:00

NOVEMBER 2006

Name: Isaias Gabriel

Ministry Highlights/Praises:
1 A few weeks ago we organized a church dinner to raised money for the youth and the whole ¨¨selling food¨¨ idea was a big success.
2 The ages 18 to 24 of our youth in growing and besides that they are all getting involve in all the activities we do.
3 In our youth group we have a lot of non believers coming to our activities.

· Projects Working on:
· Next Saturday we have a big bonfire with food, worship, sermon, etc.
· In January we are taking the youth to the mountains for two days. They had been there before and they love it, so we are going to take advantage of that and we are going to make that the best retreat ever.
· I’m working on new songs for my rap ministry. I get to perform every time we have a youth activity that requires a couple songs; I’m just ready for it.
· We are organizing a church revival from Dec. 22 to 24. That’s going to be big and we hope that because of this we can gain more youth for our church.

Ministry Challenges:
¨During our youth group meetings we do not want to see empty sits.¨

Family News:
1 My grand mother is better, she is out of the hospital now and she is adjusting to her new life. For those of you who don’t know, my grand father just died like 3 months ago so that hit her hard. She was depressed but through the hospital attention and all the prayers she is better now.

Prayer Requests:
· Please keep me in your prayers everyday because I want to be an example for all these youth. I want to show them the life that Christ lived without me falling down.
· We need a sound system. Most of the churches we go to do not have sound system available and the ones that do have one, it sounds terrible.
· My grand mother’s health.
· Our church is planning a huge revival for this coming February that it is going to be huge. We are going to need a lot of prayers because if this revival goes smoothly our church is not going to have space to hold all the new Christians that are going to come.

How’s God working in you?
I can say that God is using me in different areas, worship team, discipleship, youth, rap, etc. but I have been praying for my future… sometimes I wonder ¨¨what am I going to be doing in 5 years?¨¨ this is a question that goes through my head all the time. I want to serve him, but I want to be the best at it. Don’t miss understand this please because when I say that I mean if I am a youth ministry, I want to be the best at it, if God is using me through rap music I also want to be the best at it, if I’m the worship leader I want to be the best at it…
I realized that the only way I can become the best at everything I do is through prayers. Because being the best youth ministry doesn’t mean to be the guys who can come up with more activities, no. it means to do whatever you do under God’s direction. I know that if I lift my self to him he is going to bless me and my ministry. This is not about you college education, this is not about any of our human abilities this is about humbling our self and putting God first in everything we do.
Like I say, I’m just working on being a good example for my youth group. I want them to see Jesus attitude in me. The only way I can accomplish that is by having you all praying for me all the time, and I will keep looking for God’s example, which I want to follow.
Thank you for taking time to read this, thanks for supporting me, thanks for your friendship and thank you for letting God be the first in your life.

In Christ,
Isaias Gabriel

2006-11-17T11:30:00.000-08:00

October 2006

Name: Isaias Gabriel

Ministry Highlights/Praises:
Our church is growing and our youth group is becoming stronger as the days go by.
This summer ended with good results all over. We had many missions´teams over the summer and everything when perfect thanks to God.
Two weeks ago, we took an evangelistic team up to the mountains. We spent the day evangelizing their area and we had a great response, it was a blessing for all of us.

Projects Working on:
We have been organizing many new activities for this end of the year.
Started a prayer group that meets every wensday.
A lot of practicing with the worship band of our church.
We are encharge of a church dinner on sunday.

Ministry Challenges:
To dobble up the number of youth in our youth group.

Family News:
My grandmother is sick. She is in the hospital right now (please pray for her)

Prayer Requests:
The new proyects that our church has.
We really need a vehicle to facilitate the transportation of these evangelism activities.
We need a sound system. Most of the churches we go to do not have a sounds system available and the ones that do have one, it sounds terrible.
My grandmother.

How’s God working in you?
I´m exitting for next year because our church is planning to built a new building, we don´t know when yet but the church has been making some remarkable changes lately. In all the new proyects that we have, i have been really involve because i know this changes are coming from God. He wants this things to happen and I´m all for that.
One of the big new things that we are introducing to the church is small groups. But the main thing is that we are trying to keep the entire church involve in this. So far, the 80% of the church is involve in small groups. I believe we are going to have more than 45 houses with small groups from our church. That is somethingbig, this is something that is keeping us busy and is keeping the members exitted about the new plans.
Another new thing in our church is the worship. We are making the transition from traditional to contemporany worship. This is not an easy change to make but it has been working so far, the church has been suporting it. By the way, I never though i was ever going to be involve in any worship team... I felt God was calling me for it, and now I am part of my church worship team. It has been a blessing, God has been using me in that area too. I want you guys to keep this in your prayers please because i just want to be the perfect instrument for God. I want to keep a good testimony and a good example for others to follow.
I´m keeping you guys in my prayers thanks for involvement in my ministry. I´m doing what i love to do thanks to God and thanks to all of you so may God keep blessing you and your families.

In Christ´s name,
Isaias Gabriel

2006-10-10T14:10:00.000-07:00

Update #1

Ministry Highlights/Praises:

1 Our mission trip to Colombia was a success. We accomplish our mission and we made a lot of life time friendships. We have been praising God for the time that he allowed us to be there and for the protection that was surrounding us the whole time.

2 Our church is heading to a different direction. All the leaders of our church have new projections for next year. Last week we started to train the leaders of our church. We have been using DVD's from a Hispanic Theology school that is offer online.

Projects Working on:
· We are taking a training program to prepare more all the leaders of our church.
· Working in a lot of new songs for the rap ministry.
· Planning all the youth activities for the next couple months to come.
· Playing volleyball alone with the coordinator of the sports' ministry (Will Partin) with the purpose of reaching out to more youth.
· Planning some revivals with some local churches.

Ministry Challenges:
1 To lead our church in a direction that will be effective.

Family News:
1 My mom doesn't have to go back to the States for her cancer rehabilitation check up, which means that now she is fully recover from her preview Cancer and she is completely heal.

Prayer Requests:
· The new projects that our church has.
· We really need a vehicle to facilitate the transportation of these evangelism activities.
· We need a sound system. Most of the churches we go to do not have a sounds system available and the ones that do have one, it sounds terrible.

How’s God working in you?

In my mission trip to Colombia I learn a lot of new stuff. I became very familiar with the church in the sense that they gave me an opportunity to get involve with them in their ministry. Their organization and their spirituality were my favorite things of their church. For every area in the church, they have different leaders in charge of it. Sometime we tent to do everything, and that isn't effective.
I when to Colombia with 13 men. We all knew that the purpose of God with that trip was not only the building of the school there but to learn new ways to reach people for Christ. I feel bless and very happy for that opportunity that i had because i came back to my country with a new mind set to work in my church. This is kind of hard to explain but the truth is that while I was at school I learn a lot of things. I knew about God and his plan for his church; but now, on top of that. I learned a lot of techniques of how to get to people. My trip to Colombia was like a closing to everything I have already learned at school. Seeing what God was doing in Colombia was like a confirmation from God of what he wants me to do here in my country.
The reason why this excites me so much is because all the leaders in my church are involve in this wave of changes. We divided the youth in three different ages:
14 to 17 (Adolescents) Carolina Peralta is in charge of this age group.
18 to 24 (Youth) Leandro Gomez and I are in charge of this group.
25 to 30's (Young adults) Vladimir Rosario and my brother Samir Gabriel.

The reason why we divided our youth is because the same teachings that would be relevant for 28 years old man is not going to be relevant for a 20 years old guy, neither the teachings that would be relevant for a 15 years old kid are not going to be effective for a 21 years old guy. Of course, we have some other people in charge of the younger kids. But it was a big problem for us to have all the ages together in our youth group, because many of our youth would have a great spiritual growth but then the older youth never grew because they were out of their environment.

By dividing the different age groups we have the opportunity to help them out more in their needs, and hopefully they can find and environment where they can feel comfortable and they can grow more spiritually. It's also going to help them to grow as Christians and to help others grow.

While I was in Colombia I had the opportunity to perform a couple songs in the presence of 700 people or more. It was great; it was something I really enjoyed. I also did a lot of construction work, I had to make an speech to the middle school kids about the Dominican Republic and about all the work that G.O. Ministries does here in our country. It was enjoyable to see how the kids were exited to hear about our country and all. I know all of you guys are very exiting to hear about my trip to Colombia, I posted a few pictures from my trip to Colombia so you guys can have an idea of what I was doing. I also have a few pictures of me preaching in my church in Dominican; It was a tuff sermon, it was against tradition, I really enjoyed!

Please keep praying for me because God is doing amazing things here. I never knew i was going to be part of something as big as this. Thanks for your prayers that i know are always with me and thanks very much for you financial support, you guys are doing something big for God's kingdom.

In Christ,
Isaias Gabriel