Back in November I was presented with the opportunity to receive New Testaments. Biblica Publishing and Group Publishing had begun a project to send Spanish New Testaments all over Latin and South America. We were going to receive a few thousand for Unidos por El. Unidos por El is the Christian event where we had artists come every weekend in February. We wanted New Testaments to give to the people that received Christ at the event. There were thousands of people that came each weekend. However, we had shipping problems and were not able to receive the New Testaments until March. God still had a plan.
There were many different problems in the shipping process. At first, we were not able to find an address where the Bibles could be shipped to. Next, they took too long in the shipping process and arrived in the Dominican Republic after the event. When they arrived in port, the customs agents decided to tax the backpacks that were sent with the Bibles. These backpacks were colored by children in the United States to give along with the Bibles. The customs agents said that they were done too professionally and said we had to come up with $2,000 in two weeks. The money was provided and we received the Bibles a few days later. I have to say thank you to so many people that had a hand in this process.
We finally received the Sports New Testaments and now we have the job of handing them out to people that need God's Word. That process has started as we have given away over 1,000 of the 6,000 that we received. The first group to receive Bibles were about 30 students from the Haitian school that we built. Since then, we have given Bibles to Christian business owners, drug rehabilitation programs (Teen Challenge), pastors, medical clinics, an orphanage, and other ministries. I will be giving 200-300 to a ministry that does evangelism in the worst park in Santiago for drug users and prostitution. The most memorable to me is when we had a week of sports camps. We gave backpacks and New Testaments to 200 kids at different sports camps in the Rails. We were also able to share testimonies and give New Testaments to about 75 baseball players at the local stadium. Some of these kids are the players that I work with in the afternoon.
I am still receiving phone calls from pastors and ministry leaders who want Bibles and backpacks. Many of them work with youth and some even do sports stuff. This couldn't have been possible without the help of many people. I have to specifically thank Rich Blanco from Biblica Publishing for giving us the Bibles. Rose Pauly for coordinating things inside the US. Mitch Martinez for the many phone calls here in the Dominican Republic. Timberline Church for allowing a place for people to donate money for the shipping costs. I also want to thank every person who gave towards getting the Bibles in this country. I know that many of you have been praying and will continue to pray that these Bibles get into the right hands, and that lives will be changed. If you would like to see more pictures please visit http://www.facebook.com/paulymissions. You can like and follow the page to get more updates on what is happening in the Dominican Republic. If you would like more information on how to get involved in this project, or projects like this, please email dominicanmissions@yahoo.com. Thank you for everything. God bless!