Missions

Dominican Republic Missions Trip 2012

Posted by Alan on Feb 15, 2012 in events, missions, news | 0 comments

We are excited to announce our 2012 Missions Trip to the Dominican Republic!

Check out video footage of last year’s trip, as well as pics and testimonies!

CLICK HERE

Dominican Republic Missions Trip Update 2011 – Day 5

Posted by Alan on Jul 19, 2011 in missions | 1 comment

What a great way to end our trip.

Today we spent the morning in the capital of Santo Domingo.
We went to the straw market to do some shopping for our wonderful, benevolent, kind, beautiful families. After a while, we walked down the market street to get some pizza. Along the way we handed out Bibles and tracts. It was amazing to see the reaction! Construction workers climbed down from the rooftops to grab a Bible. We all thought it was so cool to see a hunger for truth, for the Word of God. Once we handed out all 400+ Bibles, we ate our pizza. Surprisingly it was really good! Afterwards we walked around to see the first church established in the Americas. Outside the kids played with a flock of pigeons that were gathering in the square.

We ventured out to our last destination: An orphanage for children with AIDS. Most of us agreed that this was our favorite orphanage. These kids aren’t visited as much as the other orphanages. As you can see from the photos, we fell in love with all of the warm hearts that hugged, kicked, played, and sang with us. After our usual spanish song and skit, we prayed a prayer of blessing over their lives. Many of them are already Christians and so we encouraged them to the best of the ability that God has given us.

The SCORE missionaries that were with us told us how much we blessed them by our love for the children. I have to say that the kids have been such good representatives of our church. The other groups here have been pretty rowdy and messy, so we have been doing our best to clean and be respectful of the hotel facility. One of the managers here told us how much she will miss us and how she always looks forward to our specific group every year.

These students have truly been a blessing.

Tomorrow we fly out back to New Jersey, and Lord willing, we will get home right in time for Ignite youth group! We plan on sharing testimonies of our experience as well as reflecting on the Lord’s blessings.

Please continue to pray for a couple of our kids/leaders that have been feeling unwell, for the ministry we planted and watered here, and for a safe flight home.

-Alan Kahn

Check out the photos HERE

Dominican Republic Missions Trip Update 2011 – Day 4

Posted by Alan on Jul 18, 2011 in missions | 0 comments

It is day 4!

This morning we spent our time buying food for all 150 families for a sugarcane village in a supermarket called JUMBO. Each student grabbed a shopping cart and followed the person in front of them. It was interesting to see 29 people crowding up the supermarket with full carts. One leader, Cathy Edelman handed a Spanish Bible to one JUMBO employee. He received it with gladness and called his other co-workers over so they each could get one! She along with a couple other students had good conversation with them while the shopping bags were being packed.

In the afternoon, we headed over to the village w/ Pastor Manny. The village had a beautiful church that was filled to the brim with people. They were very attentive to our skit and our Spanish song. Aaron Gruenthal shared his testimony, and then one missionary named Craig gave a gospel message.

Afterwards we played with the kids for a while and were able to bless the entire village’s kids with beanie babies.

Something that really stood out to me today was that a couple of the students weren’t feeling well, but they wanted to continue in ministering to the kids anyway. Although we took the appropriate measures regardless, (they’re fine now, thanks for the prayers) I was blessed to see that they just wanted to keep loving.

Tomorrow we are heading out to the capital,

Keep us in prayer, there has been so much going on!

Check out the pictures HERE

Dominican Republic Missions Trip Update 2011 – Day 3

Posted by Alan on Jul 18, 2011 in missions | 1 comment

It has been a great relaxing day for us.

Sunday is the day that the missionaries take off to rest up and spend time with their families.
We got the chance to go to a Dominican church service. Pastor Avi taught a great message on what it means to serve Jesus. How getting close to Jesus matters the most.

After the service, we went to the beach! The water was crystal clear and refreshing. We ate out at a local pizza restaurant called El Sueno.

We are all thankful that God has led us this far in the trip. We are at the halfway point, and we are excited to see what the Lord will do!

-Alan Kahn

Check out the photos HERE

Dominican Republic Missions Trip Update 2011 – Day 2

Posted by Alan on Jul 16, 2011 in missions | 1 comment

It is day 2 here in the beautiful Dominican Republic.
Everyone is doing great!

Two of the leaders began to feel sick in the morning, but through prayer God was able to heal them completely and they were able to go out in ministry today.
We went to another sugarcane village this morning. This one had a lot of farm animals running around. It was interesting to see the mix of donkeys, horses, and motorcycles used for transportation. There was a local church in the village. When we sang our spanish songs for them, they begun to sing even louder than us! It was truly a blessing to see the children so excited over simple things like candy that costs us 50 cents.

After lunch, we headed over to La Romana where we visited a girl’s orphanage we visited last year. It was unbelievable to us that many of them could remember our names! Last year we only visited for an hour but it seems we made a huge impact on them. We played with them and gave them children’s Bibles and beanie babies.

Unfortunately, we ran out of time and only had 10 minutes to go to the small boy’s orphanage. However, it was still a great time where we got to touch hearts through giving.

Tomorrow will hopefully be a nice, relaxing day. We plan on going to attend a Dominican church service, then hit the local beach and restaurant!

Thanks for all the support so far, we miss you all!

-Alan Kahn

Check out the photos HERE

Dominican Republic Missions Trip Update 2011 – Day 1

Posted by Alan on Jul 15, 2011 in missions | 0 comments

Hello from the Dominican Republic!

We are praising God for all the wonderful ways He has already provided for our trip. We are very tired at the moment…most of us went to bed at midnight last night and woke up at 2:00am to drive to the airport together.

The flight was a smooth 4 hours. Security was very tight in the DR regarding traveling with minors but everything worked out perfectly. Last year we had a problem with people trying to pretend to be SCORE personnel and taking our luggage from us, this year there was no problems whatsoever! We got to the facility and got lunch, then headed straight to our first village called El Toro.

El Toro is a small village that does not have a developed education system, so the children aren’t very disciplined. They were hard to rally up and to quiet down for our skit and time of worship. Our hearts broke for the kids. Along with the lack of discipline they seemed to have a lack of touch. They just wanted to be held, hugged, given piggy-back rides, and to karate chop Alan (aka Jackie Chan).

As you can see from the pictures, the students did a wonderful job in relaying God’s love! At the end of our visit, the students performed two spanish songs and our evangelistic skit. Our missionary Shadrack translated a gospel message at the end and, Lord willing, the children that prayed the sinner’s prayer with us got to receive Jesus into their hearts. We were amazed and thankful of how the Lord provided the much needed energy to bless the village.

Afterwards we came back to the facility and had a time of R&R and devotions. Hopefully we will be able to catch up on rest tonight so that we can serve God to the best of our ability tomorrow!

We covet your prayers!

-Alan Kahn

Check out the photos HERE

Flight Info

Posted by Alan on Jul 11, 2011 in missions | 1 comment

We are still accepting donations if you have them! Please bring before Thursday, July 14th.

First Aid Kits (Band-Aids & Neosporin), Stickers, Punching Bag Balloons, Rocket Balloons, Baseballs, Frisbees, Baseball Cards, Bracelets/Necklaces/Hair things for girls, Ask stores if they are willing to donate. No clothing please – too heavy. No water (Cheaper to buy there).

Packing Party is Thursday July 14th, in the front of CCOB by the info counter! 6:00PM.