Life in the Village

Spending time in Chichigua and Algedonez village with the Rowlands.  Great time getting to meet and hang out with the people. Great exposure for the kids as well and allowing them to see how much these people need and rely on our Lord! 

 Randomly passed this guy who had a Hog hat on! New friend. Wooohh Pig Sooie!

 Our friend Ollie made these chairs for us. Awesome!

Not many things in life more beautiful than a Dominican sunset! We are so blessed to have a God who cares enough about us to let us enjoy and be so impressed by the works of His hands!!!

If you want more pictures please visit our Facebook page www.facebook.com/DominicanLifeUnleashed there are albums full. 

Please continue to pray for us and that the name of the Lord would be magnified among the nations!!!

Class has started! Downline DR 2012-2013

Our Downline DR class has started! We had a great turnout for the start with 58 students! With help from our translator and co-teacher, Roosevelt, we taught 9 discipleship lessons in one week. It was awesome! We have loved getting to meet the new students and hear about their stories.  We look forward to what God is going to do through these men and women and our relationships with them! 

 Dr Chris Rowland teaching the Great Commission... He is excited as you can tell! Haha

 Multiplication! Powerful and genius strategy of Jesus Christ.

As we left at the end of the week we couldn't help but smile knowing that Satan was not happy with what just happened.  There was a dangerous and endless amount of power and potential as these men and women rode, walked, or drove away back to their homes and villages.  Only God knows the potential of a seed to produce a great harvest that could fill the earth! We look forward to the continuation of teaching and training as we get to be apart of God reaching the nations!

Pray that the seed will be rooted deep in their hearts and grow and produce great fruit. 

 Disciple: World Visionary, World Impacting, Radically Committed, Follower, Learner, and Reproducer of Jesus Christ!

Ana Maria - 8/31/12

This morning was very bitter/sweet.  We received information that our dear friend Ana Maria lost her battle to liver cancer early this morning.  She left behind her very loving husband and 6 young children.  At only 42 years old she went to be with the Lord.  We rejoice because she is no longer suffering from pain in this earthly body but at the same time we shed tears for our brother and his children for their loss and the loss of a great woman on this earth. Her funeral will be tomorrow morning at 8 am. Please keep the family in your prayers.  Since her husband has exhausted all of his money on taking care of Ana Maria and the children we are going to try and help pay for her funeral.  If you feel led to help with expenses for getting this single father of 6 back on his feet and providing food for his kids we would greatly appreciate it.  If you send money to our support fund at Downline Ministries, please specify that you are giving to Ana Maria's family. Thank you.

Sometimes God answers our prayers in ways that are different than what we thought.  As we prayed for Him to heal her and take away her pain He said "Yes" and took her home to a better place where she could be pain free and worship the God of hope and healing forever and ever.  One day we will see her again and that will be a great day!

We love you, our sister in Christ.

Ana Maria - Went Home 8/31/12

Conference in Haiti

We recently got back from teaching at a discipleship conference in Haiti. Crossing the border was a great adventure in itself! Everyone wanted to see our passports and when they saw the white men they all said that they were the "boss".  Good thing Roosvelt was able to straighten things out and by Gods grace we didn't run into too many problems. One of our students from last year, Pastor Joseph actually organized the whole conference and for the first time we had 2 Haitians teaching some of the curriculum (Roosvelt, and Joseph).  It was amazing to not only get to share God's truth with these new friends of ours but also to watch native men boldly and passionately teach their Haitian brothers and sisters about discipleship!  We have many more pictures of our trip on our Facebook page (Dominican Life Unleashed) if you would like to look at them.

As you can tell we were in a very "modest" church (to put it in their words), back in a very poor and remote village, but our God has no boundaries and was so powerful and gracious to work in all of our hearts! We look forward to the day we can go back and follow up with these men and women to see the amazing things God has done and the discipleship that has already begun to take place!  It is very encouraging to see the fire in their eyes and the passion and desire to obey what the Lord has commanded all of us to do.

Matthew 28:19-20....  "And I will be with you always even to the end of the age."

Worship Has Only 1 Language

 I was blessed to get to lead worship before our friend Henry's meeting last Monday night. Songs in English, Spanish, and of course Creole.

 It was incredible to watch these Haitians cry out in praise to our Father in Creole and us white people sing in English.  Just so comforting and powerful to know that God is the same God over ALL the Earth!

This man below is Henry.  He is a Downline student from last year who has truly caught the vision for discipleship and has a great passion to teach Gods word.  We are excited about the opportunity to work along side of him and help equip these saints for the work of service and making disciples of all nations!

Indescribable... Uncontainable... You Place the Stars in the Sky and You Know Them By Name!

Wow I can't believe we have been here 2 weeks... We have done so much and the Lord has shown us more than we could ever ask for! I am going to put up lots of pictures for this blog post and explain them because my words just can't do it justice.

 This is Maria.. She has just been diagnosed with liver cancer.  Her husband, who is in the picture below in the back ground and grey shirt, went through the Downline Institute last year and has sold everything he has and has stopped working so that he can take care of her.  The problem is that they have 6 children as well with mouths to feed.  Please pray for healing for Maria.  She is such a sweet lady and loves Jesus but needs His healing power right now.

 These are Maria's friends and her husband who love her dearly.

 This was my little friend in the village that day! We played "try on my stuff" for a long time :) He was so cute.

 Not many things better than a Dominican sunset... Our God is an amazing artist isn't He!?

 Thankful that the Rowland family made it down safely and very thankful for their support as I spoke to the people of Ascension village last night and taught Ephesians 1.  (Stephan and Sarah Rowland with Haitian Kids)

Teaching in Ascension Village with Rosvelt translating.  We would be lost without Him! He is such a stud and is willing to help with anything. God is really using this man to make disciples!

 The next 3 pictures all tie together.  The man on the left in the picture above is Ardly.  He is a Downline graduate who left this past Friday to go back to Haiti in hopes to preach the Gospel to his people and hopefully go back to school.  He had a dream that he would teach his people the bible and about discipleship and one thing we have learned is that the Haitians feel they are spoken to through dreams.  After hearing some of their dreams I am a full believer that God uses that in a mighty way.  Many dreams (prophecies) have been fulfilled that they have seen! It's really awesome.

The man on the right of the picture above is Henry.  Henry is a graduate of the Downline institute who, as the book of James says, is a "do'er" of the word.  He has taken the word of God back to his village and made many disciples! He started meeting with 5 people last year every Monday night and teaching them scripture and just doing life with them. The two pictures below are what we got to experience tonight as fruits of his labor. 60 people now come gather together in this little dirt courtyard every Monday and Tuesday night to hear the words of our Lord from Henry!!!  It was the most amazing experience! Henry has now asked if I (Parker) would come back on Mondays and lead worship for them with some songs translated to Creole! I am so excited!  Gods presence was so thick in that place you could almost cut it with a knife!  Now that is what "Church" is supposed to be like! Brad and I were just in awe.

As you can see God is moving and up to many things here in the Dominican Republic and so much more is to come! Our house is finally coming together, we got furniture today (hand made, bamboo) and a man from Canada has offered to buy Bill and the ministry a fishing boat that we found for sale, so that we can start our Fishing Ministry.  That project is projected to start at the end of September so please pray that the Lord continues to work all the details out, which He always does, or maybe more-so that we trust Him and can see how to best serve Him!

Thank you for all the support and prayers! We desperately need them and appreciate them.

Fighting the fight in the DR...

Parker and Brad

 We officially made today SUN-Day!  Went down to the local surfer beach to enjoy the Lords amazing creation!

Getting better with this new camera... Looks like a postcard that should read "We are saving your seat"!
These were are make-shift lawn chairs that ended up working great!

We picked up some drift wood as we were hangin out and thought it might be fun to decorate the house with or paint verses on and hang up.  Just gotta be a little creative and it can go a long way!

Every day we are like kids in a candy store and blown away by Gods amazing creation and honored that we get to enjoy it.  It seems like everywhere we turn there is something new to see and enjoy!

Hope the Lord taught you something today and that you grew closer to HIM!