On the field Day 3 – Oh, what a night!

“Ha Fan” (
霞芬),  a sister of the Mandarin church, took us to San Pedro de Macoris to visit the Chinese there. On the way, we visited her fruit farm. San Pedro is about 1 hour from where we stay in Santo Domingo. After lunch, we split into 3 groups for visitation. There are not too many Chinese there. Basically they all run  “fried chicken” stores. (about 24 stores there). They open from 10 a.m. till late in the night (some of them even up to 2 a.m. ) We found some of them willing to listen to the gospel. We also came across a woman who moved here from Venezuela and she had attended the Chinese C&MA church there. However, we could only visit about 1/3 of the stores there because we needed to go back to Santo Domingo to prepare for the night gathering and we would be hitting the rush hour. In fact, it took us 2 hours to get back to our hotel!

Tonight we had the gathering in a different place – a sisters’ (Ah Sheung
阿嫦) restaurant in Chinatown. Even though we were told that it’s not too safe to be in Chinatown late at night since there had been a couple of  robbery incidents happened recently, we decided to go, trusting that our almighty God will provide us protection. Since tonight is the last night  in Santo Domingo, we changed our plan to adopt part of the Saturday Fiesta program for Santiago to make it an evangelical event.  

Sister “Ah Sheung” (阿嫦) had prepared dinner for the event. We found not only the restaurant was beautifully decorated, but the food were excellent, especially the mango fruit. Like Sai said, it’s “from heaven”! Then more people came to join us for the dinner. It’s a good opportunity to talk to them and get to know them. We were also excited to see a couple of familiar faces who we knew from Santiago and now they moved to Santo Domingo.  

After dinner we started the program. Bonnie & David led the singspiration, and people enjoyed the singing so much. Then followed by Celine’s testimony. People were really touched by her sharing (from a number of ladies feedback after meeting). After more singing, we did a drama. People loved it! Then Christina gave a short message and made the calling. 3 people accepted Christ to be their Lord & savior. PTL! Everyone of our team was so excited.

After the meeting, some people exchanged email addresses, Skype accounts  and even phone numbers with STM team. What’s more, a sister of the Mandarin church offered to start a Bible study with the Cantonese sisters (esp. the new believers) every Thursday night in the recent future. We praise God for His provision ! By the time we came back to hotel, it’s already past 1 a.m. but the excitement of our teammates was still there. We concluded the day with thanksgiving & praise to our God as we witnessed His grace of mercy on us and the people here. We thank for :-

- the sisters’ hospitality, the nice meeting place & good food

- God’s protection and travel mercy particularly at late night in a place not so safe as   people think. - for 3 new believers & the follow up care offered by a sister

- the willingness of the people to come to listen to God’s message in late night where robbery happened recently. 
Lord we thank you for the night and oh what a night in Santo Domingo! May Your name continue to be spread over the place & be glorified! Amen.