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Our family has been on the mission field in the Dominican Republic (DR) since 1991. Steve works with the Christian Reformed Church here. Sandra teaches 4th grade at the International School of Santo Domingo, where our children Mark and Hannah are students. Our two oldest children live in the States: Rebecca in New Jersey while Jesse lives in Sioux Center, Iowa.
VISION
We envision a family of Spirit-led ministries in the DR that are used by God to transform lives, communities, and society.
MISSION
Our mission is to serve our ministry partners in the DR by equipping them to proclaim the Good News of Christ’s multi-faceted Kingdom.
MISSION WORK
Steve’s main assignment in the DR is to serve alongside our ministry partners, the Christian Reformed Schools in the DR, and the Dominican Christian Reformed Church, a denomination made up of nearly 200 congregations.
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Steve’s focus on church growth and development includes evangelism, discipleship, church planting, denominational structure, and church construction. The Christian Reformed Schools in the DR is a coalition of 21 schools. All of these ministries work towards the development and training of leaders to multiply the ministry. Our team also works with community development, reconciliation and justice issues. Between the church, schools, and other related ministries, we estimate that our work is directly impacting around 25,000 people in the DR.
Here is a snapshot of some recent ministry developments:
1. The Ministry Center Project: Recent service teams and donations have permitted the second floor of the Ministry Center to finally be completed. The space will be used for church, school and mission offices, conference and class rooms, as well as a space for ministry to take place. Take a look at the Ministry Center webpage: http://www.geocities.com/cmn.icrrd. This location allows us to better fulfill our vision to work more closely together with our partners. We have facilitated other construction projects since January 2009, including two new church buildings and four homes for pastors.
2. The Christian Reformed Reconciliation Team in the DR has held two conference/workshops in the past year, in which nearly 60 leaders with strategic roles in the Christian Reformed Church and schools have been trained and mobilized to become reconcilers in their places of service. This is vital to Kingdom transformation in a country in which major racial and national discrimination and challenges exist, including within the Christian community.
3. Steve is supporting strategic church planting and development by the Christian Reformed Church in the DR in two areas: first, in Las Mercedes, Pedernales, a remote mountainous area near the Haitian border; secondly, in Bávaro/Punta Cana, a tourist area on the extreme eastern end of the island. Both of these areas have newly formed CRC congregations, and the denomination wants to assist them to become a full fledged classes. Steve has visited these areas with denominational leaders and church planters, and the Lord has been providing fruit in the form of new leadership and church plants, conversions, and baptisms. Pastor Antonio Vasquez, in Las Mercedes, and Evangelist Martín Ovíl, in Bávaro, are the point-men in these initiatives.
4. One ministry that has been consistently fruitful has been evangelistic and discipleship cell groups. Since 1999, in conjunction with the Bible League and Evangelism Explosion, we have worked in training and mobilizing churches all over the country to develop evangelical and discipleship cell groups. Since February three cell groups in our local church, totaling 34 participants, have completed a study of the Gospel of John. There have been seven conversions and four baptisms of new believers.
Please pray for our mission team in the DR, these ministries, and the hundreds of Christian Reformed Church and school leaders here. We count on these prayers to sustain and support us and our work.
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