TAN Mission Report – April 2025 – Dominican Republic 2025

We have been ministering in the Dominican Republic on a regular basis for more than twenty years, working with our long-time friends, Tim and Trena Johnson.  Over the years, we have brought numerous mission teams to minister in schools, churches, and open-air outreaches.  In addition, both of us have ministered in a majority of the local churches and held many pastors’ conferences for leaders from throughout the nation.  On our recent visit, we were thrilled to be reminded of the remaining fruit of previous missions as numerous individuals shared how our ministry over the years had blessed their lives and ministries.  Many recited specific points from sermons and lessons we had taught years ago, and others mentioned how the books we had published in Spanish have impacted them.

 This mission was a “two-for-one” as we had originally planned the trip to hold a pastors’ conference but were later asked by a pastor whom we are mentoring as he is planting a new church to help him organize his congregation’s first mission trip.  Since the Johnsons have a well-equipped mission compound, we suggested that the mission team consider coming with us to the Dominican Republic.  The pastor readily agreed, reminding me that he had been to the Dominican Republic and stayed at the compound on a mission trip when he was in Bible college.

We could sense divine favor on this trip even before we left Colorado.  We left early to drive to Denver, which turned out to be a very good thing because we discovered that we had not filled out the necessary online arrival forms for entry into the Dominican Republic.  Delron’s laptop was acting up and wouldn’t accept the information he was trying to enter.  Amazingly, a lady who was sitting next to us overheard our conversation and said that she was also going to the Dominican Republic and had just successfully filled out her form on her iPad.  She took all our information, completed our forms, and emailed the necessary QR codes to us.  The amazing thing about this “coincidence” is the flight that we were checking in for was the one to Newark, not to the Dominican Republic!  In addition, even though the lady was going to Newark on the same flight with us, she was not connecting to the same flight to the Dominican Republic; she was on a different flight to a different city in the country.  The odds that she would be at the same seat with us in the Denver airport are too incredible to imagine other than it was divinely orchestrated!  On top of that, she was wearing an NCSU (Delron’s alma mater) sweatshirt!

The public schools in the Dominican Republic have an open-door policy for churches and ministries that wish to minster to the students.  In addition, each school has two sessions per day – with half of the students coming in the morning and the others coming in the afternoon – to accommodate the student population with their limited facility capacity.  We took advantage of this opportunity and visited two schools each day.  In each school, the mission team presented dramas with a gospel lesson, did a puppet performance, sang in Spanish with the students, shared their testimonies, and gave a clear evangelistic message with a call for salvation.  Tim, our host, said that he had been ministering in prisons for fifty years but had recently realized that it would be more effective to bring the gospel to children before they get involved in lifestyles that will land them in jail; so, he constructed a replica of a jail cell on the back of his pickup truck and brought it to one of the schools where the assembly was to be held in an outdoor courtyard.  An ex-inmate shared his life story through the bars with a powerful impact that the students will long remember.

The highlight of the week was the pastors’ conference with about three hundred delegates who eagerly received Delron’s instruction and encouragement on how to live in the authority of the Holy Spirit with power, love, and a sound mind rather than in fearful intimidation about sharing the gospel.  With equal enthusiasm, they embraced Peggy’s teaching on operating in the gifts of the Spirit.  The session closed with a time of impartation as many of the delegates came forward for prayer to receive the baptism in the Holy Spirit or for a fresh release of His anointing upon their lives and ministries.  As the pastors left the meeting hall, we gave each one a complimentary copy of the Spanish edition of Delron’s book on the infilling of the Holy Spirit.

We ended the week of ministry by splitting up to minister in three separate churches with Delron, Peggy, and the mission team each visiting a different church for their Sunday morning service.  After the services ended, we came back together for our concluding outreach in an economically depressed area where we were able to not only share the gospel and pray for the people’s needs but also give each family a gift bag of their staple food source – rice and beans.

Many lives were changed through the ministry and prayers in the schools and churches, but even more lives will be impacted through the ministries that were empowered at the pastors’ conference and through the teachings in the book that they will be studying afterwards.