2 Weeks after our mission trip

Now that we have been back for 2 weeks, life is back to normal and it is nice to have nothing planned for awhile. As I look back at our trip I think about how it felt so right to be telling people about the way to have peace with God. It felt great to be generous and bring food to people who needed it. It was nice to visit people and pray with them. I even enjoyed the excitement of being in some unsafe places to tell people about Christ.

Going on a mission trip for the first time with our kids was very eye opening for them. They know the differences in ways of life in a new place. We were the minority and did not know the language but we learned how to understand a few words in each sentence. I had a confidence in the Lord and felt connected to people even though we were foreigners.

Since I am a thinker, I now wonder what God has for us next. What is the plan moving forward? I have confidence that God will lead us to how we can serve Him and use our passions, skills and talents. He wants us to do the things that He has put in our hearts. One thing I know is I fell in love with a little girl in the DR, the baseball team could use some financial help and so can some of the missionaries. We are praying about how we can help. We also enjoyed visiting the elderly lepers.

I pray that God would give us the means and more opportunities in the future to do similar things. I am so grateful for all of the people that prayed, supported us and helped in what the Lord was doing. It was a privilege to go and be the hands and feet for Jesus. Thank you.

Bringing Food, A Song and a Prayer

After the baseball practice, we went grocery shopping and bought some food for 5 families. The first house we went to was a lady with a 2 year old that had burns on about 80% of her body. She became a Christian in the hospital after nurses prayed over her.

The next 4 families we felt like blessing were from the baseball practice. I was overwhelmed with what I had heard before I went, so I prayed not to get emotional while I was there to spread joy with these kids. Some of them had no home, mom or dad so we gave the food to relatives. The kids had us sing "Jesus Loves Me" and "I have a Joy....Down in my heart" in Spanish at every house we visited. Even at a whisper in a home that had 5 kids sleeping on one bed. We prayed for the families and gave them the food. Rylee brought some necklaces she was too old for now to give to the girls. I told them that the Lord wanted us to give this to them. I knew that this was all money given to us as donations for supplies and had nothing to do with us.

Our Trip to the Ball Game

We ended up doing a few unexpected things on our trip like doing devotions at a baseball practice. We prayed with them to receive Christ after sharing the gospel. This is a team of boys led by a previous professional baseball player. He has made it his ministry, to go to the less fortunate villages and pick up these kids in vans and teach them baseball. Some of them are not educated, some are homeless. What a huge heart Marquet has!



















Rylee and Little C












Noah up to bat

The Leprosy Colony

While we were here, Richard shared the Gospel of Jesus. We handed out crosses and Billy Graham booklets about steps to peace with God, as well as sunglasses and magnifying glasses.

Dental Program at the School

We were able to give these things to the less fortunate kids because of you; toothbrushes, floss, toothpaste, crosses, Billy Graham New Believer booklets and a Valentine candy. We shared a bible story and music too. Thank you!!

Our visit at Casa De Luz

It was really great to share songs, a bible story, simple dental hygiene, toothbrushes, floss, toothpaste, bubbles, and nail polish with these kids. The girls were lined up to get their nails done. One girl in the wheel chair shared a bible story with us, a song and even prayed over us. :)

Church in Santo Domingo

Church was just like ours- contemporary music with the Word. Just in Spanish. We had translating missionaries with us at all times.

Where we stayed

The Day We Arrived

Arriving and being helped by missionaries to load up our suitcases. You can see Day-o-deez in this photo(his name is not spelled correctly but I want to remember how to say it).








Kings Kids Street Evangelism the night we arrived. There was dancing and the gospel was heard in the "hood" as one missionary said.

Our Mission Trip to the Dominican Republic

Feb 11th 2012 4am at Charlotte Airport ready to go to the DR. Don and Louisa were so gracious and dedicated to bring us to the airport!! :) We had an awesome time loving people and sharing the Good News of Jesus. Please click on the other headings to read about what we got to be part of during our stay.

Prayer 2-7-12

We leave in 3 days!!

Today we met at Richard's work with Todd Lesher,(our youth pastor) and our mentors Don and Louisa Nelson. They were missionaries for 18 years in Africa. It was such a joy to be prayed over and be encouraged by those that have gone before us. It helped us remember that we are one in Christ and that others are going with us in spirit.

Don is even going to be there on Sat. at 3:30am to send us off at the airport!!! I thank God for people who show this kind of love even when they don't have to. :)

Here are our prayer request before we go:

1. Pray for safety and no problems with flights or customs.
2. Pray for God to be exalted in all that we say and do.
3. Pray for the lost to be prompted to seek Christ.
4. Pray for our health.
5. Pray for us to be bold and share God's love thru our teachings, testimony,
songs, and puppet show.
6. Pray for our energy level to be upbeat and fun with the kids.
7. Pray for opportunities to touch peoples lives for Christ.

It is with a grateful heart that I thank you for your prayers. It means alot to us to know that you all are praying for God's will to be done and for us too.

I will post photos when I can. :)

Love, Tawnya, Richard, Noah and Rylee

In preparing our hearts for our mission trip this
Sat, this song inspires us.

Thank you Lord for your goodness and faithfulness.
Thank you for your mercy, sacrifices and abundant
LOVE for us. You are worthy to be praised. We
surrender to Your will. Please guide and direct us
with Your wisdom. We are your servants, help our
hearts to stay focused on you. Help us to love others
the way you do. You are worthy of all our praise and love.

We Got a Guitar!! :)

We got a email today from the mission compound and they found us a guitar! Yay!! Thanks for your prayers on that. God is so faithful to provide what we need to do His work. :) I will make sure to give you our prayer request another day this week. Its late, so I'm heading for bed now. Good night.

The Man who made the crosses

I wanted to mention the man who made the crosses we will be giving away on our trip. We had wanted to give the people of the DR crosses to remember that Jesus Loves them after we are gone. I found out about a man who is retired and makes cedar crosses by hand. I contacted him to see if we could order some from him. Bill said he would need some time to do it, but would make the 150 crosses at no charge. :)

Last Sat, all four of us went to pick them up. When we arrived, we were told he was in his shop out back. As we entered the workshop, there was the beautiful smell of cedar permeating the room. We were greeted by an older gentleman with a smile on his face. It was the kind that is filled with joy. He gave us a tour of the different tables and tools he used and presented us with the box of not just 150 but 160 crosses.

I asked him if I could take a photo of him to let people know who had chosen to give of his time and resources to make these crosses. With tears in his eyes, he declined. I could see that he wanted all glory to be on Jesus. The only thing he asked was that we share Jesus with whomever we give them to.

This man spoke volumes of wisdom to me about who Jesus is to him and how much he lives to serve the Lord. He left an imprint on us that day. May God bless you abundantly Bill.

10 Days & Counting

Ten Days and counting. :) It seems like our life is so full of "to do's" right now. There are items that involve school, dental visits, taxes, changing doctors and so on. I keep thinking that things will slow down if I could just catch up. LOL But today I decided to just write everything that is swirling around in my head, on one big sheet of paper. That way I don't have to juggle it all or keep 20 sticky notes. It really helped because now I can prioritize things in a sequence of when they need to happen. I also thought about how God is bigger then what overwhelms me.

Regarding missions, we are working on how to fit supplies in our suitcases, last minute projects we will be taking, practicing kid songs in Spanish that we haven't fully learned yet, getting dental items together, and deciding what we will pack or leave at home.

We still don't know if we will have a guitar or not. I have tried seeing if we could put it on the plane- No. Could we ship the guitar- if we want to pay a HUGE shipping fee. Its too late now anyway. I asked if we could check it as a baggage- No. I have asked the missionary in the DR to look for a used one for us and she is suppose to be looking but hasn't found one yet. So please pray with us, that God would provide us a guitar to lead worship with when we get there.

Also pray that we would be ready for the unexpected if and when it happens. I know that these things can happen (lost bags, missed flights, and even worse). But I know our Father will be with us and I pray for His strength and peace in everything. I pray that I would keep a humble heart and seek God's will daily.

I thank the Lord and people that are going with us in spirit. Those that have been such a support to us in different ways. I thank God for using this to teach our family a lot about faith. I pray that our kids will gain compassion, love and wisdom during this mission trip and that we can all be used to point people to Jesus.

WooHoo!!!

God provided all the funds we need to get to the DR!! :) Anymore supplies that we receive, we will bring with us to give away. We are still praying the mission compound can get a used guitar on their end for us to save on shipping. We plan to pick up the cross necklaces on Sat that we will give out.

About 2 1/2 weeks left until we leave. :)

We will keep you updated.

Love, Tawnya and Family

Ephesians 3:20 "Now to Him who is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us, to Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, forever. Amen."

Hey Everyone!

Life is a little crazy right now. A few days ago my sister's husband passed on & I am getting on a plane to California on Tues. Henry was only 49 and had 2 kids- Kristina and Henry. Please pray for my sister Sonja and her kids. Richard will be Mr. Mom/Homeschooler this week. ;p I have confidence that he will do great. :)

Also, we have run into a snag again with the guitar. To ship a $30 guitar, it will cost $165!! I have asked the mission if they could get a used guitar for us over there and we can pay them once we arrive. Pray that they can get us one and have it waiting for us when we get there for the worship music.

I have asked Walmart if they could make a donation of housecoats for the lepers for us to take to them. They are suppose to let me know tomorrow if they have the budget to do so. I am praying that God would provide, if this is his will. The mission asked me to see if I could get them, so I am making the effort.

Well, that is it for now. I will be back in a week.

Love, Tawnya

One More Month!! :)

One month from tomorrow we leave for the Dominican Republic !! We are so excited!! We are leaving the rest of the fund raising up to God and are now focusing on equipping our hearts & minds for what we will say, sing and do.

Please pray for us to have plenty of toothbrushes, toothpaste, floss & sunglasses to give to people. If you are interested in helping out, we are still collecting them. We are also hoping to get a couple of balls & frisbee to bring, plus nail polish to work with the kids.

Since the mission compound gave the guitar away that we were going to use, we found a used guitar for $30 and will be shipping it this week. Pray that it gets there in one piece (we have received a new broken guitar from UPS before).

We have decided to learn 2 more songs for the kids (in Spanish). "Jesus loves Me" and "I've got the Joy, Joy, Joy Joy, down in my heart." Pray that we can do this.

Rylee and I need to practice the puppet show, I am fine tuning my testimony and Richard is working with a local pastor on his teaching for the street evangelism and the lepers.

We want to send out a HUGE Thank you to all of you who have become part of this work for the Lord with us. We are so grateful for you! We pray that we can be pleasing to our Father and Honor Him in all that we do in the DR. It is a privilege to get to go and be part of what God will do. He has been, and surely will teach us a lot thru all of this. May God get all the glory.