Thanks to your investments & prayers

VG church plant is growing

VGkids THRIVE

Our desire to emphasize healthy kids ministry is connecting with the community we are drawing to Vida y Gozo. Many new families are coming with their kids and bringing the cousins and friends along too. Secure check-in system has surprised parents and shows them just how much we value their kids. Two of our new believers are pre-teens who regularly attend both in person VGkids and VGkids on Zoom. The older kids are active as junior helpers - setting up & running check-in stations, the media/sound, and even teaching the memory verse.

Engagement grows to 70+

We started with our Bello family of 4 in 2020, then added a core team of 20, and now we count over 70 regularly engaged in person VG members:

Families, couples, single moms, grandmothers, single men & women
Growth Tracks in November - we have 15 participating this first cycle
6 first time salvations, and many rededications to Christ
In person Sunday worship celebrations launched July 11, 2021
Over 70 have regularly connected in life groups on Zoom since July 2020

Pray with us for salvation of those connecting who have not yet taken this step of faith, as well as for those in life groups who have yet to try the Sunday celebrations.

I will pray

VG Team serves in areas of strength

Thankfully, God has blessed us with a wide variety of gifting and talents on our VG team:

Javier is our amazing media producer - and he has trained our 12 year old son Ethan as an apprentice. Ethan now is camera director -- sets the angles, runs the switcher & assists Diego with the live transmission! Gabriela designs the message graphics and runs the projection software. She will apprentice a new team member due to soon coming baby boy!
Berly is our music producer and leads worship arts - with Alberto on guitar, Isselle & Jeramy in vocals, and Richard apprenticing under Oscar, a professional sound technician friend who came on board to help for short-term, but instead has brought his family to become a regular part of our VG community.
The VGkids team is co-directed by Amanda, our MA from Yakima WA, and Aris. Isis & Vicky join in - and we are praying for some guy leaders to come alongside.
Randy & Erick regularly join Jamie in the preaching and several others are part of the strategizing, researching, and writing team.
Sara heads up our graphics & social media management -- all the way from Ohio! Alberto handles the website management.
Richard & Randy lead the Community Transformation team as we partner with two churches in the barrios of Arroyo Hondo - we've donated 40 school supply backpack kits to students, 50 water filters to families, and are surveying over 100 community members living near each partner church in order to learn their felt needs and desires for community development. We will assist these churches in engaging the needs through ongoing service strategies.
Anabell heads up the connections team, Angela is the coffee station guru, Alina mans the welcome station, and Isselle & Anabell handle the contributions & accounting software.

Soon the newer VG community members will be finding their serve niches in our ministry teams as they finish up Growth Tracks, which helps them discover their unique purpose designed by God.

GIVING TO MISSIONS

In the 2021 launch year - VG members have given over $5000 for missions -- a record for a church plant in the Dominican Republic (and actually more than most established churches give to missions annually in the DR).

Regular tithes & giving has more than doubled since 2020. Our VG community is doing their part & will continue to INCREASE their investment in God's mission, but we STILL need YOUR HELP.

WILL YOU GIVE TO CHURCH PLANT VENUE RENT FOR THE NEXT YEAR?

GOAL: $3500 US / month x 12 months = $42,000
GIVE TO: AGWM ACCOUNT 254557, CLASS 64 church plant
Prices have increased since the pandemic, and our need to rent a space that is more than a set up / tear down Sunday morning venue is great. The movie theater is up for sale or rent as a whole -- it may not be available to us on Sunday mornings for much longer. We continue to search for a proper venue, have found quite a few possibilities - to which we are told "NOT for a CHURCH!" Please PRAY with us to find the right location where we may continue to reach the lost, and empower them as Christ followers who serve to transform the community.

GIVE NOW