SAN JUAN, DOMINICAN REPUBLIC – March 2008

Victory World Missions Teams, lead by Pastors Billy Joe and Sharon Daugherty were able to significantly impact San Juan, Dominican Republic.    A team of 80 people including Adult Teams from Tulsa, Kentucky and Pennsylvania, Victory Team Missions, Victory In Ministry Training Students, Victory World Missions Students, and Victory Christian School Seniors reached out in schools, street ministry, medical clinics, food outreaches, Leadership Conferences, a Women’s Conference, and nightly crusades.

Due to hurricane damage a few months ago, residents of San Juan have experienced many hardships.  In an already poor area, inland and close to the Haitian border the damage to crops, roads, bridges, and homes only compounded their suffering.

The gospel, the message of healing, help and hope and practical needs met through the outreach was a welcome beacon of light to thousands of men, women and children touched in the week long outreaches. 

Seven Dominican doctors donated their time along with American nurses and team members to serve 920 people in the three days of Medical Clinics.  Through the generosity of friends and partners of Victory patients were given vitamins, pain relievers and other over the counter medications, and prescription antibiotics as well as toothpaste and toothbrushes.   Some team members entertained the children with clowns, balloons, dramas and Christian children’s literature.  Team members also prayed with each patient and invited them to the conferences and crusades.

Victory partnered with Feed The Hungry to ship several containers of food to the Dominican for the San Juan outreach.  During the week of Victory outreaches many bags of food were distributed to needy families in some of the poorest areas of the city.  The Victory Teen Missions and Victory Christian School Seniors groups performed dramas as other team members unloaded and set up the bags of food to be given away.  Seven more containers of food were finally released from the port in Santo Domingo and will be in San Juan soon for distribution.  These will be distributed through the local churches over the weekend using the ticket system that Guenter and Allene Kornmueller are coordinating.  There were 15,000 tickets printed and distributed through the local pastors, which should mean that 15,000 food parcels will eventually be handed out.   With the ticket system people receiving the food will have to go to a local church to receive their parcel.  The local pastors will then have an opportunity to minister to them, pray with them, and follow up with the families reached.

A Victory International Bible Institute started under the leadership of a local Pastor and currently has 220 students enrolled.

The Leadership Conferences were a time of great teaching, training and encouragement for local pastors and leaders.  Each person attending was provided with a teaching syllabus, pens, notepaper, and Pastor Billy Joe’s mini-books in Spanish, as well as “This New Life” in Spanish.

The Women’s Conference was a great success with nearly 3,000 women pouring into the facility to hear Pastor Sharon and other team members share on “You Are Valuable.”  Each pastor’s wife attending was recognized and presented with a gift bag.  Each lady attending the conference received a gift from the ministry.  All gifts were provided through the love and generosity of Victory friends and partners. 

The nightly crusades were a wonderful time of celebration, praise and worship and great response to the salvation altar calls.  Salvation numbers are based on the hands that were raised.   However, there were so many decisions that our team members and over two hundred local altar workers could not keep up.   After consulting with others on the platform, it is a conservative estimate that a total of 26,200 of the 88,000 plus attending received salvation in the four nights of the San Juan crusades.  Victory Teams distributed over 70,000 This New Life books provided through the generosity of Victory friends and partners.

On platform testimonies of miracle healings totaled sixty-nine!  This was an amazing number of people coming forward to testify to their miracle healing.  There were children who had, had crossed eyes that un-crossed in the meetings, a little boy with a twisted leg watched it straighten and came up to testify.  One little girl had been in terrible pain from a hernia in her side and testified she felt good, and no more pain.  A lady brought two x-rays of her ankle, broken months before and fractured in seven places.  She showed a second x-ray from January where the fractures had healed, but there was a tumor on her heel.  She testified that in the crusade she felt the tumor disappear and she was able to walk and jump.  An older man came to the platform with his grandson.  The doctors had said he had bad heart problems and tremendous swelling in his legs so that he could barely walk even with crutches.  His grandson said, “We’re taking you to the crusade and you can leave all this behind you.”  The man said he felt well as he walked, unaided back and forth across the stage.

Thanks to the Victory Teams and Victory friends and partners, healing, help, and hope was brought to San Juan, Dominican Republic.  Praise God!