(a recent prayer letter received from Joshua and Teah Lane, missionaries to the Dominican Republic)
It has been a crazy couple of months here in Jarabacoa, DR. Time passes so quickly here. Almost everyday we are here I’m reminded of what James wrote in James 4:14. For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away.
This last month, one of our four faithful teens named Wesley (13-years-old) was in a bad motorcycle accident. He ended up with 44 stitches; four in his head and 40 in his leg. Praise the Lord he is still alive. He was riding in the bed of a three-wheel work moto when it was hit by a car. He was the only one who sustained injuries. We went to visit him everyday for the first week as he got over the worst of it. I was very proud of our youth group as most of them sat with him everyday and brought him snacks and cokes. As tragic as it is, this incident opened the door for us to have several conversations with parents of our teenagers that we had never met before. Please pray that the Lord will continue to work in the life of this young man as well as the families that we were able to talk to through this.
Another tragic accident took place last week as a 16-year-old in our community crashed his motorcycle and died. This young man was not a member of our youth group but most of our kids knew him very well. Several of them are taking it very hard. Please pray that the Lord uses these tragedies to work in the lives of our teenagers and show them the importance of life and using this life for Christ.
Over the summer we have been focused on Scripture memorization with the teenagers. We have been having a points based competition to encourage them. One young man named Kevin has been working really hard. Kevin cannot read which makes it hard for him to memorize, but he has not shied away from the challenge. While others play basketball or soccer, Kevin sits with Teah while she reads the verse to him over and over. He repeats the verses again and again until he can say it without her help. So far he has been able to learn Romans 3:23, Romans 10:13, I John 1:9, and is currently working on I John 5:11.
We are grateful for you and are praying for you also.