Economic development is opening hearts to Christ

By August 8, 2005

Dominican Republic (MNN) — For 20 years Floresta has been working in the Dominican Republic. It’s been a struggle to yield spiritual fruit, but now it’s beginning to happen.

Floresta’s Scott Sabin says they’ve been helping with agricultural and economic development. While sharing the Gospel has always been a part of their work, people just weren’t coming to know Christ. But Sabin says, that’s beginning to change as they’ve established a lay leader Bible study program in partnership with local rural pastors. “We’ve trained 110 lay leaders to lead Bible studies and we now have 82 regular Bible studies in 30 villages going. The upshot of all that is 560 people are now involved in regular Bible study and 113 people this last year made first time decisions for Christ.”

These Bible studies are working hand-in-hand with Floresta’s development work, says Sabin. “The plan was to work in the same communities where the agricultural and economic programs are going to create a synergy between that and the churches. And, for the most part, the same people who are coming to Christ are the people who are involved in our agricultural work.

Local pastors are thrilled with the program. “It’s helping their churches to grow. The flip side of that is that we’ve been able to challenge the pastors to challenge their church members to reach out into the community and deal with some of the social problems themselves” by sharing the Gospel, the only answer to many of these problems.

For $30 a month you can help Floresta’s “Sponsor a Village” program. Go to our website for details.

Leave a Reply


Help us get the word out: