Jon Matthews Director of Youth and Young Adults Kingsway Baptist Church (Recorded: May 14, 2020) INSIGHTS FROM JON He's found a mixture of those who are looking for fellowship connections and others who want to go deeper into faith (especially since they've got time). Tools most useful are Zoom and Discord. To battle screen fatigue, he's balanced the number of programs offered online, encouraging them to
I (Jon Matthews, youth pastor at Kingsway) had a really encouraging phone call with one of our students who is in University now (3rd year). As we were talking and she was sharing how she now has a church in town she goes to weekly, arranging her work schedule so every week she can have Sunday mornings free. And that she is part of discipleship group with another Para-church organization.
Jon (Kingsway): Today we had to say goodbye to the other two teams that were here with us this past week. Compass from Orangeville and Flamborough from outside Hamilton. One upside was that we had the facilities all to ourselves, the other is that we definitely got some larger pieces of avocado for lunch! Our work today was focused on completing a concrete ramp to allow
Will (Harmony): Today was quite a fun day. In contrast to the hard work we were doing on some other days, today we got to relax a bit and we visited some caves as well as go to the marketplace. The marketplace was really fun because it wasn’t a regular old marketplace. Here we had the option of bargaining and that was a lot of fun.
Jon (Kingsway): This morning we had the opportunity to visit the CBOQ School that teams built in 2013. The school goes up to grade 5 and has three classrooms. We rotated activities with each class. Recess, where we bounced basketballs, kicked soccer balls, blew bubbles, and face painted with them. We made bracelets with them, with different colour beads, each representing an aspect of what Jesus
Matthew (Kingsway): Today was our second work day, day four of our trip. The work we did today definitely felt harder for me than yesterday, however we paced ourselves well and drank lots of water, and were able to work until the end of the day, maintain our productivity. When we arrived at our worksite, the water purification plant, after lunch, we were told that we
Emmanuel (Harmony): Today was our first work day and it was fun! We went to Villa Altagracia. We were split into two groups and my group started off by shoveling dirt and debris and wheel barrowing to another room. After, we went to lay bricks but it had rained for quite awhile which cut into our work time. The thing that stood out to me the most was that
Martin (Harmony): The energy from our group today was radiant, because for most of us, it was the first sleep in 24h! Today we were greeted with an amazing sunrise. You could see the vast mountain range in layers before you. As the rest of us got up, we were greeted with the smell of pancakes and sausages, and it tasted great! Personally, I was really surprised how
Our team arrived at Pearson airport at 2:30am. Two flights, a plane de-icing in New York from too much snow, and a scenic view from above of the Dominican Republic, we've arrived at our destination! One of the youth noted "Since I had been here before, when we first came down to the Dominican it was like coming home again. It feels like we're at home." Here's some of the
Our team assembled at the Fairfield Marriott Hotel. After some time of worship, prayer and orientation (plus a Spanish lesson with Karla-Maria Ponce), they're (hopefully) getting some rest before our 6:10am flight. We'll see you from the DR in less than 24 hours!
