Part 1: How Father built the team

When Ronnie Herrera showed up at Miguel Santiago’s house in 2005, neither of them had any idea of the friendship that would be formed, and the ministry that God would do through them. Neither of them knew that over the next 15 years, God would use them to plant dozens of churches across the country in the most remote villages of the Dominican. Back in 2005, all that Ronnie knew was that he was called to be a missionary, and Miguel was the only missionary he knew of. So Ronnie asked Miguel to show him what it meant to be a missionary.

Ronnie had always thought of missions as something that only wealthy Americans did. “Missions was for Americans who could afford traveling,” he said. Growing up, Ronnie hadn’t heard anyone in his church ever talk about missions, so he assumed it was something that people did overseas, but not Domincan people. But Ronnie had a calling on his life from God. He and his friend would go to neighboring communities to share the Gospel and hand out tracks. He told someone in his church, “If there’s a ministry I want to do, I want it to be this,” and they told him that was what missionaries did.

This calling led Ronnie to Miguel’s door. Miguel and his wife Kristen had moved to the Dominican Republic in 2005, and they began speaking in local churches about raising up Dominican missionaries. A friendship formed, and Miguel began to disciple Ronnie and help develop the missionary calling on Ronnie’s life. Over the next few years, Ronnie traveled to Haiti and Peru to continue learning dependence and obedience, and grow in his calling as a missionary.

Eventually, Miguel and Ronnie formed an evangelistic ministry called Dominican Rising, focusing on discipling young men and women to be missionaries. This group of young adults spent months together studying God’s word, sharing the Gospel, ministering in slum communities, and even traveling to Swaziland. What began as a group ministering to their local communities has now grown into a family called Gran Comision Quisqueyana with a grand vision: to see a vibrant church in every community on the island of the Dominican (Tierra Prometida Ministry), and to grow the Dominican Republic into a missionary sending nation (Amanece Dominicano).

Part 2: What God has done in San Juan

The work began in San Juan, Ronnie’s home province and home to Miguel and Kristen. As the team sought to plant churches, they took a systematic approach to every village in the province. They looked for vibrant communities of disciples, and where there wasn’t one, they planted one. God began transforming the San Juan province through their church planting efforts, as they faithfully planted churches who would plant more churches. They don’t create programs or build buildings – rather, they focus on life-on-life relationship building that opens doors for Gospel conversation and leads to individual and community transformation.

As they faithfully committed to the work of planting churches in San Juan, God began opening doors for partnerships to form with churches in the United States. These churches began partnering in the long-term work of church-planting by supporting Dominican church-planters through faithful prayer and finances. These partnerships allow for Dominicans to be consistently present in the community by visiting two, three, even five times a week – often to remote villages that are difficult to reach.

Part 3: new vision for bases

But God is moving mightily. Already, San Juan has been reached, with only a handful of communities left to plant in; but the team of Dominican missionaries is just getting started. God has given them a vision to start a new church-planting base in the border provinces of Dajabon and Elias Piña, and they have begun efforts to send Dominican missionaries to the Middle East.