Note : Please excuse the formatting, I cannot figure out how to get rid of the shadow box behind the text!
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| This is the overhead satellite view of the land. At the end of this blog post, there are 2 videos including a helicopter fly-over scan of our land! |
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| Here is a layout on the piece of land that we have purchased! |
The Dominican Republic is
not an easy place for kids and teenagers to grow up. In a culture saturated by
premarital sex and underage drinking, it is an uphill battle for a teenager to
try to get a head-start as they enter into adulthood. Unfortunately, the role
models that Dominican boys and girls see, are largely involved in these
problems. There is a generation growing up without a father (as of 2008, over 40% of households were single-mothers) and even
worse, the “father-figures” they see in the street are teaching them to abuse
alcohol, to abuse drugs, and to abuse women. Unfortunately, it is a vicious
cycle that repeats itself as boys turn into men that leave their wives or have
children outside of marriage, and girls become pregnant as early as 13. In fact, 25% of all pregnancies in the DR
occur with girls between the ages of 13-16. Who is influencing the next
generation in the DR? Who is molding the next generation of LEADERS in the DR?
If nothing changes, then it will just continue the way it has and it would be a
dark future for the Dominican Republic.
Who are
you? What made you the way you are? What do you value in life? What are your
hopes, dreams and goals?
These
questions lead to another question. Why? Who had a prominent role in impacting
and molding your life, that you can trace back to seeing how you ended up where
you are. For many of us that person is a father/mother or family member. For
some of us it is a coach or a youth pastor. What do you do when those people
are absent or not doing their job?
The
Leadership Development Complex (LDC) is something that has been put on the
hearts of the leadership and staff of GO ministries and through a lot of
prayer, sweat and tears it is ready to launch! GO Ministries has purchased 2
cornerstone pieces of land (25 acres) and we are ready to build.
The LDC
is designed to reach the youth where they are at, and strategically help
prepare them for the future through specialized training in: Sports,
Seminary/Bible education, Vocational training/mentoring, Business, and Music
and the Arts.
Our goal
through the LDC is to give kids the options that many of us enjoyed in our
upbringing in the US, and one of those avenues is through sports. It is so
dangerous for a child to put all of their eggs into the ‘basket’ of success in
sports. In the Dominican Republic, all of the kids have seen the success that
Dominicans have seen in the US, as there are over 95 current MLB players who
come from the small country of just over 10 million people. This leads to boys
dropping out of school and devoting every aspect of their life to their dream
of playing in the MLB. This also leads to a high rate of steroid abuse and age
fraud in young Dominican players. Through our specialized training, kids in our
sports academies will not only receive top notch instruction to develop as an
athlete, but they will be receiving English, bible, and vocational training to
help them use their best developmental years in a positive way. Our athletes
will also be surrounded by Godly examples and Christian men/women who have
devoted their lives to reach these kids for Christ and to give them a brighter
future. Sports is a key way that we can reach these kids for Christ and to have
a brighter future. The LDC is designed to hold 2 professional sized baseball
fields, 4 little league baseball fields, 1 professional sized soccer field, 1
half sized soccer field, 8 covered basketball courts, 4 volleyball courts, an
Olympic-sized swimming pool, a basketball/events arena, residential dorms,
weight rooms, classrooms and kitchen/eating area.
Our
‘Seminary of the Americas’ is another crucial tool of our goal to develop
leaders serving all across the country. The Seminary will operate as a
four-year program. The first three years will be in the classroom following an
extensive curriculum to give them a broad, wide-ranging education in theology,
while the final year will be mentored field instruction, as the graduating
class figures out where they will launch into ministry. The seminary is not
only for aspiring pastors, but it is also for church leaders/pastors who want
to build a stronger theological base, or for worship leaders who want to learn
more about how to effectively lead their church in worship. The seminary
facility will provide instructional pace, a computer lab, library, conference
area, laboratories and a residential living space for students and their
families. One of the core values of the Seminary is to help educate the future
church on the value of running churches as a team and less as one individual.
Emerging local leaders in Latin America will have an opportunity to receive
quality theology, ministry and community development training at the ‘Seminary
of the Americas.’
The
Kingdom business aspect is an exciting way to help make the LDC
self-sustainable. Throughout the complex, there will be businesses set up and
run through the ministry that will funnel the profits back into the project in
order to help pay for the operational costs of the LDC. Not only will these
Kingdom Businesses lead to a healthy and self-sustainable model, but they will
be key in training up leaders to run the businesses and to work within a
company. Many of these businesses’ will be strategically located on the main
road with a lot of foot traffic. The buildings are designed to have the
street-level unit operating as a Kingdom business, but there are also units on
the 2nd and 3rd level that will operate as apartments to
rent out and bring even more money into the ministry for operational costs.
The
vocational training plays hand-in-hand with the Kingdom business. As we develop
leaders through Sports, Music and the arts, or through business training, they
will then have opportunities to develop their skills through our businesses. Each
of our vocational training sites will have a Christian leader whose job will be
to teach, mentor, and disciple those that are training in their craft. The
potential for these sites is huge as we could work through wood working,
welding/metal work, leather work, mechanic/auto body, entrepreneurial training,
masonry, electrician, plumbing, etc.
This is
a big vision. On a daily basis the complex will serve more than 1,000 kids
through sports/music and the arts/vocational training, 60 pastors/church
leaders and their families through the seminary, 20 local business owners
through the Kingdom businesses, as well as hundreds of Americans through
short-term missions. The opportunities are endless, and the leaders that are
formed at the LDC have the potential to impact hundreds of communities and
thousands of people. This will be a launching pad for leaders not only for the
Dominican Republic, but also for Latin America, and ultimately across the
world.
The LDC is a place where
current leaders will be pouring into the future leaders of this country in
order to turn things around. We have a big goal, of breaking the old cycle of
abuse, lack of education, and poverty; and turning it into a cycle of loving
and committed parents, educated and moral business men, and hard-working/dedicated
members of society. It is a big goal, but we are ready.
For more information on how you can get involved or if you would like to connect me with anyone who would be interested in partnering with this kingdom project, please email me at :
Kyle.Bradley@go-ministries.org
Videos :
Here is a video with more information on our Baseball Academy, live from Jupiter FL at Spring Training with the St. Louis Cardinals.
Here is the helicopter flyover. Very cool, thanks to Hunter Abrams for his work on this video!
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