February 22, 2018 – Please pray for Dominican Republic
The Dominican Republic is located in the island of Hispaniola, in the Greater Antilles archipelago of the Caribbean region. It occupies the eastern five-eighths of the island, which it shares with the nation of Haiti. The Dominican Republic is the second-largest Caribbean nation by area (after Cuba). The Dominican Republic’s capital and largest metropolitan area Santo Domingo is on the southern coast.
Christopher Columbus landed on the island on December 5, 1492. The colony of Santo Domingo became the site of the first permanent European settlement in the Americas, the oldest continuously inhabited city, and the first seat of the Spanish colonial rule in the New World.
The Dominican Republic has a tropical rainforest climate in the coastal and lowland areas. Due to its diverse topography, Dominican Republic’s climate shows considerable variation over short distances and is the most varied of all the Antilles.
The Dominican Republic is the third largest Caribbean nation with a population of approximately 10 million people, of which approximately three million live in the metropolitan area of Santo Domingo, the capital city.
The Dominican Republic is the largest economy in the Caribbean and Central American region. It is an upper middle-income developing country. Over the last two decades, the Dominican Republic has been standing out as one of the fastest-growing economies in the Americas.
As of 2014, 57% of the population (5.7 million) identified themselves as Roman Catholics and 23% (2.3 million) as Protestants (in Latin American countries, Protestants are often called Evangelicos because they emphasize personal and public evangelizing and many are Evangelical Protestant or of a Pentecostal group).
Over the past century, Protestant Evangelicalism began to gain a wider support “with their emphasis on personal responsibility and family rejuvenation, economic entrepreneurship, and biblical fundamentalism.
The Dominican Republic has historically granted extensive religious freedom. According to the United States Department of State, “The constitution specifies that there is no state church and provides for freedom of religion and belief. A concordat with the Vatican designates Catholicism as the official religion and extends special privileges to the Catholic Church not granted to other religious groups. These include the legal recognition of church law, use of public funds to underwrite some church expenses, and complete exoneration from customs duties.”
During World War II a group of Jews escaping Nazi Germany fled to the Dominican Republic and founded the city of Sosúa. It has remained the center of the Jewish population in the Dominican Republic since World War II.
The above are from en.wikipedia.org. These statements have not been fact-checked and are only used here to help us gain a better understanding of this nation.
We are thankful for those who claim Christianity as their foundation of belief. We do not know how many are faithful followers of Jesus and that is not for us to judge – we are to simply pray for all believers and pray for non-believers to listen to the Gospel.
Let us continue to lift up the nations around the world in our daily time of prayer and especially the Dominican Republic on this date.
1. Pray for the love of God to abound within the nation. Love always prevails and it is through love that men and women are persuaded to follow Jesus.
2. Pray for the local pastors to be encouraged to continue to share the Gospel and pray for the national leaders.
3. Pray for a renewed spiritual awakening in this nation and that it will also come to our nation.
