An Amazing Moment

I have been speaking in the Dominican Republic (an island nation in the Caribbean Sea) since Sunday. The last teaching session is Tuesday evening, where about 3,000 people are expected to be in attendance.

My main reason for coming to this country was to fulfill a request of The Rawlings Foundation. The foundation is actually headquartered in Florence, Kentucky, only 20 minutes from the Creation Museum. I am speaking at their camp in the Dominican Republic. The Rawlings Foundation has 13 such camps in different countries, all built with the purpose of reaching young people with the truth of God’s Word and the gospel. What an outreach they have worldwide!

The camp here in the Dominican Republic is a beautiful, first-class facility. The foundation pays for young people to come and hear great teaching on the Word of God. For this conference, the foundation paid for the food, lodging, and transportation to bring around 700 high school students in for two days. What an awesome event this has been! By the time this blog post is published, I will be giving my third and final session to the students, followed by a question and answer time.

I have been amazed at my time here in many ways. I must admit, though, that one particular moment took me by surprise. You see, I guess I am so used to some of the “political correctness” of America, that a particular moment caught me off guard.

I was explaining to the students how life begins at fertilization. I shared with them that all the information to build a human is present right then, and that it is a unique combination of information. I then said that we are 100 percent human at fertilization, humans are made in the image of God, and therefore abortion was killing a human being and it was wrong.

Suddenly, the whole group roared with approval and broke into loud applause. Why was I taken aback for a moment? I think it’s because in America, whenever I say something like this about the sanctity of life, I usually don’t get much of a response (even though many in the audience may agree with me)—and I certainly don’t get this sort of response from young people in the USA. I think Americans have been so conditioned by the secularists and media, that many Christians don’t say much about abortion because they will be accused of being intolerant or pushing our religion. Or some Americans, even Christians, are just so used to abortion being legal, that many people have sort of given in. Abortion is illegal here in the Dominican Republic.

Also, I’ve been amazed to see the incredible reaction to my debate last week with Bill Nye “the Science Guy” here in the Dominican Republic, where many people watched a live stream of the event. Numerous people told me that my boldness in defending Genesis—along with proclaiming the gospel so publicly—has stimulated them to be more courageous in standing publicly for what they believe as Christians. Yes, we need to rally the troops, even outside the USA! If only more young people in America were as enthusiastic for the truth as I saw in these young people in the Dominican Republic. Now, I have found an increasing number of the younger generation in America who love AiG and want to boldly stand for God’s Word. But sadly, in many churches young people are more entertained during church services or in Sunday schools than they are taught to boldly proclaim the truth of God’s Word from the very first verse and be equipped to defend the Christian faith!

The 700 young people sat through teaching sessions, lasting 1.25 hours, as I worked through our own translator, Joe Owen of AiG. And the young people sat spellbound as they listened to every word. They seemed so hungry for the Bible-affirming information. I think they could have sat there for hours and listened! I have already heard testimonies about how this student session has so helped them. AiG is making resources available to the students at very reduced prices (highly subsidized prices)—and they are lapping up these resources, too.

I really can’t describe the experience of speaking to these young people in this country. They are so well behaved and obedient to instructions, so polite, and so different to a lot of what I see at student rallies in the USA.

Here are some photographic highlights:

The entrance to the Rawlings Foundation facility

The American and Dominican Republic flags side by side

Mally and I standing at the office headquarters

The auditorium

Lunchtime for the students

The structure used as the auditorium was actually open like this before the event.

A wall was built especially for this conference to turn the structure into an auditorium.

Special air-conditioning units were brought in.

Lots of staff to help

The students were told if they had questions, we had answers.

Mally and I on the beautiful grounds

All the sessions were videotaped, and some were live streamed (even though there were some technical difficulties with live streaming).

Many of the San Francisco Giants baseball players train here at this facility—I met some of them in the Dominican Republic.

AiG’s Spanish ministry is growing in leaps and bounds. Here I am with our translator, Joe Owen. Joe is another one of the gems (like all of our staff) that the Lord has brought to AiG. He is so talented—and now because of his burden to reach the Latin American world with the gospel, he is using his talents to reach millions of people through AiG’s translated resources and presentations. Joe is a great speaker on creation apologetics for the Spanish-speaking world.

As I looked at all these excited young people, my heart was burdened for the millions of others around the world who are being led astray by the teaching of the pagan religion of evolution and millions of years! Yes, I am determined more than ever to do even more to reach them. How I wish every young person could have been at this special conference—for the teaching and also to see how these young people in a third world country were so hungry for the message of truth from God’s Word.

Responding to Bill Nye’s New Challenge

Thanks for stopping by and thanks for praying,

Ken