30-Y-O Missionary Preaches to Thousands Hoping to Change Very Foundation of Countries
A 30-year-old missionary thinks big when he does evangelism – so big that it can sometimes require 2,000 missionaries and tens of thousands of people hearing the Gospel at a time.
Dominic Russo of Missions.Me made history last year in Central America when he took 2,000 missionaries to Honduras for a week to preach the Gospel, provide medical aid and create sustainable change in every state of the country.
"July 20, 2013 was the first day of the new Honduras. The entire time, our goal wasn't to move people to a moment where they pray a prayer but it was to make that moment the foundation and beginning of a new country," Russo told The Christian Post.
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He highlighed that after that 1Nation1Day event in Honduras, the entire nation's deaths caused by acts of violence has decreased by 38 percent, the largest drug cartel left the country and the city of San Pedro Sula, previously known as murder capital of the world, has seen murders decrease by over 70 percent.
While in Honduras, he also tried to create permanent changes by implementing an educational, values-based curriculum intended to last six months. However, the Honduran minister of education has now made it a mandate for the program to become a permanent fixture in the country's education system.
"We have an unrelenting passion to bring the kingdom of God and transformation to the nations. That passion fuels everything we do, it keeps us up at night and what wakes us up in the morning, we can't ever shake it. We live with this burning sense of the call of God over our lives and that drives us to ultimately ask, 'what can we do that's never been done before?," Russo shared.
"We don't do anything outside of relationships. We seek deep and profound relationships with local churches and leaders across the nation and our goal is to serve their global vision."
Russo may be young to have started such a large-scale ministry, but he has known for a long time that he was going to be a missionary. He shared that he felt God's calling at the age of 12 when a guest speaker visiting his father's church in Rochester, Michigan, prayed over him and declared his missions ministry.
Nearly two decades later his mission movement impacts tens of thousands of impoverished individuals throughout Latin America, Asia and Africa.
"I felt God for the first time in my life and more than that, I got a sense that I would be ministering to people around the world and that I was being called to an international ministry," Russo recalled about that critical moment. "I began to feel a compassion for people that didn't have a relationship with God, it was an intense pain."
From age 13 to 17, Russo spent his summers in Costa Rica, Guatemala and Ghana, then went off to college to earn his degree at Oral Roberts University where his passion for missions became even more evident. He recalled being skeptical early on if God really was calling him into missions since he had little resources during college and barely any finances to go on mission trips. However at age 20, Russo led his first international missions outreach with 25 people in Puerto Plaza, Dominican Republic, where an astounding 30,000 people gathered to hear the Gospel. Russo states that that was the precise moment he knew he would commit his life to evangelism.
Now at 30 years old, Russo continues to do missionary work with his core team at Missions.Me. His wife, Lindsay, helps lead Angel House, an organization that rescues orphans in India.
Russo notes that within the next decade, Missions.Me will focus on working in Latin America and plans on taking their 1Nation1Day campaign to the Dominican Republic in July 2015.
For more information on 1Nation1Day or to partner with Russo and his team for the upcoming Dominican Republic campaign, visit 1Nation1Day or Missions.Me.
