Blog DR.
Oh goodness, it’s about time for a few blogs! I hadn’t wanted to write another blog without pictures or video but it takes so long to upload them that I’ve finally given up and I’m just going to write a huge blog and do a mind dump of the past two weeks. I actually am trying to upload some stuff now at our new place in Haiti and it might be done by the time I’m done writing this blog. Or not, the video I’m uploading has 1118 minutes left!
Ok so two days after I started writing this blog the video is done uploading so here is one of them!
Ah, so about the last two weeks…
We’ve been working in Guachupita, a slum district in San Juan, Dominican Republic. Our ministries included digging out a canal, house visits, and VBS (kids bible school). Our ministry contacts were Miguel and Kristin somebody (sorry about the last name!) and they just had a new baby girl while we were there! They are committed for life to ministry in the DR, with a vision of planting a house church in every community and town and village. The fruit of their ministry is evident in Guachupita: almost every resident speaks well of Miguel and what he stands for (Jesus).
Speaking of Jesus brings up a memory of when I was having a conversation with one of our translators about the opinion Dominicans have of Americans. He said in general Dominicans think Americans are snobby, we think we own the place wherever we go. I asked if that’s how he felt and he said no, but he used to feel that way until he started translating for Christian mission groups (which just so happen to be mostly of Americans) and saw how they were different. I asked him if here in the DR people can tell a difference between believers and nonbelievers and he said yes, there’s quite a difference between the lives of believers and nonbelievers. I thought this was interesting because much of the time there isn’t much difference in America.
That leads me to Dulce and Marko, two Guachupitans who are also strong believers. You can see a difference with them, there’s a certain brightness on their face that is missing from most of the other residents. Dulce has the sweetest heart. Though she has nothing, she’s always welcoming us into her house, letting us keep our bags and tools there. She has problems withh her eyesight, so pray for her about that. Marko leads a house church every friday night at 7 at Dulce’s house.
Speaking of house church, a few days into ministry when we were doing house visits, we came across a gentleman named Robert. Now typically during house visits we try to establish a relationship with the person and evanglize through our relationship, but when we came up to Robert’s house I felt like we should get straight to the point and share the gospel. It’s a good thing we did, too, because we never got a chance to talk with him again. We simply shared John 3:16 and talked about that, John 14:1-6 through a letter a few days later, and Romans 10:8-13 in another letter later. Now what’s cool about this story is that even though we didn’t get another chance to talk to him personally (he moved to Santo Domingo because he got a job, praise God!) we ended up stopping by his house a few days before we left for Haiti and talked to his mom, whose name was also Dulce. She told us that Robert had been sharing what we told him and the verses we’d been writing for him in the letters we left, and that because of those things she was encouraged to seek the Lord again and got herself connected with Marko and Dulce’s house church! While we thought we had lost contact with Robert, all along it was his mother that the Lord was calling back, and we never saw it until we left! So that was a neat lesson, that just because you don’t see anything happening, doesn’t mean the work is in vain!
We met many more cool people for sure. But there is another cool story with a guy named Mageesu, or however it’s spelled, who came to a better understanding of the hope we have in Christ. You can read his story on my teammate Jon Harris’ blog!
Now the interesting thing with house visits is that I found that I really like them. And it’s so curious because I’m also scared of them! Initiating intentional conversations with strangers is just something that I don’t do. Not because that’s not who I am, it’s just not who I’ve been my whole life. Especially in people’s homes!
And about that, all you had to do in San Juan was walk up to someone’s house and say Hello! and instantly they’d invite you in. At least it was that way in Guachupita. Such hospitality in a slum? Whoddathunkit? People in the states would rather talk to you through the door and yet it’s more dangerous in the slums than in most neighborhoods in the states! Why are people scared when it’s safer? But I digress.
Anyways, I found that after house visits I was always much more spunky and personable for some reason. Whatever that means I don’t know, but I look forawrd to our next house visit ministry. Probably will still be scared though!
Ok so we also worked on one of the main water runoff canals for Guachupita. One of the more serious problems in Guachupita is standing water and poor drainage. Poor drainage with no toilets or plumbing = nasty stuff everywhere. And I mean everywhere. So any standing pools of water are just infectious cesspools and mosquito breeding grounds. It was much of a canal, just a small dip in the ground that ran to the river. Even in the canal there was a lot of standing water. We dug that sucker out good. In fact, we had some massive rains just before we left for Haiti and when we surveyed the dug-out canal, there wasn’t a single pool of water standing in it! We didn’t even try to level it with tools, we just eyeballed the slope and the Lord blessed the work. There’s not even concrete in there or anything yet! And it’s all the more miraculous because we dug through just as much trash as we did dirt. We were blessed to work with team Reckless, whose William Diefenbach has plenty of canal videos for you to watch! Check them out! So yeah, having better storm drainage is going to be a huge boon to the physical health of the community.
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?op=1&view=global&subj=16712943&pid=31309177&id=164901191
This is getting really long so I’ll stop here for now! I’ll tell you more about the Lord’s work in the DR later!
