Hey everyone!
i am so sorry I havent been blogging like I should! If you saw my last blog to my best friend ( of 15 years!!)Dakota, you probably realized I was pretty bummed about missing her wedding. So thats one reason I haven’t really blogged.. when I was dealing with that and the homesickness that came with it, i decided not to blog. Then, I was sorta in a funk about where I am in my relationship with God and I wanted to figure things out with HIM before I blogged about it (more on this later).
But enough with the excuses.. I am up at 5:30am this wonderful morning just for yall (my wonderful supporters, friends, and family)!! So I hope this blog can paint a picture of what God has allowed me to do here in San Jaun, Dominican Republic..
On the average day when everything in running smoothly, I wake up around 6-6:30am and spend some time with God, get ready for the day, and then have breakfast. At about 8am we(team city lights) leave with team SOAR to walk to Guatupita, a slum in the outskirts of San Juan. I’m really not sure about how far the walk to Guatupita is but i would guess 3miles. We make that walk 4 times a day, so Praise the Lord- I’m getting exercise! Once you arrive, you cross a bridge to enter in. Last month the world racers working in Guatupita did this thing where they prayed themselves into and out of Guatupita every time they were there, so we decided to do it too…which has been a MAJOR blessing.
A lot of times we van go into ministry with our own ideas and our own thoughts and whether they are good things on our mind or petty things on our mind, they are our own…which is not what we are here for. So my prayer for us as team SOAR and team City Lights, is that when we cross that bridge we leave OUR “stuff” and pick up God’s thoughts, ideas, and love to get us through the day. No matter what is going on in our lives, whether we are tired or not getting along with someone or just not in the mood to love, God has strengthened us and protected us through the day as we enter in and exit Guatupita in prayer:)
When we first arrive, the plan has been: some people go pray over the bar(the place where we put on “VBS” 3-4 days a week), others go ’round up kids to bring to VBS, and then another group goes to work on community developement. I have been in the VBS team every day which if you know me at all should not be a surprise. I’m usually one of the ones that stay and prays over the bar. The reason we pray over the bar is because we know we serve a powerful, loving God who comes when we invite Him (and sometimes comes into our lives when we don’t invite Him), and we want Him to be the first one invited to VBS. In order for anything good to happen at VBS, God has to be there and working. Through His Holy Spirit in me, I can change the world, but without Him, I am useless and probably causing the world more harm rather than helping it… So, I want HIM there.
“VBS” in Guatupita looks very different than Vacation Bible School in the states. Our budget for VBS (outside of paying our translators) is $0. Which is good. It makes us be more creative and when we have to strive to be creative, The Creator is given lots of room to work:) So VBS starts with some prayer and games(usually red light green light) and then we introduce the theme for the week. The first week we did Dios es Amor/ God is Love, then Forgiveness, and this week is Fa/Faith. We usually do some silly songs like head-shoulders-knees and toes, baby shark, and some new ones I love called when a Christian dances(or something like that- its in spanish so I’m not real sure but hopefully I can post a video soon) and then the bugaloo- which our “main VBS guy”, Tommy from team SOAR, is famous for. After our silly songs we usually read a bible story, act it out, and then disscus it with the children.
Overall VBS has been great but last week was hard. It was obvious that satan was working against us because the kids started acting out a lot. They were fighting and hiting each other and sometimes hitting us- which is not good. I was really upset about it and talked to everyone else in our VBS group and told them I really felt like we couldnt keep VBS going when they were acting that way. Even though most of them were being good, its nearly impossible for us to discipline the ones who are being bad and I hated the fact that the kids acting out were making it an unsafe environment for the ones who were there to learn. So one day after it had gotten pretty bad we sat the kids down and with a translator I explained that we loved them very much but we wouldnt tolerate fighting and since they didnt listen when we told them to stop, that from that moment on, if the fighting got bad we were just going to end VBS early and leave. I hated to do that because I didnt want to leave them, but I knew this might be the only time in their life that someone says I want you to be in a safe environment and if you aren’t safe here with me, I’d rather you not be here…because we know it was only unsafe (in the terms of children fighting) because they were showing out. They dont usually fight like that… After the talk and leaving 2 days early, the kids got the picture and started behaving- at least enough to continue VBS:) and they even started to call each other out if someone saw someone else start to fight. It was cute to see:)
As much as I looove VBS, God made it obvious to me that HE wanted my main focus to be somewhere else this month.
There had been a young mom, DIanna-about 23, who would bring her baby boy, Janel, to VBS. He was less than a year old so you knew she was coming because she wanted to know more about God. One day, I’m not sure how, she and I “talked” and she was wanting to read the bible with me. Since we only had one translator who was obviously translating for VBS, she would just turn somewhere in her spanish bible and I would find it in mine and she would read and I would follow her reading in english. We shared some of our favorite verses together and then went on to reading stories.
After VBS is over (around 11 or 12) we walk back to our casa for lunch and ceiesta (our nap time). Then at 4 we go back to Guatupita for house visits, encouragement, ect. This usually looks like us visiting some sick people in the community and praying over them and talking to them.. One day my friend Dianna, from VBS, came out to read again, which I of course was VERY excited about! The group our translators come from, do this levels thing where the better you are, the more you get paid to translate and if you arent that good yet but want to learn you can just come with the other translators for free.. So when my friend came out I grabbed our free translator, and now my good friend, Vanessa.
I’ve been able to grow in my relationship with Dianna and learn more about her. It is sooo obvious eternity is in her heart. She is a new christian and has so many questions…and with the help from God and Vanessa translating I’ve beeb able to discuss somethings with her.
I really could go on for a long time about Dianna and Vanessa and Hanel, but today I’m supposed to be answering some tuff questions from Dianna that I really need to be praying about and studying this morning. So sorry I’m ending this blog so abruptly and sorry if it has a lot of grammatical errors. Here are the questions Dianna asked me:
“What is happiness?”
“What is salvation? How does someone get salvation?”
and the one that hurt my heart and will be the toughest to answer,
“Why are there so many people that call themselves Christians, but just keep sinning and living in sin?”
That is a hard question for me to answer. I am a sinner only saved by the love and grace of God, and she knows that but her question isnt with the expectancy of people being perfect. She is asking why people say they are Christians but don’t devote their lives to Christ. Since the concept of being a Christian and living a life that is devoted to Christ and not myself, is pretty new to me, this could be hard. Please pray that through the Holy Spirit in me God speaks to Dianna today and that I am able to find the answers God is wanting to speak to her because HIS Spirit lives in me.
I love you all and thank you so much for praying for me and my team and encouraging me through my blog! You have no idea how much it helps me get through the day! Be blessed in knowing God is working here through your prayers!!!
Oh, and be looking for a pictures blog- i should be posting one later today– so you can see the faces of all the people in Guatupita that God is using to shape my heart:)
