I’m writing this blog in the short downtime we have in various international airports on the way away from the Dominican. Three weeks is far too short a time to spend with the excellent people of Arroyo Cano that it’s been my pleasure to get to know in this country. We’ve been welcomed into homes and into lives. The people of the Dominican are amazingly welcoming. We’ve had people who have never seen us before invite us into their homes, give up their chairs, share coffee and dinner and simply their lives with us. I remain overwhelmed with the friendliness we’ve experienced in the past month. How can I explain the many ways I have had my heart stolen by the wonderful people God has blessed me with this month? I wish I could take you all up to this wonderful town in the mountains and introduce you to them, but failing that I’ll do my best with pictures:
Here’s Gregorio, our pastor and missions contact (‘Noki’ to his friends). He’s always smiling and laughing (and quite a bit of a joker) and seems to know everyone in the country. Everywhere we go he meets people he knows, and everyone he meets is a friend. His house – and particularly his kitchen – is always open to friends. He loves to play cards and dominoes in the evening, and we all have many fond memories of playing with him late into the night. He’s a great cook (he makes the best empanadas in the country, of course) and cuts hair for his family and friends. More impressive than all that though is his heart for God. Spend one minute with him (his English is excellent) and you’ll know he’s a man of God. Spend five minutes talking with him and you’ll know his heart is firmly fixed on the Kingdom of Heaven. Spend a month with him, as we did, and you’ll hear him preach and pray with intensity and passion. We all love Noki dearly and are incredibly grateful to have had such an incredible ministry contact for our first month.
Emyer (on the left of Vanessa, in the red shirt) and Osias are two brothers we met who are very active in the church, and in the Compassion International school next door. Osias is studying to be a civil engineer, but he is also a skilled preacher and a wise student of the Bible. He is a deep thinker and knows a fair bit of English, so we were able to get to know him fairly well. Emyer just turned 18 and is a wonderful young man. He is not immediately impressive by some standards, but to hear him discuss God is to hear a gifted speaker in development. He has an eloquence and passion that is not often evident when discussing the mundane things of the world. Both of these young men are absolutely wonderful pillars of their church and influential in their community, and we have been thrilled to get to know them over the month we have had. They are representative of a handful of young adults who are actively involved in their church and give us so much hope for the future of God’s ministry in Arroyo Cano.
Quirudis is one of the young women who is a real leader in the church. She doesn’t speak a word of English, but Elizabeth in particular got to know her quite well, and she is a fantastic person. She and a few other women her age are very active in church services – leading worship, providing sunday school for the kids, and working in the Compassion school front office. She’s studying to a nurse in San Juan. Please pray that God will continue to bless Quirudis and the other young people of Arroyo Cano to become respected leaders in the community and to bring the kingdom of heaven to their town.
Here’s Arroyo Cano from a hill to the south. There are so many things hanging over these people – generations of absentee men forcing children to become adults without ever knowing what that looks like, drugs and gangs, a listlessness to life in a town where many young people get up and go to San Juan or other larger cities at the first opportunity – but there are also so many people being raised up to shine God’s light into the dark corners. It will be a struggle, but the Lord of the harvest will be with these kingdom workers we’ve come to know and love.
I can’t possibly talk about the people of Arroyo Cano without mentioning the children. The town is positively swarming with kids, and after three weeks here they all know our names. The first day we drove in on the back of a pickup truck, shouts of ‘Americanos!’ followed us everywhere. Now as we walk we are greeted by name. It’s truly been a blessing to meet these children:
Alendre is a thoroughly inquisitive little fellow (he spent about half an hour running about with my camera taking pictures of important subjects like the floor, his hand over the lens, and a truly masterful study of one particular wall) but he wiggled his way into my heart.
The kids love to play games, with or without us, but always with our cards!
Daiver is Noki’s nephew, but they both call each other ‘Tio’ – Daiver because it’s the Spanish word for uncle, Noki because he thinks it’s funny.
Cleo (above) and his cousin Isaifer. Cleo has been my shadow from practically day one, and he spent our entire last day on my back. He’s the sweetest boy you could ever meet – when we come back from the basketball courts sweaty and tired, he walks right up to us and wipes the sweat off our faces. As I was putting on my shoes one day, he came up and took the sock out of my hands and put it on my foot himself. I pray that he will never lose that servant heart and that he will soon come to a relationship with Jesus.
Jesus tells us, “…store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” (Matthew 6:20-21) God has blessed me with these people as my treasures, to meet them again in Heaven if not here on Earth, and Arroyo Cano has stolen a piece of my heart. God, grant me a big heart to continue to store up treasures like these people.
