Sunday, November 27, 2011

Fall in Minnesota

Coming Home

This blog update is long overdue!  I'm not even sure how to describe these past few months....a whirlwind??  I returned from the Dominican Republic on August 29th.  I spent Labor Day weekend with my family and started my first class at Bethel Seminary the following Tuesday.  The class was excellent!  We discussed so many things related to missions and cross-cultural ministry that I've been thinking about, questioning and discovering in the past year.  This class was a great introduction to Bethel Seminary.

God provided a quiet, peaceful place for me to stay in Monticello with some great friends from the Quarry, Denny and Kathy Lundquist.  I'm incredibly thankful for them and all they've done to make me feel at home there. 

To be honest, adjusting to life in the US was much more challenging than I expected it to be.  I found myself trying to adapt to many things at once - you'd like I'd be used to it by now!!!  I don't know if it was because of the cultural and economic differences or if it was adjusting to the ways my life had changed in the US since I had left - job, homelife, relationships.  Throw in the assignments for Bethel Seminary, the pressure of support-raising and my new responsibilities for organizing the ImpactLives Meal-Packing events, and it's easy to see why I was a bit overwhelmed! 

Things have been challenging, but I know I'm learning and growing through it all.   I'm thankful for every minute I get to spend with my family.  I'm thankful for the roof over my head and the food on the table.  I'm thankful for the educational opportunities I have at Bethel Seminary and for the chance to be used by God to bless others through these meal-packing events.  I'm also thankful for all the people who have been supporting and encouraging me through this new adventure.  The bottom line is that there's nothing else I'd rather be doing! 

I think of James 1:2-4....
"2 Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, 3 because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. 4 Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything."

and 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18...
"16 Rejoice always, 17 pray continually, 18 give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus."

Food-Packing Events

I'm excited to share with you about all that is going on behind the scenes to prepare for these ImpactLives food-packing events.  We will be hosting two one-day events:  one in Monticello on March 10th, 2012 and the other in Albany on April 14th, 2012.  In each event we hope to raise the money and volunteers needed to fund, pack and ship 1320 boxes or 285,000 meals to people who are hungry in the Dominican Republic!  You'll certainly be hearing more about this! 

In Monticello, we have 13 churches on board along with all of the public schools.  The next step is sharing this exciting news with the rest of the Monticello community and inviting businesses and organizations to get involved.  Each box costs $54 and includes enough food to feed a family of six for more than a month!

The Albany Area is in the initial planning stages for the event in April.  Right now, we are looking for people who would like to help us plan, promote and facilitate this event in Albany and the surrounding communities.  If you're interested in helping us get this event going, please let me know! 

Friday, September 2, 2011

"Wherever I send you.."

I've included my first written assignment for my first class at Bethel Seminary.  It's a personal statement for my introductory class to the Global and Contextual Studies program.  I thought you might like to read it! 

It's hard to believe that it's already been a year since I took this leap of faith and resigned from my teaching position.  I have never regretted it for one second.  This has been the best year of my life!  That's not to say there haven't been challenges, but even in the challenges I somehow knew that everything would work out.  God was - and is - in control!  Thanks to each one of you who have been praying, encouraging and making financial donations and sacrifices to make this all possible this year and in years past.  I say this and mean it with all of my heart: May God bless you immensely!

Here's the paper.  Maybe I'll try to add a few pictures for you to spice it up a bit - Enjoy! 

“Wherever I send you…”
Kristin Wolford
14 Angelfish Ave Avon, MN 56310
GC 501/502 (September School)
Personal Statement


From left to right: Kristin, Mandi Natvig, Ciri Smith and Soo-Yong Yoon
Dominican Republic 2006
In June 2005, I returned from my first mission trip to the Dominican Republic.  After spending the morning writing in my journal and reflecting on all that had happened in the last ten days, I was speechless.   How was I possibly going to explain what I had just experienced to my family and friends: extreme poverty, sickness, people with faith like I’d never seen or known possible, the power of the Holy Spirit, voodoo, casting out demons, praying in tongues, baptism by submersion, and being “born again?”  These were not things we talked about in my family or in the Lutheran Church that I attended throughout my childhood.
How was I going to share with my family and friends?  When they asked about my trip, I wanted to say more than “We built houses, played with kids and had a really good time.”  I prayed that God would give me the words and the courage to talk about what really happened on this trip.
Pastor Michael Binder
Maybe it would be a lot easier to hear God if He used one of these when He spoke to us! 
While we were in the D.R., I had a conversation with my pastor, Michael Binder, on the topic of hearing God’s voice.  In this conversation, I was very frustrated and remember saying, “What’s the point of praying about it?!  God never answers anyway.”  My pastor wisely responded, “I think sometimes we don’t hear God speak, because we don’t slow down and take the time to listen.”
So, the day after our return I lay on my bed, praying and reflecting, asking God for courage and boldness to share about Him.  I laid there so long I was almost falling asleep when the word “Jeremiah” popped into my mind.  I thought, “What in the world?!   Where did that come from?”  It took a few more minutes before I recognized that Jeremiah was a book in the Bible.  Then it hit me, maybe this was God speaking to me!  I quickly opened my Bible to the book of Jeremiah, and this is what I read:
The Call of Jeremiah
4The word of the LORD came to me saying,
5 “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart;
I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.” 
6 “Alas, Sovereign LORD,” I said, “I do not know how to speak; I am too young.”
7But the Lord said to me, “Do not say, ‘I am only a child.’  You must go to everyone I send you to and say whatever I command you.  8Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you and will rescue you,” declares the Lord.  Jeremiah 1:4-8 (NIV)

These verses have given me courage, comfort and confidence on many occasions.  This was the first time I had heard God’s voice, and I will never forget the commands and promises these verses contain.  God used this passage to encourage me that day to speak boldly about Him regarding the things I had learned on our mission trip.  There have been many times since that because of the promises contained in this passage I have found the courage to speak on God’s behalf – the first day I visited and spoke in the largest prison in the Dominican Republic, for example.  It took an extra dose of boldness that day to address the men for the first time.   In a way, this passage has become a covenant between the Lord and me.  He promises to always be with me and to rescue me, and I promise to say whatever He commands and go wherever He asks.   
July 2007 (I think) 
"The Fab four team" Kara Dykert, Melissa Rodriguez, Ezra Melhaff and Me
Distributing food to people in Km 16 with the SHALOM youth.
God has always kept His promise, and I’ve done my best to keep mine.  To this point, God has sent me to Ecuador (March 2005), the Dominican Republic and to Haiti (April 2007).  From March 2005 until August 2010, I served on ten short-term mission trips.  Eight of those trips were to the Dominican Republic during my summer vacation from teaching.  These trips were some of the most challenging and most rewarding weeks of my life, and I loved every minute of it! 
On these short-term mission trips, we spent a lot of time in Haitian refugee villages, building homes, teaching Vacation Bible School, leading Bible classes for youth and adults, building relationships, sharing the Gospel and pouring ourselves out for weeks at a time.  During the last year and a half, we spent a lot more time working together with the youth from a local church, hoping to contribute to their development as leaders and to equip and empower them to carry out the work when we left. 
After working several summers in a row in the same communities, I contemplated our effectiveness.  I wondered if we were really making any difference.  In and through five years of mission trips, I knew that I had been transformed.  Each year I learned and grew so much because of these trips.  I was always challenged, stretched and pushed far outside my comfort zone, but I wondered about those we had been serving.  They had new houses, but what about their souls?  Were we really having an eternal impact in the lives of these people? 
Each fall, I went back to the classroom, teaching the quadratic formula and correcting homework and tests.  Even though I had great relationships with my students and volleyball players – I really cared about them and knew God was using me to make a difference in their lives.  Still, I was not content.  I was hungry for more of God.  I wrestled with these questions about the Dominican Republic, and I wanted to apply the lessons I learned from people in the Dominican Republic to walk by faith and not by sight.  All of these things weighed heavily on my heart.  After five years of teaching, it was time to take the leap.
In August 2010, I left my teaching position to spend a year in the Dominican Republic seeking God, His will for my life, and searching for answers regarding the effectiveness of our ministry there.  For maybe the first time in my life, I didn’t have a plan other than to go, be available and trust God.   I went on faith, convinced that one thing would lead to the next, which would lead to the next, and so on.   
Teaching in the Gomez Rehab House
A few weeks ago, I returned from my first year as a full-time missionary, and what a year it has been!  I’ve had opportunities to learn from so many different pastors and ministry leaders in several different cities in the Dominican Republic.  I’ve developed close relationships with children, youth and adults.  I’ve been mentoring, equipping and empowering others to serve, to share the Gospel and be agents of change in their communities.   

Teaching English in Guayabal

I’ve led Bible studies, English classes and service projects for Dominicans.  I’ve had opportunities to attend government meetings and to serve in prisons - teaching, preaching and encouraging the men inside and leading other teams of Americans and Dominicans to who want to visit and learn more about how they can help. 
I’ve also been learning more about the education system – touring schools, meeting with teachers and principals and organizing conferences for teachers of public and private schools.   I’ve served on mission trips with Dominicans to other parts of country, and I’ve worked with several mission teams from the US.  I strongly believe in preaching the “Good News” with words and actions.  I want to make sure that in whatever we do, we are actually bringing good news for people – helping them with needs they have today and giving them a message of hope and salvation for all eternity. 
Liliana reading the Berenstein Bears in Jalonga 1.
This summer I started a pilot program for a traveling library project.   In this program, we have two teams of five people each traveling to certain poor Haitian communities.  Each team travels twice a week to sing songs and give a Bible lesson, and then they spend at least an hour reading, writing and problem-solving.   Those who are able to read on their own can select a book and sit down to read.  The five team members work with the children and adults who are unable to read.
As I look through the chapters of our textbook, “Introducing World Mission,” I am tickled!  There have been so many times in the last year that I’ve felt ill-equipped to be on the mission field.  I’m looking forward to learning all that I can about missions: what does the Bible says about missions?, what does it really mean to be a missionary?, what is truly the goal of missions?, what are some of the challenges of missions and what are some effective strategies for overcoming them?  I praise God for the opportunity to be a part of this program at Bethel Seminary. 
It appears that God is leading me to full-time missions.  If this is the case, I need to better understand the Word of God and how to teach from God’s Word in another language to a different culture.  I also hope to learn the language of missions in order to better understand, develop and articulate some of the things I’ve been seeing and feeling over the last year.  
Learning from Pastor Lidio.  We are in the pastors' dormitory inside the prison.
 The inmate pastors are preparing lunch for us!
These are pastors who are still prisoners.  They have turned their lives
 around and are now leading other men to Christ.
Most importantly, I hope to learn every day how to more effectively share God’s love with people wherever I am and how to appropriately communicate the plan of salvation to those who desperately need to hear it.
I don’t know what the future holds for me.  I just read James 4:13-17,
13 Now listen, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.” 14 Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. 15 Instead, you ought to say, “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.” 16 As it is, you boast in your arrogant schemes. All such boasting is evil. 17 If anyone, then, knows the good they ought to do and doesn’t do it, it is sin for them.”

I am reminded to take things one day at a time.  I intend to keep my promise to God: I will go wherever He sends me and say whatever He commands me, and I will not be afraid!  This training at Bethel Seminary seems to be an important next step.
Team Time!  Juice and Empanadas at the park.
I believe that I will continue to work in the Dominican Republic for the next few years: uniting, equipping and empowering God’s people in missions.  In addition to the local churches, orphanages and prisons, God seems to be opening doors in the education system in the Dominican Republic as well.  I look forward to seeing how God may have me use my gifts as a teacher to glorify Him among Christians and non-Christians alike. 
I have a sense that in a few years I may also be called to lead teams of Dominicans into Haiti to help people in need and share the Gospel.  After that, I have no idea where God may send me.  Wherever it is, I’ll be ready because I know that God will be with me, and whatever happens He will rescue me – “declares the LORD” (Jeremiah 1:8 NIV).

Friday, August 5, 2011

Library Project - Growing Fast!!

We have been going once a week to three different sites with Iglesia Centro Cristiano Shalom (Pastor Carlos's Church).  We've been going to Kilometer 16 (Batey La Mina) and to Jalonga 1 & 2. 

There are about twelve different people who have been volunteering their time - singing, sharing Bible stories with kids, and then opening the "library" and spending time reading with kids.

Community members of all ages can come and enjoy the books.  The leaders/librarians spend time reading with kids who aren't able to read yet.  I see the love of Christ shining through them as they get to know the kids in their group and enjoy the opportunity to read and learn new things together with them.

I'm praising God for the opportunity to be a part of this project.  A new shipment of books should be arriving next week.  We'll divide the books into three suitcases and rotate them between the sites each month.  The group will continue traveling to these sites when I return to MN at the end of the month. 
Thanks to everyone back home who helped make this possible!  Keep praying!

Here's a link to facts about literacy in the Dominican Republic and the rest of the Caribbean.  http://www.indexmundi.com/map/?t=0&v=39&r=ca&l=en














Also enjoy this link - 5 Dominicans set the Guinness World Record for longest continuous reading. I would love to find them and get them to visit our libraries and speak to the kids!!

http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2011/07/20/general-cb-dominican-republic-reading-record_8575593.html

Why are we doing this??  Lots of reasons...here are three!

1) John 3:16

2) Matthew 28:19

3) Proverbs 2:12

God Bless You!!!! 

Tuesday, July 12, 2011

Our First Video!!

Emmanuel
Uniting, Equipping and Empowering God's People in Missions

Jesus said...
"Therefore go and make disciples of all nations..." 
Matthew 28:18-20


Here's the link - ENJOY!!! 

Made by Eli Guilliou, May 2011

Friday, May 6, 2011

A Missions Experience!

David A Livermore wrote in his book, Serving with Eyes Wide Open,  "missions is about giving people a living picture of who God is, what God cares about and how God acts." 

From April 24-27, twelve young Dominican leaders and I served together in a Haitian community called Jalonga.  Each day we prayed that as people in that community watched us and listened to us, they would see that God is in control, that God cares about them, and that God is acting on their behalf - He has not forgotten about them!! 

Our work for the four days included children's ministry, construction, relational evangelism and participating in evening church services. 

This was an incredible experience for all of us.  The pastor who received the house was so happy.  The community was encouraged.  We made new friends.  And, we learned more about missions and about working together as a team.  We are all so thankful to God and to everyone in the US and in the DR who participated and made it possible for us to serve like this. 

Enjoy the pictures!!
 
This is the church in Jalonga on the left.  We had Bible School for the kids under the mango tree on the right.

Lots of singing and clapping and smiling!

Teaching stories from the Bible.

Reading children's books about David and Goliath!

Coloring!!!


Pretty pictures and pretty smiles!  :)


Red Light - Green Light

This is a "before" picture of the pastor's house.  The house is mostly made of big leaves that fall from the palm trees, and some scrap pieces of wood, tin and cardboard.

This is the inside of the pastor's house.  There were two rooms - one for he and his wife, another for his daughters.  Everything was very tidy! 


This is Pastor Janot with his new house!  The cement floor was poured the next day.





Framing the house.









Look at that teamwork! 


This is one of Pastor Janot's favorite Bible verses.  One of the girls, Clara, wrote the verse out on a piece of wood and hung it in the entrance of his house.  Psalm 121:1-2, "I lift my eyes up to the hills - where does my help come from?  My help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth."

Add caption

 


Osram played his saxaphone at the church service on Tuesday.  It was amazing.  This was a special treat for all of us!

We worshipped God in Spanish, Creole and English during this service.  I really enjoyed the service.  I know the community was encouraged by our presence there, too.  The whole night I just imagined God watching us with a big smile on His face!  It's so good to be one of His kids! 

On the last day, we got some of the kids together to help pick up garbage in the community.

The garbage pick-up team!


Each day we assigned a small team of people to just hang out with people in the community - we call it relational evangelism.  They spent time with them, asked questions, listened, learned about the people and their lives, and sometimes they shared about their lives and what God is teaching them.

Carrying water - not an easy task, but look at that smile!!

These are the pastor's neighbors.  They are shucking peas.


 
It really did take a lot of people working together to make this happen!  This was a very special experience for all of us.  Each of the  participants commented about how thankful they were for the opportunity to be a part of this team and to be able to help other people like this.   I have met so many people like them who are more than willing to help.  They will volunteer their time and do whatever they can to help others, but on their own they lack the financial resources to make things like this happen.  I hope we can do more group projects like this in the future.