Week #2 - Ministry Begins

It was a great first week of ministry! I'll break it down a little for you.

Monday:

In the morning, we traveled to a church in La Romana to deliver some chairs for church they are working on there. They've nearly completed the roof and are now working on the altar. They still don't have windows. I don't know how many chairs we brought - maybe 100 or so.

We also delivered food and clothing to the men who have been working so hard on the church. I spent time playing with the kids. A lot of the people in that community are Haitian, so they speak Creole as their first language. It was a nice afternoon.


Monday evening some of the youth held a service right here on the compound. There was about 20 people in attendance. They sang songs, they shared about what God is doing in their lives, and my friend Gleny gave a message from Genesis 12. It was great. I was very inspired and encouraged by their desire to honor and worship the Lord. They already go to church Tues, Thurs and Sun. It's wonderful (and rare?) to see teenagers and young adults chose to spend their free time worshipping God and learning more about Him!



Tuesday:

I had my first session together with the youth on Tuesday morning. We started by praying together and reading the introduction to the book Courageous Leadership by Bill Hybels. When we were finished reading they broke into small groups and responded to some discussion questions.

(The young woman standing here is Belkis, the president of the youth. She and I have been working together quite a bit this week. She's great!)


These are the questions we discussed:
1. What are some of the essential qualities or characteristics of a leader in the church?
2. What are some key differences between a leader in the church and a leader who is not a Christian?
3. The author of our book, Bill Hybels, says, "The local church is the hope of the world." Do you agree or disagree? Explain your answer.
4. Describe a church (real or fictional) that would have an enormous impact in the world. What are the pastors, leaders and members doing?
5. On a scale from 1 to 10, how well are you as an individual and you as a church representing Jesus to the world?


We took a break from the book to play a little game. We divided the students into three groups and gave them a person from the Bible. They had ten minutes to plan a drama or skit to act out the person without using words or props. The rest of the group tried to guess who they were. We also had judges rating their performance. We had fun with it!

We ended by having some quiet time for prayer and reading from the Bible. This week we committed to fasting in the mornings, praying for the group and reading through the book of Matthew. As we read through Matthew, we are looking to learn from Jesus and his disciples about how they interacted with people who didn't know God or were living in sin.

Before we started reading, we talked a little about reading the Bible. We talked about reading the Bible slowly and taking time to really try to understand. We talked about the fact that we can pray as we are reading and ask God to teach us and speak to us through His written word.

I also mentioned something that I learned from my pastor on my first trip to the DR. I was frustrated at the time because people kept telling me to pray to God for help. I wanted to scream at them "What's the point in praying about it? I never hear God speak to me about anything!" My pastor told me sometimes we don't hear God speak to us because we don't give God the time or opportunity to speak to us. So, I told the students about how important it is to just be still, be patient and give God an opportunity to speak to us.

It was challenging to communicate these things in Spanish. I had to write it all out ahead of time and have some friends look it over to make sure it made sense. The most frustrating part is not being able to fully understand their responses and not being able to give them feedback like I would if it were all in English.


Tuesday night I got to go with Teresa to a church in a small Haitian village 16km away. These Haitian villages are called bateyas. We call this bateya "Kilo 16." Teresa preached that night, and it was such a blessing to see her in action. She is an incredible woman. I admire her so much. God really spoke through her to the people in church that night. Two men came forward towards the end of the service to give their lives to the Lord. After the service, two others came forward asking for prayer.

There were a lot of kids in that church, too. In fact, it was the kids who led the songs and one of them read the scripture. It was really neat to see the joy and excitement the people in that church have for the Lord!

I'd say it was a pretty good first day!!! :)


Wednesday:

We had class again Wednesday afternoon. We started to read the first chapter of the Courageous Leadership book, and we read Acts 2:42-47. The author, Bill Hybels, continues to say "when the local church is at its best, the local church is the hope of the world." We discussed the following questions.

1. What are some of the problems and concerns of people here in the Dominican Republic? (consider family, friends, Christians, Non-Christians, people living in the city and people living in the bateyas)
2. Because of Jesus Christ and what He did on the cross, what is the local church able to offer to these people that other humanitarian groups cannot?

The main idea is that we can do so many good things for people in need - give food, clean drinking water, medical attention and clothing, for example. These are all really good things and things we are called to do, but we can't stop here. If this is all we do, we are only helping them temporarily.

We also need to carry the eternal message of Jesus Christ with us wherever we go. The local church is to be different from humanitarian groups because the church is to represent Jesus and bring the message of salvation with us wherever we go. With Jesus, there is deep love and compassion for all people. With Jesus, there is peace and joy in the most difficult circumstances. With Jesus, there is grace and forgiveness. With Jesus, there is justice and mercy. With Jesus, there is a fresh start. With Jesus, there is freedom. With Jesus, there is always hope - hope for today, for tomorrow and for all of eternity.


We also talked about the church in Acts 2 and what it would take for a church to live this way today. We talked about whether or not we believe it's possible for a church to live like that today.
We came to the conclusion that we believe it is still possible for the church to live this way and that God actually wants us to live this way. We said it wouldn't be easy, but it would be incredible. It would take people who are willing to live their lives very differently from the rest of the world. It would take people who are dedicated to prayer and desperate for God to move in peoples' hearts and lives. It would take people whose lives have been turned upside down because of Jesus. It would take people who are so passionate about the Gospel that they are willing to go anywhere and do anything to tell people about Jesus.

These are some big ideas - ideas that get my heart pounding. Ideas that make me want to scream, "What are we waiting for?! Why are these just ideas?! Let's get to work! Let's be the people, be the church that God intended for us to be!"

Some people would probably tell me to relax. I was just describing some pretty incredible young people who gave up their Monday night to worship the Lord. I would say I agree with you to an extent. I believe there are a lot of people who are serving the Lord with all of their hearts. I also believe God is very big and there is so much more that He wants to do in us and through us if we would only let Him.


Thursday:

Thursday morning we went to the hospital. There were about eight of us, and we walked about an hour to get there. We went to visit the sister of one of our friends, but God had other plans for us. When we got there, we discovered our friend had already been released!

At the last minute we packed a few children's books and some of the toys that the mission teams had left this summer. Even though it was not "visiting hours," the administrators at the hospital let us in. Half of our team went inside and the other half stayed outside to talk to people outside.
I went inside, and we were able to visit with each child, read a few books, talk to them and their families, pray with them and give them a small toy at the end of our visit. The children were very uncomfortable, sad and scared. It wasn't easy, but it was an honor to be given the opportunity to spend time with those kids - to help take their minds of things for even just a little while and just play with them and pray for them and their families.


Thursday night we had a service outside here on the compound. My favorite part of the service was when Pastor Carlos called all of the children forward who come to church each night without their parents. I couldn't believe how many there were! It was so inspiring to me. He gave them each some bags of ImpactLives food to take home to their families.

Last night I was reminded of something I read recently in Dr. Wess Stafford's book, "Too Small To Ignore." Wess Stafford is the president of Compassion International. He wrote, "Two-thirds of the people who give their lives to Christ do so before the age of eighteen. And, if people have not accepted Christ by the age of twenty-one, the probability that they ever will is only 23%." Dr. Stafford is urging us to make children a priority in our ministry. It was neat to see that children are a priority in the ministry here at Centro Cristiano Shalom.


I guess that's all for now. I am not sure what the next week will bring. I am just trying to take it one day at a time. Please continue to pray for God to lead us and guide us in all that we say and do. And, pray for God to bring healing and restoration to people's lives. Dios es bueno!