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!!
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| This is the church in Jalonga on the left. We had Bible School for the kids under the mango tree on the right. |
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| Lots of singing and clapping and smiling! |
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| Teaching stories from the Bible. |
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| Reading children's books about David and Goliath! |
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| Coloring!!! |
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| Pretty pictures and pretty smiles! :) |
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| Red Light - Green Light |
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| 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. |
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| 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! |
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| This is Pastor Janot with his new house! The cement floor was poured the next day. |
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| Framing the house. |
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| Look at that teamwork! |
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| 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." |
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| Osram played his saxaphone at the church service on Tuesday. It was amazing. This was a special treat for all of us! |
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| 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! |
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| On the last day, we got some of the kids together to help pick up garbage in the community. |
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| The garbage pick-up team! |
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| 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. |
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| Carrying water - not an easy task, but look at that smile!! |
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| These are the pastor's neighbors. They are shucking peas. |
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| 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. |
