DR Mission Recap

Recap

Left from Seatac - Miami - DR

Worked with Ketley and Vital Pierre

Missionaries with IM that we support.

Broke into 2 teams

Team 1

Went with Vital to a community center/church

They have a center for Haitians to keep their immigration papers, and they evangelize to them there

There’s also a church that meets there called the Oasis of Peace (oasis de paix)

We were tasked with painting the building both inside and out.

Team 2 went with Ketly to the batays (sugar plantations)

These are giant sugar fields that are worked by predominantly Haitian immigrants.

They are given a place to stay and are given a meager amount of money to live on, and then they are worked constantly until they can’t anymore, at which point they are thrown out of the batay with no support.

There are a lot of young children and a LOT of young mothers, many of whom became pregnant due to rape.

It is modern slavery

So, Ketley has a lot of connections there, and she took our team to one of the batays and did a VBS with the children there.

They made crafts with them, provided snacks, and taught them about Jesus.

We did this until we finished painting the building and the VBS was finished, then we were supposed to have a day to see Santo Domingo (the capital) and learn some of the history of the DR.

Then, a category V hurricane cancelled our flights.

We were totally fine, but it was pretty crazy

At the time, we we’re in a public hospital talking to Moises, the CEO.

His mother had died because of inadequate medical care, so he started a hospital so that something like that would never happen again.

He set us up with two different events for the day that we were delayed.

We went and visited a nearby orphanage.

We heard some of the history of the orphanage we hung out with the kids, and some of our team got to play some games with them.

I saw so many kids that had lost their families somehow. We went into a room that had about 8 babies in them, some were about my daughter’s age.

We weren’t there for any purpose but to love them, but I gained so much from them.

That evening we also visited a giant resort.

It’s some massive place that was built in the 70’s; and it was gorgeous.

They even had this massive stone outdoor stadium that Sinatra would play at; and they had yachts there that were bigger than this room.

I asked our driver, Juja, how this place came to be.

It was built by the guy that owned all of the sugar plantations.

So, the person who was in charge of the almost literal enslavement of Dominicans built a gorgeous complex off of the money he made, staffs it with more Dominican workers, and then wealthy people will go and see how beautiful the Dominican can be.

It made my stomach hurt to think about.

But, then Ketley said something to me that I still think about.

She told me that this situation is terrible, but that we see the same thing all over the world, not just the DR.

And the next day, we packed up, spent a night in Miami, and made it home.

I have my own reflections on this, but I’d like to invite up a few members of the team to talk about their experience.

Questions

What did you learn about God on this trip?

Daniel

What did you learn about your faith?

Christine

Nora

Is there anything that you felt God was teaching you through this experience?

Jeffery

Eli

If you could tell yourself one thing before you went on this trip, what would that be?

Emilia

On a road trip, there’s always (at least for me) a piece of the road trip that is so boring that you almost want to just leave.

I didn’t always like road trips when I was younger. My family would do fun trips, but we’d also drive to Missouri. It’s literally in the name!

In order to do that drive, we’d have to drive through rural Nevada.

The only thing of note there is a little town called Tonopah, which I’m pretty sure hell is based on.

Their big attraction is a clown-themed motel!

So, what do you do when you’re going through the rural Nevada in your life?

What do you do when things are so normal, and you’re just there to get the job done?

All around this trip, I found myself being super discouraged. After some reflecting, I realized that I was dealing with feeling like nothing that I did mattered.

I couldn’t keep up as a pastor, things just kept falling through the cracks. Because of that, I was stressed all the time, which made me not husband and dad that I was created to be and needed to be. Beyond that, I felt like God was disappointed with me all the time because I couldn’t do what He wanted of me. It felt like everywhere I went I was met with failure or uselessness.

Then, we got to the DR, and I was told that I’d be painting a building. (not exactly the sexy ministry that I wanted)

So, I spent a ton of tie on a roof painting this building, and talking to God and Daniel Beard.

Finally, God showed me something that I needed to know.

Faith isn’t about what you do, it’s about who you are.

I had read Colossians around this time, and Colossians 3:17 had been stuck in my head.

Colossians 3:17 “And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.”

It was as if God was showing me that my failure and setbacks and uselessness weren’t pushing me away from God, it was thinking that my failures were pushing me away from God that was doing that.

And then in the DR I was forced to do something ordinary! There’s nothing majestic about painting a building! It’s hot, sweaty work!

But, God spoke to me on that roof about how my value as a man isn’t in what I or anyone can produce, my value is in the love that God has for me.

And that makes doing things so much easier! Because of this, my life and your life can become what I like to call

The Jesus Life

If the Bible isn’t lying to us (which it isn’t), then all of my life, not just the religious pieces, can become holy.

Our commutes can become a time of prayer and reflection

Our jobs can become a field for telling others about the God who loves people.

Our families can be the people that grow us into the men and women the Father made you to be

Our arguments and fights can become interactions to show the love of Christ.

And the religious parts of our lives can become meaningful instead of chores!

Instead of going to church because we have to, we could go because we want to worship God together.

Our time in the Bible can feel less like checking something off of a list and instead be life-giving!

Our prayers can stop being a to-do list for God and start being a divine conversation.

Gospel: Jesus entered our normal

Romans 12:1–2 “I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.”

Our lives can look like the Jesus life if we’re willing to give them up and start letting God guide us.

So, will you join me in making the normal holy? Can we be a people who belong to Jesus, so that all of our lives are His?