Could use some prayer today

Hey peeps. Even though it’s been a three day weekend and I’ve been able to take my mind off ministry and relax, I am still feeling pretty drained. It’s been really hard to quiet my mind as anxious thoughts like “How can I build relationships with students in Vida Estudantil if I can’t understand Spanish very well?” “How can I encourage my teammates in their homesickness when I’m feeling it too,” “How can I share the Good News and tell students that God satisfies the longings of our hearts when there are many things that I am still longing for?” and “I miss my home church where they worship in English and I can understand the sermon and have conversations with people after the service without speaking broken Spanish and sounding dumb.” Gah.

Please pray not just for me, but for the other 4 members of my team; I know that some of them are experiencing the same anxieties. That we will not be led by our feelings but cling to God’s truth that says he will guide us, protect us, and do immeasurably more than we could ask or imagine.

“This one’s going in the blog!”

This is exactly what one of the girls on my team said as I was being towed via piggy back for twenty minutes unable to walk on my own with 7 people following me laughing hysterically the entire way…

So, yesterday was a national holiday—Our Lady Mercedes day—and some people from our church took us to the beach. I have been living in the Dominican Republic for over a month now and up until yesterday I had yet to dive into the Caribbean Sea, so you can imagine how excited I was to finally get to play at the beach.

After the hour and a half drive to the beach, the very first thing I did was step in the water. We had a ton of fun throwing the Frisbee around, swimming, eating snacks and to end our day, four of the people from my team and one of the guys from church went for a nice long walk along the water. At the farthest point of our walk, R. and I couldn’t resist swimming in what was probably the bluest part of the water we’d seen so we hopped in for a while. Walking back to the shore, all of a sudden I feel a sharp jab in the bottom of my foot, not a poke like you’d feel if you had stepped on glass, but I definitely felt something forcefully thrusting itself into my skin.

You know those times when you just need a second to see if you’re ok, and you rest (maybe mutter a four letter word to ease the pain!), and then you can just move on? I tried that, and the pain was still worse than ever. I made R. carry me back to the shore, the others are looking at us like, “What is going on?” I am now laying on the sand trying to get a grip and one of the guys went to go get help. First glance at my foot showed an already bruised wound and a swollen foot. Not good. All of a sudden, the “help” starts squeezing my foot, pressing lime against it, and looking for remnants of sting ray stingers. I'm glad I can't understand Spanish very well, because the "help" also wanted to use his pocket knife to slice open my foot to be sure nothing was still in there.

Now, my mom was an E.R. nurse, so I learned not to make a big deal out of something unless it was extremely painful. This was exremely painful…an 8 out of 10 (10 being child birth). It started to get dark and the rest of our group would being worrying about where we were, so we had to start our way back. Thanks to our long walk, one poor guy had to carry me on his back for twenty minutes.

While my foot was in horrible pain, this was probably the funniest part of the day. I was so embarrassed that I was now being carried in my bathing suit by a guy I’ve known very briefly (oh, and who doesn’t speak much English). Ladies, imagine how awkward I felt when his friends encouraged him to run with me on his back…in my bathing suit!!! Gah! I had my girls stand behind me as much as possible to help give me some coverage, but I think this got lost in translation as the guy just kept on running. Then he asks me to itch his nose. My legs and arms are cramping from holding on to this guy for twenty minutes. And now the rest of the 15 people in our group are watching us approach in confusion. Fortunately one of them was a nurse and she cleaned it up for me. R. said that he’d been stung by a sting ray before and the only way to relieve the pain is by sticking it in hot water. Let’s just say the following 2 hours until we got home were nearly unbearable! But he was right, the girls heated up some water for me and the pain immediately stopped (If you’re interested, you can read about sting ray stings here).

Needless to say, our first trip to the beach was more exciting than we’d expected! But I still had a great time (especially now that my foot doesn’t hurt!) and now have a story that will keep our team laughing throughout the year (let’s just hope image of me on the guy’s back fades out of their memories!)

Knowing God Personally

So we have a nickname for the pamphlets we use to share the gospel with people in the United States. An updated version of the Four Spiritual Laws, we’ve abbreviated Knowing God Personally to KGP. In Campus Crusade culture, we’d throw this term around pretty casually: “Did you use a KGP?” “Where can I get some more KGPs?” “Are we training others in the KGP?” I’ve gotten so used to this term “KGP” that sadly, I’ve nearly forgotten the essence of its existence.

I was somewhat warned before coming here that in order to do this ministry—leaving my home country and sharing the gospel with others in a different language full time with a team of people who all have different ideas and opinions—requires daily surrender to God and reliance on him to meet our needs. Let me tell you, I haven’t struggled in the slightest with coming to God as quick as I can to beg him for wisdom when there’s a disagreement amongst our team, boldness when I am afraid to initiate spiritual conversations with students, and insight as I’ve been leading our team’s weekly small group and devotional times. But I’ve often felt like an employee coming to God every second asking for him to show me how to do my job better and reminding him that if he doesn’t, we’ll fail!

A few days ago, as I was in the middle of one of my screaming for help sessions with God, I felt him leading me into silence. After an extended period of me saying, “But what about…Are you going to show me…When…This stuff needs to get taken care of today,” He reminded me that His number one concern wasn’t whether or not I have a topic to discuss at small group, or that I know how to guide someone on my team in settling a dispute with another teammate, or that I become some all-star evangelist. His number one desire is to have an intimate, growing, and passionate relationship with me. All else can fail, but at the end of the day, what matters most is Knowing Him Personally, and letting him remind me of who I am: His Beloved, His Daughter, His Delight.

This video excerpt from Francis Chan sums it up nicely:

The Cheese Doesn’t Melt Here

…and other cultural differences

No matter how long you put it in the microwave, it just separates into a rubbery gunk. And speaking of microwave…

Wasn’t sure what was gonna happen when I pushed the “limpiar” button…is this a self cleaning microwave? No, that just means “clear.” Bummer ;)

Does frozen Captain Crunch taste better? Not particularly, but keeping our food in the freezer keeps the ants out!

Happy Saturday everyone and feel free to check out the other team member’s blogs at http://drnatasha.blogspot.com/ and now B has one too at http://diosesfieltodoeltiempo.blogspot.com/

Added to their number daily those that were saved

After a week of decoding, our team was ready to start sharing our faith with students at UASD (pronounced “wahs”). Since we are all at various levels of experience with initiative evangelism, we spent the mornings equipping each other on how to use different tools to share the gospel including the Four Spiritual Laws booklets and Soularium (a tool that uses 50 interpretive photos to inspire spiritual dialogue).

On our first day of sharing, B and J went out and talked to Hector,* a student who considered himself a member of the Christian church but had never given control of his life over to God. While reading the invitation prayer to receive Christ from the booklet, he asked if he could read it again, this time from his heart. Praise God for revealing to Hector that he wants to have a personal relationship with him that will bring him true satisfaction in his life! Please pray for him this week and he finds community either through a church or Vida Estudantil so his relationship with God will grow.

A personal celebration comes from an experience I had today while bringing Esther* , a current member of Vida Estudantil, along with me to share our faith. We walked up to a group of three girls sitting near the English Immersion building (I was hoping this meant they might know some English!) It flustered me for a moment when I learned they didn’t speak English and I realized I’d have to take my first shot ever at initiating a spiritual conversation—and hopefully a gospel presentation—in Spanish! A great English speaker, Esther* was able to translate for me when my Spanish was lacking. As I got to ask the girls about their spiritual backgrounds, I learned that all of them believed that Jesus was God’s son but were not sure that they could be certain in their salvation through him. I got to share with them God’s grace in sending Jesus to die for our sins and that covers all of our future sins too. While they were not ready to receive Christ into their lives, it was a huge faith stretching experience for me to see the Holy Spirit allow me to understand their doubts and struggles with Christianity and communicate the basics of the Gospel!

While the title of this blog refers to what God has been doing in student’s lives on campus, the passage of Acts 2:42-47 has held great meaning to our team in the last couple of weeks. Only being introduced to each other one month ago, we are still learning how to serve one another in love, what personally uplifts us, and how to experience team unity. For example, something that I really miss from home that refreshes me is watching NFL with my family. It meant a lot to have the girls on the team say that if I teach them about the game, they’d watch it with me occasionally. Or committing to enjoy each other’s company through sharing dinner together at our weekly small group on Wednesday nights and lunch after our staff meeting on Fridays. Pray that we would continue to strive for authentic community and that we would prioritize our relationships with the Lord so that an abundance of love would overflow onto each other!

2 Things

Exciting updates to come, but for now all I have to say is:

1. My teammates are in the process of creating their own blogs about how they are experiencing this trip—and N already has a great one going. Follow her blog here!

2. Please comment! It would really help me feel connected to my peeps at home to be able to read comments, brief or long, that can encourage, laugh at/with, and celebrate this year with.

Buenas noches!

Trust and Dependence

The Lord is good, a strong refuge when trouble comes. He is close to those who trust in Him. –Nahum 1:7

I’ve mentioned the gua guas before—they’re one of the cheaper public transportation options and I can’t imagine why with 5 people crammed in each row meant to sit 4 and others standing in the front (this is the size of a large van by the way, not really a bus). Anyways, there does not exist some brilliant map of the routes these things take nor can you know what the “KM,”  “19,” etc are supposed to be telling you about the direction they are headed in. There’s always a guy working for the bus who’s standing at the open door yelling sing-songy phrases in Spanish trying to get anyone on the streets (and I don’t think they care if you’re going in their direction or not) to get on their bus.

I have taken the gua gua three times now. The most recent adventure on these vehicles—of which I will always compare to the Knight Bus from Harry Potter in how ridiculous you feel riding it—was no different from the others. There I am, standing on the sidewalk, knowing that I need to go in “that” direction to some store on a street that I think I’m pronouncing the name right for, and it’s definitely not within walking distance. I have to try my luck on the gua gua. So one pulls up, and of course the guy has already been yelling yards away for us to hop on, not really caring where we are going. We ask if he’ll let us know when we need to exit when we’re as close to our destination as possible and though he says “yes,” I get the feeling that it’s not on his list of priorities and is probably likely to forget. So we ask the people on the bus if they know where we need to exit. By the way, I say we as if I was a part of this process. While my Spanish is decent, I can’t understand someone else’s to save my life, so I left this part to N and B. So here I am on this bus that just made a turn in the opposite direction that I think we should be going, with two translators who I’m hoping are asking the right questions, and all I can do is just sit there hoping that we’ll make it there somehow.

I don’t like feeling dependent on others. I hate the feeling of helplessness which implies incompetence. Not only that, but here I can’t even fake it that I know what I’m doing. 

And then God speaks. As I sit in scrunched in between 4 people on this rickety bus, praying “God would you please help us get there ok and that we wouldn’t be taken to a place so far away that I can’t figure out how to get back home,” He says, “You might not be able to depend on these, but can’t you depend on me?” I realize that maybe I have been placed here in this helpless position to practice dependence through relying on others. That instead of being discouraged by my inadequacies, I can watch for God to step in and be my rescue. It’s a scary place to be, but won’t it be cool when I have a collection of memories upon which I can praise God for?

First Week of Ministry!

The first two weeks in Santo Domingo have been focused on getting settled into our new apartments. While most of our energy has been put into getting the basics (electricity, air conditioning, gas for the stove, cleaning supplies, food), we had our first staff meeting last Friday to discuss our goal for this week: meet as many students as possible and learn as much as we can about UASD. 

We split our team up in groups and set out to answer these questions about the campus’ geography and social behaviors:

• Where do students go to hang out?
• What time are students on campus and when are they free?
• How do you get to school? How long does it take? When and where do you work on homework?

Our goal is to figure out how available students are to get together for small groups, discipleship, and campus outreach events. Some answers that surprised me:

• The cost per credit hour is 5-25 Dominican Pesos (RD)—the latter if you went to a private high school. This is equivalent to 14 cents-70 cents per credit hour, or about $15 a semester for a full schedule. This explains why there are 180,000 students here! However, it was discouraging to hear that despite having a degree, most students will be unable to find a job after graduation.
• About half of the students I talked to travel up to an hour and a half on the bus to get to school each day! In order to finish their degree quickly, many of them take classes on Saturday too…yuck!

Today one of the key student leaders of Vida Estudantil walked around campus with N and I to help us learn about UASD. It was such a privilege to get to spend this time with her. She has such a passionate heart for sharing the gospel with her peers. She has even shared it with full classrooms! If there’s anyone who will be able to help us learn how to reach students here, it’s her.

On another note…we had an interesting time trying to make Labor Day fun. I bought some break and bake cookie dough and a cookie sheet and brought it over to the boys apartment (the only ones to have a functioning oven) to bake them. As we went to turn on the oven, this is what we saw:We took a guess that 350 degrees was somewhere in between the 3 and 4 mark, and this is what happened: However, we didn’t let it steal our joy! We each got spoons and scooped as much as we could that was edible. But our cookie craving got the best of us; we eventually found ourselves saying, “It’s not that bad if you eat it with the burnt side up!”

Interesting Lifestyle Changes

While the focus of this blog is on what God is doing in my life and the lives of others through my year in the Dominican Republic, it would be lacking if I didn’t share with you some of the cultural “differences” (ok what I really mean is things here that make me go “What???”)

::Carros Publicos are shared taxis that follow a route along certain streets in Santo Domingo. For only 20 Dominican Pesos, you and 5 others can ride to your next stop (Note:these are compact cars! And to give you an better sensory picture, there is no air conditioning as you’re practically sitting on your neighbor’s lap!)

::Renting apartments is not easy. Not only do all landlords require that you pay 3 months rent up front, they also do not assume responsibility for the leaky air conditioning units and sink, lack of gas connection to stove, broken lock and key, and dancing washing machine. Hmm.

::Being a girl walking down any street means you will receive cat calls and suggestive comments from men. Fortunately we have 2 great men on our team who accompany us everywhere we go, but it’s still annoying.

::Don’t try to order a free cup of water from any kind of establishment. You’ll either get a weird look (because tap water here is not safe to drink) or just a cup with ice in it (which I’m still trying to figure out why the tap water in solid form is ok to consume…)

::It’s HOT here. And that’s coming from someone who’s called Arizona her home for the last 8 years. The humidity gets to you. I shouldn’t have brought my hair dryer. I am constantly sweaty and thus have no need to maintain the mane. Every time you feel a breeze though, it’s like a kiss from heaven.

::

5 Things I’ve Learned

It’s been a while since my last post…that’s because since then the girls have been living in our new apartment (yay!) but without electricity, hot water, or internet (one of which we will never have—hot water!) But I am totally amazed at how generously God answered our prayers to find a place. We have tons of space and a gorgeous view of the Caribbean Sea from our balcony! Thank you for praying that God would provide us with a place to call home.

So, besides figuring out how to accomplish more in daylight and without internet, what have I learned so far?

1. I’ve never played Frogger, but crossing streets in Santo Domingo is what I would imagine to be the most difficult level of the game. Cars follow no rules whatsoever and pedestrians certainly don’t have the right of way. I had my first experience on a “gua gua” (public bus) where you cram about 60+ people—so forget sitting next to the person you got on the bus with—and can easily be confused about your whereabouts as the driver takes whatever road isn’t full of cars trying to push their way through even if it means driving on the wrong side of the road!

2. Church here is a party. Our team attends Primera Iglesia de la Christianizacion Nacional where Crusade national staff, Braulio, Prospero, and Leyla, work out of. I was pleased to hear familiar tunes: “My Redeemer Lives,” “I am a Friend of God,” and “The Revelation Song,” but all in Spanish! There’s even a dance ministry who stand before the stage and praise God through movement. People aren’t afraid to praise God here and they do it with fervor. Now I just have to re-learn all the worship songs from the U.S!

3. The language barrier is a lot more of a challenge than I was expecting. While our team is blessed with 3 fluent Spanish speakers who have been so critical in helping us communicate with national staff, students, and taking care of day to day business, it has been a little frustrating not being able to understand important conversations, communicate my thoughts, and relying on others to help me. That last one is something that God is definitely teaching me how to do better and it even has brought me to a deeper understanding of how much I need to rely on Him. What this means for ministry though, is that I will need to find English speaking students to share Christ with and equip to share their faith. Please pray that God brings these people in my path, and also that He would do the same for the rest of my teammates.

4. God provides caretakers. Prospero and Leyla have been like family to us these last couple of weeks. Not only did they offer their help about things we should know about Dominican culture and the things God is already doing in their ministry, but they actually have spent sometimes over 8 hours a day helping us with our search for apartments, making dozens of phone calls to help us get settled in (setting up appointments to see apartments, setting up our electricity, fixing all the little things that are not working at our place). They are such great examples of loving others through acts of service. So for all of you who have been worried about our safety and being cared for, fear not and ask the Lord that He bless this lovely couple!

5. Lastly, I’ve learned that pioneering a STiNT team, especially never having done this kind of mission, let alone lead one, is tough and it requires me to confess Proverbs 30:1-3 “I am weary and worn out, O God. I am too stupid to be human, and I lack common sense. I have not mastered human wisdom, nor do I know the Holy One.” Talk about being humbled. Don’t misunderstand; I also know and am holding on to God’s promise in James 1:5 that He will give wisdom to those that have none. I have simply just been hit with the reality that all of my planning and knowledge means nothing and that if I want to see my team succeed in directing Dominican students to seek Christ wholeheartedly, I need to rely on His strength (Isaiah 40:31). Trying to give myself permission to say, “I don’t know,” asking for help from those that know more than I, or make mistakes has been a painful death to my pride…but I pray that I’m able to surrender daily to humility for the sake of God’s glory.