Where is your Church

A few weeks ago, Dustin, a missionary that is serving along side of us for a six-month term, organized a beach service. Dustin loves to surf, and began going to a local surf beach where he started to meet the local surfers, several of whom work as surf instructors at the beach. He began to build friendships with them, and several of the Christians in that group mentioned a desire to spend time together, and spend time in the word, so Dustin met with a few of them and provided a very simple time of fellowship and bible study right there at the beach. There were days that the surf was good, and they couldn’t meet at the originally set time, because the guys needed to be out while the tourists were there, so they would simply wait until the surf died down, the tourists left, and a small group could get together. So, he planned the beach service as a time to get a larger group together, invite people that hadn’t been joining the small group, and just get to know more of the local surf community. Even though I’m not a surfer, I was invited. It was a really great time. One of the great things I got from the event is that church doesn’t have to happen in a building, God says very clearly, “If two or more people are gathered in my name, I am there.” This means, that the smallest common denominator, the minimum number of people necessary for a church service is two. I read a very interesting book Organic Church by Neil Cole, and it details a church planting movement built on the premise of going to places where people already congregate, and bring church services to those places, not with amplifiers, speakers, an microphones, just a small gathering of people sharing what is happening in their lives, and encouraging one another on this journey of life. A small group of men from our English-speaking church meet for breakfast on Saturday morning. Now, there are a lot of good restaurants in Sosúa, after all, half of the community caters to tourists, but we chose a comfortable little hole-in-the-wall that is one of those places full of regulars. We show up for breakfast to encourage one another, but also for opportunities to build relationships with the other people in the restaurants. So, my question is where is your Church? Sunday mornings are a great training ground, but I’d like to encourage you to find an informal church, maybe at work during a break time, a local coffee shop, a parking lot, a park, wherever you find a few minutes with a small group, even if it is just a group of two. I’ve had some great church moments just talking with a friend over a cup of coffee. You, know it sort of reminds me of this guy I read about once, he used to meet with people in homes, at local watering holes, down at the boat docks, on the side of a hill, on top of a mountain, in parks, and in gardens. He went where people were living their lives, and was able to introduce them to a loving God that the new very well. After all, he was His son.

Saturday Morning

My plan for Saturday was to try to clear out the house so I could work on the message I am sharing Sunday morning, well fortunately I got some work done on it yesterday, because that sure didn't happen. Friday night, we had three extra kids staying the night. Kate had a friend over, and Michael had two. Melissa needed to be at a Women's Breakfast by 8:30, and I needed to have Michael and one of his friends at soccer by 9:00, so we were all up and out of the house at 8:30. We dropped Melissa off at her breakfast, got Michael and his friends to soccer (the other friend wanted to stay and watch), and then Kate, Rhea, and I headed to breakfast where we met up with another of Kate's friends and her dad, and Dustin. Breakfast was not the best experience, it was the first time to try a place close to the soccer field. After breakfast we picked Michael and Kate back up headed home where we were joined by two more girls, and two more boys. The boys jumped in the pool for a while while the girls played in the house, and the picture at the kitchen counter is them getting lunch, a salami and cheese sandwhiches with avocadoes and chips. The picture at the bottom is all of them somehow enjoying playing a computer game. As I'm typing this up three more girls have come over, so we are up to six girls and five boys.

Even though it wasn't the day I had planned it has been a good day, and somewhat typical around here!

What did you do today?

So, I don't have a typical 9 to 5 job. When people come visit us, they like to know what a typical day is like. I've said several times, there is no typical day. Today was a good example. I got up this morning and worked from home. Melissa is working with a short-term team this week. So she had activities with them this morning. The kids, Kate and Michael (our foster child), didn't want to go, so I planned on staying home with them. When Melissa was leaving Michael decided he did want to go, so he and Melissa headed off to the tent-school. I worked on some of the mission payroll and personnel issues, worked on a grant for some funding for our school in Bombita for a Canadian organization, answered e-mails to the Orlando office, and personal e-mails too, and completed some worked related to child sponsorship. I know it's exciting. Melissa and Michael came home for lunch. During a lunch conversation had an idea for a blog post (not this one--hopefully I'll get to it this week). Then we headed off to school. Michael and Kate both attend the afternoon session, so school for us starts at 1:50. Melissa had a meeting scheduled for the afternoon, so we all headed out. Now, dropping the kids off for school requires a small detour through the neighborhood of Policlinica where we pick up about 10 kids and take them to school. So we head to school singing along to the CD in the car. The CD is in English, and the kids love two of the songs on the CD so we listen to them everyday as they sing along with their own version. You may not have known it, but one line of the song "Every Move I Make" is "taca taca taca". Okay, you probably sing it "I take I take in you," but not in our truck!! We drop the kids off at school, pick up our mail from Agape flight, that we normally pick up in town, but a neighbor dropped it off at the school for us. Them Melissa and I head to the Health Center, where Melissa has a meeting, and I need to get material for an afternoon training. I meet Kathy LoSasso (fellow missionary) at the Health Center, and we head to Bombita for an afternoon training with the volunteer community health promoters. We have scheduled to meet with them for training on the monthly weighing of community children that are five years and younger. We have a great time with the promoters practicing with the scales and growth charts. We head back to the Health Center to pick up Melissa, I have a few minutes to talk to the Doctor to see how the afternoon clinic went and then we go to pick up the kids. For some reason the number of kids we are taking home this afternoon doubled from the morning. We head back home amid a chorus of "taca taca taca". Melissa, Kate, Michael, and I head to dinner before church, we eat in a small local restaurant in Charamicos, just down the street from our home. Melissa and the kids head to the house to get ready for church, and I take a motoconcho back to the school so I can hand out keys to the men that drive the trucks we send out to pick people up for church, and I am driving the truck to Bombita tonight. I get in the truck, it is low on gas, so I swing through the gas station to get gas, and it is going to be a 20 minute wait, because the gas truck is filling up the tanks and evidently they can't run the tanks and fill them at the same time. I am running a little early, so I decide to grab a Dr. Pepper (the store stocks them occasionally) and wait. I get my gas, and go pick up the people from Bombita. We head to church, enjoy a night of the kids singing. I am able to talk to a few of the church members about some problems they are having and encourage them. Then we make the return trip to Bombita. I swing back by the school, to drop the other drivers off where they can catch a public car (taxi) home. I get home, and get a call from one of the members from the short-term team that they are having a medical emergency. I ask the hotel to call a local doctor, and head to the hotel to help out. Thankfully it was a minor issue and resolved without the 30 minute drive and a night spent in the ER. Get home, chat with Melissa, and decide to type up what happened during the day. And now I'm going to bed excited about what tomorrow holds!

Myth Busters

I find it an obligation to bust a myth. I have recently come to understand that I have been misled and lied to my entire life. This deception started in preschool, and has been propelled by the liberal media machine. Be careful, because you and your children are being misled as well.

So, to set the record straight, roosters do not wake up just before the sun rises, and crow to welcome a new day. It is just not true. I have believed all my life, that these barnyard alarm clocks were created for this sole purpose. Nursery rhymes, cartoons, movies had all lead me to believe in the philanthropic nature of roosters, Nature's wake up call.

Well, I now know first hand that roosters crow whatever time of the day or night they choose. The one that lives behind our house enjoys midnight or 3:00 am, and then chooses to ignore the rising sun. Now, you may think, as I did, that it is an isolated incident, that he is simply choosing his own way casting aside years of rooster heritage. But then how do you explain the rooster down the street that answers his call any time of the day or night. You can't!

It's a big rooster conspiracy, and I'm busting it wide open.

Anybody want to come over for dinner tomorrow night? We're having chicken.

A Typical Shopping Day

We went to Puerto Plata Saturday so Josh (the guy from our home church that's living with us for a couple of months) could buy some new tennis shoes. I had a couple of things I was looking for as well. Puerto Plata is about 25 minutes away and is a much larger town that Sosua. It's not huge, but it's got a Burger King...in a gas station... The closest McDonald's is 2 hours away. So, we decided to try Burger King, our first time in the year that we've lived here. It looked like a Burger King from the States, even smelled and tasted like one, and at first glance you'd have thought that the only difference was that the menu was in Spanish. But when we ordered the lady standing behind the cash register took our order but didn't key anything in. Then she repeated our order to make sure that she had it right, walked away to some other cash register out of sight (or maybe just an adding machine or a scrap of paper??), and returned to tell us our total. I just found that a bit odd. Then as we were eating, one of the employees came out from behind the counter with a couple hundred pesos and put them down on a guys table without saying a word. I said, "Hey, you can come put some money on our table." John told me that it was his change. When he had paid they didn't have change for his 500 bill (about $15). I don't know why I still find that hard to believe since it happens ALL THE TIME. You pay for a 70 peso item with a 100 peso bill and they don't have the change! Often times the cashier or shopkeeper will pull money out of their own pocket to try to make change. Or, as we've blogged about before, they'll give you a cough drop or candy or gum as change. And speaking of, our next stop was to a little junky store a lot like Dollar General. I did find a couple of things I couldn't live without and when I paid she was 5 pesos short on my change so she gave me 2 hair clips!! As we were walking out the door something caught John's eye that he wanted to get. So when he paid he called to me and asked if I had 5 pesos...No, but I can give you the 2 hairclips she just gave me!

We made it to the sports store and didn't find shoes for Josh but he did find a basketball. It was a little flat though so we asked the guy if he'd pump it up before we bought it. He said "Sure" and reached to the rack where the pumps they have for sell were hanging, took one down, pumped up the ball, and put it back on the rack! We decided we weren't sure what else we'd need our pesos for and since they accepted credit cards, we'd pay for the ball with our debit card. The machine had some malfunction so they had to pull a phone from some other part of the store and plug it and the machine in together so it would work. It was quite the shopping day!

I was thinking about how truly "Dominican" these experiences are and that I wanted to share them with you. Then last night I tried to purchase tickets for our trip to the States in July. I can't do it online this time because we each have a $60 travel voucher and you can't use those online. (So you have to call, and that adds an additional $10 to your ticket price...don't get me started!) So, everything was going good. She asked me the value of the voucher and then went on to get my credit card number and some other information. I thought it was odd that she didn't ask for the voucher number to verify the amount. Then at what I thought was the end of the process she said, "Now, we'll need you to mail in that voucher to us and it'll need to be postmarked by June 12th. Well, with the way our mail runs that's a near impossibility. After explaining the situation she recommended that I go to the airport to purchase the tickets. Fortunately, it's not far away at all. But all I could think was, "I have to mail it to you?! Are you serious? You can't just type in a number and pull it up in your system?" So, maybe my experiences from earlier in the day weren't so uniquely "Dominican"!!

~Melissa~

Go to the Top

I just finished reading Oswald Chambers: Abandoned to God by David McCasland. It is a biography of Oswald Chambers (greetings from Captain Obvious). It's an amazing story and I have a whole new respect for the little devotional My Utmost for His Highest that I dust off every few years. In reading this, I came across a quote of Oswald Chambers, "You see, I believe that Jesus Christ our Lord has all power in heaven and on earth; do you? I find most people believe that He has all the power in heaven, but are not sure about earth."

This quote just stirred something with in me. And lead me to search the scriptures that support this statement. Where does it say that Jesus has all the power in heaven and earth? I mean, I knew it was in there, but I wanted to read it for myself straight from the source. I found myself reading in Ephesians, I've been spending a lot of time there lately, and I came to Ephesians 1:19-23. I love the way it is worded in The Message

Ephesians 1:19-23

Oh, the utter extravagance of his work in us who trust him - endless energy, boundless strength! All this energy issues from Christ: God raised him from death and set him on a throne in deep heaven, in charge of running the universe, everything from galaxies to governments, no name and no power exempt from his rule. And not just for the time being, but forever. He is in charge of it all, has the final word on everything. At the center of all this Christ rules the church. The church, you see, is not peripheral to the world; the world is peripheral to the church. The church is Christ's body, in which he speaks and acts, by which he fills everything with his presence.

Then, I was preparing to share in our Sunday morning English-speaking service. Now, when God and I agreed on this Dominican thing, I clearly remember one of my stipulations regarding sharing messages on Sunday mornings, or more specifically, not sharing messages. What had planted the seed about being a missionary was the combination of administrative and social work needs that is a great match with my skills and education. Preaching wasn't supposed to be on the table; however, the needs of the English church are such that Melisa and I each share on the occasional Sunday morning. So, as last Sunday was approaching the Chambers' quote and Ephesians 1 were on my mind. To top it off, God threw in a few issues the week before speaking that I thought I would try handling myself, but quickly realized were outside of my abilities to handle, but they I had to turn them over to him.

Also last week, I attempted to set up the mission phone and electric bills to be paid on line. Which, for you North Americans, it probably sounds like it should be an easy process. You probably thought, "You have to do something to set up on-line bill payment?" Well, actually, it requires coordination of our local bank and the electric company. Then it requires the coordination of the local bank with the phone company. Needless, to say it hasn't happened. The Electric company seemed like the easies, so I set up an online account, listed the bank accounts, and now, over a week later, I'm waiting for the pending confirmation, a process that should take 24-48 hours, according to the information online. Well, I decided to call the bank, to check on the confirmation, because they have to confirm that I have entered the correct information. The bank told me I had to talk to the electric company, and when I called the electric company I was told I had to talk to the bank. All, I wanted was some good ol' customer service. I just wanted to talk to someone who had the ability and the authority to make the changes that.

So, I shared these thoughts and experiences with our Sunday morning church. And I asked a few questions:

Are there areas in your life, or problems you face that you are trying to control with your limited power?

What limits does God have on what he has the power to change?

Okay, so this one was a rhetorical question. There is no limit to what God can change.

What limits do we place on what God hast the ability, power, and authority to change?

Through this message, I feel that the primary way we limit God's power to change things is by trying to do it ourselves, using our limited power and ability, instead of Christ's unlimited authority, power, and ability. I know that I often get a, "I can handle this myself" mentality. Most of the time, it is not a conscious thought. I don't think. I have two choices here, I can do it within my own, feeble limited strength and authority, or I can allow Christ in his full authority and power to handle it, and so I pick "me."

Normally it is based on habit, my first instinct tends to be on what I can do, and it isn't until my efforts fail, that I think, "Oh, wait a minute, I have this other option, Christ is in charge of everything, why don't I see if he can take a swing at it."

I'm trying to switch that around so that I first turn to God, without trying it on my own first and then waiting until I mess it all up before I give it over to him.

Those were my thoughts, from the experience in customer service of just wanting to talk to someone that had the power and authority to change things, to realizing how often I forget I have direct access to the most powerful, the one with the highest authority. Oh, and if you need one more scripture Matthew 28:18, Christ says it himself, "All authority in heaven and on earth have been given to me." So, why not face this coming week seeking the one at the top of it all?

One Year

Yesterday, May 20^th, marked our one year anniversary in the DR. All day long I kept thinking, “This time last year we were...on a plane...driving to our home...having our first dinner with the other missionaries...” It's wild to think that it's been a year. As the date was approaching I tried to come up with a list of things I've learned in this year:

• I can live without air conditioning, a dryer, a microwave, and Chick-Fil-A sandwiches!
• Hugs and tears are a powerful language.
• Kids are kids no matter where you are.
• Keeping in touch with friends and family is more difficult than we thought.
• Do things while you can because you never know when the power might go out!
• Vanilla is a good mosquito repellent.
• Church 3 and sometimes 4 times a week really isn't that bad!
• Everything about us was made to be here.

I asked Kate last night what was her favorite thing about living here and she answered, “The food!” Lovely! About a month ago she drew a picture of herself and titled it “Kate, la Princesa de la Republica Dominicana”--Kate, the princess of the Dominican Republic. She is doing great learning the language and living a happy life. I am so grateful for her ease in transitions. I am also grateful for the friendships we've made, the miracles we've seen, the people we have the privilege to minister to on a daily basis. We couldn't ask for more!

~Melissa~