DR team Wednesday update

Wednesday, October 13, 2010

We awoke in the morning to another good day which the Lord had made. We agreed that we would rejoice and be glad in it! The day’s agenda was simple…follow hard after Christ and “be Jesus” to everyone we encountered.

The entire team and the church leaders set out for sail to enjoy a boat ride and the beach together. This was a wonderful time of connecting with one another both as a MCC DR Mission team and as a grander mission team, the Church. It was wonderful to watch Pastor Ignacio, his wife Paula and their son Samuel enjoy their time together! We played hard, laughed a lot and soaked up every minute of time our God had graciously given to us. A powerful moment for our team was when Fernando, a young leader in the church, led a time of prayer for us while wading together in the beautiful blue Caribbean water. God’s presence was so powerful in those moments as the sun shone down so brightly. It was a special time of unity amongst fellow believers and I personally felt encouraged and strengthened in my inner being. As we headed back to shore, Jill, Jenny, Tom and Scott walked to the front of the boat and did a cannonball into the water. They shouted “All in and making waves…CANNONBALL!” I cannot put into words just how powerful that moment was for me. It was a physical expression of my desire to surrender all and to follow God wherever He is leading.

In the afternoon, we departed for Madre to participate in a prayer service teach a CHE lesson and to share a drama about the Good Samaritan with the kids. The worship was time was lively and Spirit-filled. Young and old were gathered together to sing “Hallelujah, Gloria a Dios, Jesuscristo es el Senor!” Dorinda was able to reconnect with a special little girl, Pamela. It was beautiful to watch the two of the reunite. It was difficult to take in and process such poverty, and it was hard to leave and say goodbye knowing that so many are without Christ as Savior. We will continue to pray for the Holy Spirit to move in this community and for greater things to come, FOR HE IS ABLE.

We returned to the church in the evening for a night of Women’s ministry. It was a powerful night of women united in Christ. We served cupcakes, tea and fruit punch. We thoroughly enjoyed watching the women with the cupcakes, as they have never had them before!! They did not know how to eat the cupcakes so they found small plastic spoons to eat them with, while the Americanas devoured them with their hands. It was quite a sight!!! Dee shared a powerful devotion about how we can experience God in our lives every day to the full, despite our circumstances. The Holy Spirit spoke through our “Mighty Mouse” (that’s what we like to call our powerful, little Dee). God allowed each of us to connect with the ladies in a very deep and meaningful way. It is hard to describe in words just what took place around a few plastic table and chairs, but God was at work and we were all deeply blessed.

We four men also planned a special evening to minister to four of the local pastors and key leaders (8 total). It was the quintessential “guy’s night out” including pizza, soda, ice cream, dominos and Dutch Blitz to bless our four friends. It was great to get these guys out where they could laugh and have some fun with the boys.

There is a lot pressure on leaders here to “perform” and grow the church. That tends to keep these guys pretty isolated and makes it hard to have friends, buddies, just guys to do guy stuff with. So our goal was to just have FUN! Mission accomplished!!! The extra pound or two we all gained though through lots of pizza and ice cream was well worth it. It was especially good to see Pastor Ignacio laughing and yucking it upJ! We had noticed at the beginning of the week we was a bit distant and seemed depressed. We wanted to join our team to the ministry he is called to here in Monti Cristi so early on we invited him, his wife and 9 year old son Samuel to be a part of our team…that has made a HUGE difference in his demeanor day by day. If you remember from our initial post his father passed away 2 ½ weeks ago and he has been struggling ever since. He told us yesterday that our team has helped him through his pain by sharing life together…GLORIA A DIOS. The other guys (Pastor Damian and leaders Mendes and Fernando) also had a laugh fest. It felt like a pressure valve had been released and levity was the result…some of the weightiness was gone. By the way I (Tom) won 5 of the 6 dominos games we played…sure, I know what you’re thinking…I should not have crushed our Dominican hosts so badly…yeah, whatever…HAJ!

So as we prayed last night over these guys we reminded them of our night out on Wednesday and pleaded with them to have times like this on a regular basis and to invite other maturing men to join in for the laughs.

To cap off the night for our team Irv had the testimony and devotion…way to go IRV…God is faithful!