Thought for the day - by Vicki

ARE YOU READY???

I am reading through the book "Crazy Love" again, which I totally recommend to anyone who hasn't read it yet, and there was a short section of the book (literally one page) and it was titled, Are you ready? The question is directed at death; are you ready for death? The story in there is very touching but aside from that it made me wonder if I am truly ready to stand before the God of this universe... the creator of me. Have I lived for Him in a way that he would be proud of? Have I really done my best in this life? When I stand before God will He be proud of me?

My challenge is that you would think about your life and where you are at... are you proud with how you've been/or not been living for God? Are you ready to stand before God as He either welcomes you home or says to you that he never knew you and sends you away?

Matthew 10:32-33 says: "Whoever acknowledges me before men, I will also acknowledge him before me Father in heaven. But whoever disowns me before me, I will also disown before my Father in heaven."

Today I am going to be praying for all of you, that as you read this God will speak to you, direct you, convict you, and /or challenge you.

Learning to be a Good Samaritan - by Josh

This is Josh and I know it has been a while since I have written anything but I will try to do better. As I was trying to think of something to share I just remembered a conversation I had with a guy tonight during dinner about the friendliness of Dominicans.

Currently, we are having a men's outreach and so he is apart of that. Today was his first day working in the community and something had happened to where he had ripped a hole in his pants. A lady from the community saw the hole and told him to come to her house and she would fix his pants. And so she patched up the hole during their lunch hour. (This may not sound like a big deal but this was not where you would want a hole in your pants for the rest of the day).

I was just thinking about it and trying to learn something from his experience and I can remember how in my time here there have been many times where a complete stranger has helped me out of a difficult situation. For example, I have had a lot of flat tires on my moto and some have been a long way outside of town and would have been a long walk, but before I had even walked 1/4 mile someone (or many people) were calling me over to their house to try and patch up my bike.


One thing I am learning from the Dominican culture is how to be a Good Samaritan. When I see someone in need of help that I should try to help them to the best of my ability.

Very overdue blog

A hope of mine is that the people around me get to know "the real me." I feel that I am a transparent person, (hopefully I don't overdue it), and even though I am away, I desire that you would still feel like you know me. So, I am going to share briefly the highlights and downers of late.

Highlights:

• Josh and I have been learning and growing a lot in our relationship together. We have a whole new appreciation and understanding of each other since being here and working together - it's been really great.
• I have had a chance to bake and cook a lot! Which I love to do.
• We have become great friends with many of the other missionaries on SI staff and have some good friends outside of SI, and in the communities where we work as well.
• We've been blessed by all of our financial supports, everyone has been so awesome in remembering us here.
• We absolutely love our two dogs - Snickers (doberman) and Lucy (mutt) - and they provide a lot of entertainment
• We really enjoy our "job" here. We love that it changes from season to season and that we get to implement our own ideas and talents into it.
• I love that every morning I get to watch the sunrise and daily see the beauty of this place... it's another daily reminder of how gorgeous God is.
• Our residency process is finally started!

Downers:

• I've been really tired lately, not just in the morning but throughout the entire day
• Josh and I have been experiencing spiritual warfare - which is a mixed feeling really. When we go through warfare it's really hard and exhausting but a blessing at the same time to know that we are fighting for God's kingdom.
• By now we had hoped to be further along in Spanish... we have learned quite a bit which is good, but it's still frustrating to not be where we thought we'd be.

Prayer Requests:

• Language learning
• That God would continue to show us how best to invest in the semester student's lives
• For energy
• For strength to fight in the spiritual battle
• For God to fill us each day with an abundance of joy and love so that we can give that to those around us

Final thought: I have been thinking a lot of past missionaries... in Biblical times and recent history, and have been learning/remembering how God used not people who were perfect, but people who were willing. I have been learning about how "un-perfect" I am. And sometimes I am so certain that I am messing up God's plan. The great encouragement to me has been remembering that I don't change peoples hearts, but God does... all He askes of me is that I am available to Him.

On that note, I am going to go... but I wanted to let you know that Josh's and my new goal is EACH try blogging once a week... so if you check back in soon, Josh should have one posted too.

Thank you all for your love and support, both in prayer and in finances. We love and appreciate you all so much.

How does one take care of the homeless?

How does one describe the pain of injustice to another when they have not seen the faces or shared in the stories of the ones who daily live under the night sky and rely on kind strangers to provide their daily food?

During my short stay here in Santo Domingo I have had the privilege of meeting a homeless woman named Esperanza (which means hope). She is the sweetest lady I have met and so sincere. She is an old woman who lost her home in the hurricane that passed through Santo Domingo 10 years ago. Every morning she crawls out from under a cardboard box and takes her post at a little nook on the main drag in the Colonial Zone of Santo Domingo. Daily she is passed by hundreds of strangers consisting of tourists and locals alike. Not many people take an interest in her, as she sits in old clothing with a washed out leopard print scarf wrapped around her head.
Should one sit down and share a conversation with her, they would learn that she has the joy of the Lord in her heart and that she loves to laugh. She is expressive and shares her whole self with you. She will protect you from those whom she knows to be bad, and tell you that you are her daughter/son. She loves to hold the hands of those that she loves.

I have had the honor of holding her hand and hearing her story. I have heard her call me her daughter and watch her threaten bad men off with her stick. I have seen her eyes light up when we bring her boxes of food that she can eat and share with her friends on the street. I have heard her pray a blessing over us. I have watched her brighten with uncertainty as she clings to the promise that we will return to visit her the next day. I have watched her head and eyes turn from side to side as she is constantly aware of what is going on around her. I have watched her eyes sink and heart melt when she learned that me and the others girls did not live locally and would be leaving shortly. I have heard her say, “Please leave me something to remember you by, I never want to forget the names of the people who the Lord brought to provide for me”.

Now I ask you, what is my role… what is your role? It is written in the Bible that we are to take care of the widow, the orphan, and the homeless. What do I do? What does God ask of me? How do I continue to help Esperanza? Or do I? Will God lead another to help her? Will he lead me to someone in my town that is homeless? If he does, how do I help them?

My heart has been aching been for Esperanza since I met her. I feel uneasy… materialistic… selfish… unworthy… wanting… ungrateful… deserving (when in reality I don’t deserve anything)… rich… sad…

Lord teach me your ways, guide me in your plans, let me not get distracted from what you want of me.

birthday video

To all of you at North Kitsap Baptist Church who helped to make my birthday video, I want to thank you so much. It was very neat to see that after two days of very tiring and intensive Spanish classes. It meant a lot to us.

See you at Christmas!

Sometimes I miss home...

Sometimes I really hate looking at facebook; it makes me so sad to see all the moments from people's lives that I am missing... all the traditional trips with friends and family that I am no longer a part of. But my comfort lies in the truth of why I am here and how much I love the D.R. and the people. God is so faithful to provide things that are so dear to our hearts. So I guess what I am trying to say is that I miss you all SO much!

Alright... I am going to take a 180 degree turn now and share about our weekend. On Friday night we all went out to a pizza place after language class and had yummy American food to give the students a break from Dominican food. It was also someones birthday so we surprised her with a cake afterward. Then Saturday we took them all down to Santiago where we did activities that were school related like visiting a museum and The Monument (pictured below). Following these sites we took them to a store called La Sirena; it's equivalent would be something like a Target. We don't have anything like this in our small town, so it was chance to get needed items that are off/on available to us up in Jarabacoa. This small tour took nearly all day... we left just after 9am and didn't get back until 5:30pm.

Now I sit and ponder... do I procrastinate? Work on Spanish homework? Or come up with my Bible study for the ladies? My deadline for homework and Bible study prep is tomorrow... so I should probably get working on that, eh?



This photo was taken at the top of The Monument



Our 15 college students from Bethel College in Indiana



The middle flag is the Dominican Republic flag




The Monument

Before I do that I have a final thought to leave you with... "Don't scare a man carrying a machete from behind". I did that accidentally yesterday on my run and that machete went flying. If my heart wasn't beating fast before that it was after that!

Prayer requests:

Ability to pick up language quickly and correctly

Energy for all the things we have going on right now

Patience with both our language teacher and the students

Wisdom in Bible study preparation

Thank you everyone for you love and support!

Did you miss me in this long absense?

Life is passing by and my blog page has gone untouched for like a month now… sorry!

Our brief visit to the states was good – here is the breakdown: when we landed in Seattle we were both sick, we were freezing most of the time, Melody and Adam were married on Sat 22th - which Melody and the wedding were beautiful, we got to visit our family and see a few friends, overall it was really great.

Since we have been back – the adjustment, to be perfectly honest was really hard. When we first walked into our home my first thought was… “This is our home? It doesn’t feel like home.” After we started unpacking our things and getting everything back in order, the feeling of “hominess” began to reappear. But it took a few days for totally recooperation to happen. Once it did, I felt right at home. And now, to be transparent with you, I am dreading going back for Christmas because I hated the feeling when we returned. I’m just praying that it doesn’t happen again… that it was just that first time.

On September 6th the semester team arrived and since then we have been busy. The first 2 days were orientation days and then they moved into their host family’s homes. That same day we all began Spanish class. It is 3 hours a day, Monday thru Friday. My mind is so tired... between language learning, working, keeping up things at our house, aka: Snickers and Lucy, and SI requirements… I am exhausted. Last night I went to bed at 9:15… which is REALLY early for me... that's how tired I was!

Language learning has been an interesting beginning… the first 3 days of classes the lady that heads up the program couldn’t be there because her daughter had an emergency in Miami and she had n .,to be there. So Josh, myself and Lowell knew, but somehow she failed to mention this to the other teachers. So the other ladies show up and asked us where Aurelis was. We told them that she wouldn’t be there until Monday and they freaked out. Not only did they not know this, Aurelis had not given them our curriculum or any direction. The first 3 days were horrible – and that’s being nice. However since Aurelis has been here, the class has picked up significantly… she is an amazing teacher and she knows Spanish inside and out (not to mention backwards and forwards)!

Story of interest…
When Josh and I moved into this house in April, the landlord had gone and paid all the bills for the house so everything was up-to-date. Since we have lived here, our phone bill has come, but we had never received an electric bill. So we figured since 3 ½ months had gone by (and still had electricity thankfully) we should go down and try and figure out what was going on. So we get to the electric bill pay store and ask about it. We told them about everything and the lady looked it up in her computer and said that everything was fine. We asked her to print us a bill of whatever needed to be paid up to that day and when she handed it to us it read 15 pesos –which is like 50 cents. So we paid it and went on our way. Well just a few days ago we received our first bill at our house and when we looked at our balance to be paid it read 30 pesos! A dollar! Can you believe it? So we asked Lowell and Cheryl about it and they said that whoever lived in this house before us may have paid off someone at the electric place and now our bill is NOTHING! So we’ll see how long this lasts… they said that once they figure out that Americans live in our house, they’ll put us in the highest paying bracket, so I guess we had better enjoy this while it lasts.

Well, I’m off to relax! So in the words of Aurelis - Chao Chao