El Hermano

Early Wednesday morning the team arrives at the Dominican church.  At the altar is a man on his knees with his head resting in his folded arms.  Our host approaches him and gently speaks something to him.  I assume he is a man without a home and seeking shelter in the church.  He remains at the altar and we get busy with our day. 

I take notice of him, but when becoming acquainted with another culture I tend to observe and not ask too many questions.  I don’t learn about him I just make assumptions.

Later in the morning, I see him holding an old tattered Bible, his finger slowly moves over the Word and I hear a murmuring as he quietly reads in the corner. 

Hermano sits quietly behind me as I read a story to the children.

At lunch, he curls up in the floor in the back corner and covers his face with a small towel.  I am not sure how many from our team even notice him.

Now, I know he attends the church, but I still don’t know why he is at the church.  I assume he is there to guard the church and watch over the instruments and sound equipment.

The next morning we arrive and Hermano, that’s the name I hear our host call him, is at the same place we found him yesterday morning, at the altar.  I don’t think he has left.  I now know he is not without a home, but he is a watchman.  Hermano has committed to fasting and praying for the construction of the new church building for at least the three days I observed, but who knows the number in total. 

O Jerusalem, I have posted watchmen on your walls;
they will pray day and night, continually.
Take no rest, all you who pray to the Lord.  Isaiah 62:6 (NLT)

As I observed Hermano, I realized he may be fasting and praying for our team who came to help raise the walls of the church.  He may be praying for me.  He may even be praying for you.  I began to wonder what his work looked like.  What encounters was he having with God? 

Although in the world’s eyes Hermano may appear insignificant based on his appearance, his job, and his material possessions, God sees him as precious and valuable, just like He sees all his people.  And God chooses to use him in his obedience.  Who knows what work Hermano has accomplished this week?  We see and capture pictures of the progress we made this week with each new row of block laid or wall painted.  But do we see the progress Hermano made in the building of God’s kingdom this week?  Do we even know Hermano is working?

I am humbled and full of gratitude.   A man I have never met in a city I have never visited lived in a church denying himself food for several days to pray for me, my team members, and maybe even my family and my church in Virginia.  He kept watch over us asking the Lord to work in us and through us. 

Through his actions he taught me and challenged me. 

And so I leave you with this verse:

Pray in the Spirit at all times and on every occasion. Stay alert and be persistent in your prayers for all believers everywhere.  Ephesians 6:18 (NLT)

All Hands On Deck

Unless the Lord builds the house,

 the builders labor in vain.

Unless the Lord watches over the city,

    the guards stand watch in vain.

² 

In vain you rise early

    and stay up late,

toiling for food to eat—

    for he grants sleep to^[a] those he loves.  Psalm 127:1-2

This house, this church we are building in the Dominican Republic is not in vain.  The words from the Psalmist are true and we know our labor is not in vain.  

During these past two days, we have seen the Lord enable the laborers, American and Dominican, to work with unexpected speed.    In two days four walls have been built and headers have been poured by the hands of men.  

The team is a sweet picture of people coming together.  The young boys volunteer to fill wheelbarrows with rocks and dirt to push to the building site.  Other Dominican church members freely give their time to work alongside the Americans to get the job done.

The women on the team have been helping with the child sponsorship program to update the children's personal information and take a recent photo to send to sponsors.  We have been able to make crafts with them, read Bible stories in Spanish, and play  Simon Says and Uno.  Other times we sit around and the little girls just watch us and we smile at each other.  A smile or a silly face goes a long way in connecting with others when you don't have words.  

Speaking of communicating without words...today we met a five year old deaf girl who has not yet learned to speak.  Yet her smile and facial expressions light up a room and our hearts.  Her joy is contagious!  

Unless the Lord watches over the city,

    the guards stand watch in vain.

The Lord continues to watch over us as we have been safe, healthy and free from injury.  We thank you, the guards, the ones praying for us and for the church.

In vain you rise early

    and stay up late,

toiling for food to eat—

    for he grants sleep to^[a] those he loves.

Yes, we rise early.  Yes, we stay up late. But, He is faithful to give us good sleep and to restore our energy.  

We look forward to seeing what God does in the days ahead!

Building More Than

In a few days, I will be basking in the island life.  Well, not really.  I’ll be sweaty, dirty, and sore from helping to build a church in the Dominican Republic. 

As I prepare to leave I am confronted with this verse, the same verse I studied along side my teammates who traveled with me to Kenya ten years ago to serve the orphans, the disabled, and AIDS patients.

Therefore if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, ² then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind. ³ Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, ⁴ not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.  

⁵ In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:  Philippians 2:1-5


A decade ago this verse guided me to work well with my American team, to work towards unity, and to consider their interests over mine.  Now, I look again at this verse and see how it leads me to consider a team larger than the ten people with whom I am traveling, but also the Dominican church with which we will carry large cinder blocks to construct a church building.  


Paul of Tarsus (a city in Turkey) wrote a letter to a church in another country, Macedonia, to a people of a different culture and different religious background.  Do you know how he opened the letter to the Philippians?


³ I thank my God every time I remember you. ⁴ In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy ⁵ because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, Philippians 1:3-5


Do you see how Paul views his relationship with the people of the Philippian church?  Partners.  Partners in the Gospel. And he is thankful to be sharing in this mission with them.


As I travel to the DR I need Paul's perspective.  We all do.  We are in partnership with churches all over the world to share the truth about Christ's love for all people.


In a way I am not sure why our team is going.  I know our task is construction.  But really?  The church needs eleven Americans with minimal experience to come and accomplish this task?  It probably would have been easier and more cost effective to just send the money and hire local Dominicans to do the job.


But maybe there is a greater purpose in our going?  Isn't there usually with God?  Perhaps he is uniting his people and building partnerships? 

The church we are partnering with is a healthy, growing body of believers.  They have started five new churches and currently have 250 people crowded in a small building, hence the need for a new one.  What do we have to offer besides financial support?  Our church has not planted new churches and we did not labor in constructing our own building since we hired professionals.  Maybe it is our partnership?  And partners get together.  Partners work side by side.  Partners enjoy meals together, to use a church word, they fellowship.  Sharing life together is awfully hard to do with people you have never met, nor spoken to, or even know they exist.  


So maybe, God's greater purpose isn't about the building but about growing the body, the body he calls the church.  Just as the bricks will be touching one another as the walls are raised, so will Christ's church grow as we touch one another.

  

Isn't this what Jesus prayed for in John 17?

²⁰ “My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, ²¹ that ALL of them may be ONE, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. ²² I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one— ²³ I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.

Jesus' prayer for all the believers is for unity, partnership, and oneness.  Why?  So the world will know about Jesus and His father's great love for every person.  

This is why Paul tells the church if you know Christ and his love, if you fellowship with him then be like-minded, have the same love, be one in spirit and of one mind.


Are we task-oriented or relationship-oriented?  With mission trips I often think we lean more to the task-oriented side. We have a purpose and a goal that we must accomplish.  We have something to offer the people we are going to help.  But what if the task is the means by which to orient us to relationships.  The "job" enables new relationships to form.  In a way isn't this what the greatest Missionary ever did?  Jesus left his home to live in a new land to accomplish the task set before him.  His mission was to do his father's will, which included death on a cross.  And in so doing, relationships were formed.  Jesus opened the door to an eternal relationship with him for you and for me.  Therefore we are now united with Christ.


Relationships are costly.  Ask any man who pursues a woman or buys that engagement ring.  This trip, this sending of eleven ambassadors, costs.  And perhaps we can be a bit like Judas, who didn't like the how Mary chose to use her expensive perfume when she poured it out on Jesus' feet, and argue that the money used to send all of us could have been used to feed more of the poor.  But what if this is about more than feeding and building, but relationship and unity?  God spared no expense to have relationship with us.  He gave all he had.  He gave his son's life.  


And so may we continue to see Jesus' prayer answered and be brought to complete unity to let the world know that God sent him and He loves all people as much as he loves his son.

Flying the Blue Skies

This blog began eight years ago as a means to chronicle Jamey and my journeys around the country and the world.  It all started with a move across the country from sunny, hot Phoenix to rainy, humid Roanoke.  At the time we thought this move would be a pit stop until we made a bigger move across the ocean.  Well, our pit stop has been rather long, long enough to put down some roots.

This online journal was to be a means of communicating with our friends and family about what we saw God doing throughout the world, particularly Eastern Europe.  And for many summers, it served its purpose.  Then it went quiet for a long time because we went quiet for a time after our dreams of living abroad were put on hold. 

I am back now, but in this season I'm sharing God's word and how it encourages me and hopefully you as well.  But for a eight days in July, I will be able to get back to the foundations of this blog and declare what God is doing in other nations, particularly the Dominican Republic.  After four years of staying stateside, which for those of you who have known me for many, many years you know this was a long time sans traveling, I will be serving alongside ten other members of my church to help build a church in Santo Domingo.  Yep, this girl who always hangs a crooked picture because she doesn't care to use a level, will lend her hands to construction.  Y'all can stop chuckling now.  My plan is to carry lots of cinder block and do whatever I'm told so as to not drive crazy the engineers and handy men on the team! Mom, my brother, and my husband, you all can stop laughing now, too. 

I am excited to board the plane and set my feet on another land's soil and breathe in another culture.  I am not excited to leave my family behind for over a week.  I will actually miss our two hour bed time routine.  Yes, you read that correctly, two hour bedtime routine and yes, I think I will miss it.  If you think of me or my family between the hours of 8 and 10 pm, please pray for Jamey and beg and plead the Lord to supernaturally knock the boys out.  Typically prayer requests for mission teams is for protection, unity, and safety, but I am swerving from the norm and asking you all to unite in prayers for my husband to have good sleep.  And when I return from the DR, just keep praying for sleep and include me too.  Ok?  If you need a biblical reference to validate my request here it is:  for so he giveth his beloved sleep  Psalm 127:2.  Amen!

Hopefully I will have more exciting things to post about than colored toilet paper and oversized pizza slices.  If you clicked over and read those two posts I know you are on the edge of your seats to to read future posts.  Actually I know we all desire big and exciting things to happen during our time in the DR.  And while that is good and would be awesome, I hope to see God move even in the small.  I just want my eyes to see and my mouth to declare His goodness and His love.  And so before I even leave America, I see God at work in eleven adults who are sacrificing time at work and with families to serve others and who will be fully funded to make this trip! And on top of gathering the money to pay for each person's travel expenses we needed to raise $8000.00 to pay for the addition we will be building.  We are close and I believe my Sunday afternoon we will have all the dinero we need.  That's exciting!  

May I encourage you to pray for God's kingdom come and God's will to be done on Earth as it is in Heaven for this journey?  May I encourage you to pray for peace and sleep for my family and the other families who will be without a parent for a week? 

I Need A Hero

Yep, so I am going a little old school, heading back to the early eighties and the beloved Footloose flick.  So many great songs from this film, including Bonnie Tyler's, "I Need a Hero," the woman's anthem crying out for a hero who is strong, fast, and fresh from the fight.  Don't we long for heroes?  Don't we yearn for someone to fight for us and to rescue us?

A couple of weeks ago, when mothers were being celebrated and honored on their special day, I was thinking of Father's Day.  Mothers receive great praise on their special day and I wondered if fathers receive equal honor.  So many times on Father's Day, I hear apologies to sons and daughters who have been hurt and neglected by their fathers followed by an explanation that our heavenly father is different from our earthy fathers.  Fathers may even listen to messages challenging them to rise up and be the men God has called them to be.  But, on Mother's Day, we praise mothers for all the hard work they do and acknowledge how they run the house and the family, almost leaving the work men do in the dust.

So on this Father's Day, I want to say to the good men out there, yes,we need you.  We need you to be heroic.  

Our culture pushes men aside and pulls them down with words and actions that scream, we don't need you, you are an idiot, and you do not meet our expectations.  Have you seen sitcoms lately?  How often do we laugh at the stereotype of incompetent men?  How often do women joke and laugh about a man's inability to do or understand something?  I understand this may all be done in good humor and in jest, but are our words uplifting, edifying, and encouraging?  Are we putting men down just to get a laugh?

Men, I apologize for all the ways our culture, our media, and our words have told you you are inept and we don't need you.  We do.  We need men who love and follow the one true hero, Jesus.  We desperately need you.

To the mighty men who are following Jesus, THANK YOU!  Thank you for standing strong.  Thank you for serving.  Thank you for fighting the good fight.  Thank you for your courage.  Thank you for your humility.  Thank you for your perseverance.  Thank you for standing in the gap.  Thank you for leading other men to follow in your footsteps as you follow the Lord.  Thank you for loving your family.  Thank you for being the heroes we so desperately need.

May I encourage the women this Father's Day to celebrate the men in your life with words that strengthen and speak life to them?  This may also include asking for forgiveness for the words you used to wound these warriors we need.  Men, may I encourage you to continue to be strong and bold in the Lord as you do good for in due time you will reap a harvest.

Yoked-Paired Up

Last week I wrote about wearing a properly fitting yoke.  Hopefully we have spent some time identifying the wrong yokes we have been bearing and have laid those down.  If we have allowed ourselves to be yoked by Jesus then we also need to allow Him to train us.

Take my yoke upon you. Let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle at heart, and you will find rest for your souls.  Matthew 11:29

We see in the verse above that after we take His yoke, we must let him teach us.  He is gentle with us, slow to anger, abounding in love, and patient. He will help us to learn obedience to him and to do the work he created for us. 

As we carried the wrong yokes we served a different master.  We learned the ways of the wrong master and now we must learn obedience to Jesus.  This will take time and training.

In Training

Before an ox can be of use, it must learn how to walk alongside another ox while carrying the yoke.  Imagine what training this must involve as the ox has grown accustomed to the freedom of moving in any direction of his choosing and now he will be bound to another. 

This image reminds me of dancing with my husband.  For so many years I danced alone or with a large group where being in-step was not necessary.  I could move in any direction I desired.  But, now, couple dancing. Yikes!  I’m a leader, even when dancing, which means my husband gets his toes stepped on a lot.  My tendency to lead also results in most of our time standing still since a couple does not get very far when they are pushing against each other.  

When an ax is learning how to move with a yoke, it is paired with an ox of equal size and strength.  The Bible uses this principle to our lives as we read in 2 Corinthians 6:14:

Do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers. For what fellowship has righteousness with lawlessness? And what communion has light with darkness?

During our training we need to ensure that we are walking with people who are liked-minded, who have also agreed to bear Jesus’ yoke. 

The oxen need to learn to work together in unity or both will experience strain and chafing.  In the beginning of training both will hurt a little as they learn to move in harmony, kind of like learning to couple dance.

And so we must also learn to work in unity or we too will feel the strain and discomfort of each person wanting to go his own way. 

 I appeal to you, brothers and sisters, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree with one another in what you say and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be perfectly united in mind and thought.  1 Corinthians 1: 10

At times we may feel the strain and the rub.  This does not necessarily mean we have taken up the wrong yoke again.  It may be a sign that we are out of step with others.  Perhaps there is an issue of conflict or disunity that needs to be reconciled. 

Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace.  Ephesians 4:3

For a pair of oxen to work together, one must be dominant and lead.  Two strong-willed oxen result in a lot of tension.

As we live this Christian life, sometimes we will need to lead and sometimes we will need to follow.  The trick is learning to hear what God is asking of you and to obey. 

If we want to plow some fields we need to bear a properly fitted yoke, be yoked with others of similar builds, and know our role. 

May I encourage you to look at who is sharing your yoke and see how well you are working together?  If there is any tension or strain seek forgiveness, humility, and unity. And remember He is a good and gentle teacher.

Perhaps next week I will share with you about pulling a load and working in the woods.