His still small voice

¨I want to go home¨.......

For the first two weeks leading up to this one, that is all I could seem to think each day. From seeing the lives of the kids I have been witnessing to fall apart to being overwhelmed by mission team after mission team, the phrase I thought would never came to mind, could not leave my head. As Each day passed, the mosquitoes seemed as if they had multiplied, the temperature had risen, and the showers got colder. I love this country and while in the states, this place was all I could talk about... But for the past few weeks, I just have wanted to be with my family. I have desired a nice, comfortable bed with good air conditioning, warm showers where I have time to think, and even a nice glass of sweet tea. All the other times I have been here, things have gone as planned and it was happiness. I knew the day would come where God would reveal things to me in this culture that would break my heart, but I never knew that it would be thrown at me within the first week of my arrival. 

I´ve been weak, I´ve been tired, and I hadn't seemed to find a  place to rest from all of this. 

But I knew God was there. 

I could not see him.

I could not feel Him.

But I was waiting patiently for His still small voice to arrive.

And it did. 

It had been a day to unwind at Hope mission. The South Carolina team was wrapping up their VBS and medical clinic, and things were going smoothly. As I entered the gates of the vacation bible school, a small 5 year old boy caught my eye. He sat in the hot sun with a large burn streaked across his face. Where it came from, I do not know, but it was infected and he was rubbing dirt in it. I looked for his mother, but she had dropped him off and went home. So, I picked him up and held him. Within ten minutes, he was sound asleep. And for a short moment, everything went silent. I could not hear the children playing. I could not hear the teachers teaching. All that was brought to my ears was the little sounds this child made. And in this moment of beauty and silence, I could feel and see and hear Jesus. When I felt his heartbeat against my chest, I could feel Jesus. When I saw his eyes flutter and when he moved in his sleep, I could see Jesus. And carried by the sound of his calm breaths was the sound of Jesus playing in my ears. 

For two weeks, he seemed absent. For two weeks my prayers seemed unanswered and I felt at loss. But now, while holding this child, this angel of the Lord, He was everywhere.... In the trees that swayed when that brief breeze halted the continuous heat from the sun..... in the hearts of the sick as they stepped out of line to let the ones more ill in. Everywhere... Jesus was everywhere. 

It can take the simplicity of things not going the way you wanted them to, to completely cause a downfall in your heart and your spiritual walk, but something as small as a child falling asleep in your arms can cause the truth of why you´re at the place that you are at to consume you once again. I have struggled and I have been broken, but after holding one of God´s children... I am reminded of my reasoning behind this trip. So bring on the heat.. bring on the drought... bring on the bugs that bite and the bone chilling water. Let it cause me to be physically ill if it comes down to it.... But I will not let the thoughts of the world overwhelm my willing spirit and strength in Jesus. I am a soldier of God, and a soldier of God does not give up because things get hard.... 

Romans 8:18

For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us.

Noel sound asleep

They just opened it and started reading :)

Enjoying the free toys from the South Carolina team

My Nineveh

When it comes to missions, I have no expectations. I told myself that before I came, and after this week, I will forever live by that. When you enter a village, you never know what´s going to occur, especially if you´ve been away from that village for months. One moment, you are praising Jesus as a little boy you have been pouring out prayer on for years accepts Jesus, and the next moment you are sitting down with the Principal of his school as she tells you he is no longer welcome due to drinking on campus. And then you start crying out to God because that little boy is only seven years old. 

It´s hard to explain my emotions right now. To sum all of them up, I guess I could say that it feels as if the moment I stepped off the plane and entered the Dominican Republic, I was welcomed with closed doors and a broken heart. I had this vision in my mind of what my summer would look like. I had no expectations as in lesson plans and what I was going to do minute by minute, but I at least thought that I would have beautiful moments with my kids and endless laughs. I thought that my mornings would be welcomed by smiles and ended by hugs and warmth from the hearts of the children, but it seemed as if everything had become the exact opposite. 

Instead of playful games, I had to pull a 12 year old child named Manuel away from another kid right before Manuel hit him with an axe. Instead of having meaningful talks with a child, I had to take a  razor he had brought to school away from him. I wanted my week to involve playing tag and loving on my boys, but instead I walked away with bite marks and bruises from breaking up fight after fight after fight after fight.....I came home last night with a broken spirit and I was just so confused as to why everything is so different... Why are things getting worse? Why do the parents of my kids not care? Why and how did everything get so bad in just three months.... 

I have taken a step back and realized that I have three months. Three months to do some damage control. Three months to make things right in Villa Hermosa. Three months to unite the boys and girls living around the area I work in. It seems almost impossible but then I remember the story of Nineveh. God had sent Jonah to Nineveh, the most dangerous area around, to convince the citizens to change their ways.They fought, they killed, they sinned endlessly. But God chose Jonah to go to Nineveh. Jonah was distraught and did not understand and even ran from God, but God brought him back. He wanted to make it clear to Jonah the importance of what He needed to do. So Jonah went. He declared God´s orders amongst the people, and said that if they did not turn from their wicked ways, God would destroy Nineveh. Within three days, all had surrendered to God. All had given up and given in to God. 

Villa Hermosa, Dominican Republic is my Nineveh. It is one of the most dangerous cities and these people are running from God, but He does not want me to give up on them like everyone else has. And most importantly, He wants me to make it known amongst them that He hasn´t given up on them either. It seems impossible and at times I just want to run away to a safer city where fights are few and the children are nicer, but God has made it clear to me what I must do. If that means that I have to get punched in the face 100 more times by kids, then so be it, but I´m not giving up on God, because God never once gave up on me. 

Dirty hands

   The roads just kept going. There were no turns, no houses, no people for miles and miles. Our view consisted of dirt roads and rows of sugar cane aligned alongside the left and right of us. Every now and then our eyes would come upon a carcus of a dog, but without anything to marvel at, we were left alone with our thoughts. as the silence reminisced throughout the van, my mind began to wonder what we were about to experience. 
   Hours away from the city of La Romana lied villages covered head to toe in poverty. Away from society, the civilians lived a life of slavery, drug addiction, and witchcraft. They were hated by dominicans and rejected by the culture. They were nothing but ants to the government. But here we were, headed their way.There is something about those out casted by society that fuels my heart to love. Maybe because it did the same to Jesus. He had a view for the least of these that was parallel to that of the government and pharisees. They scolded him when he helped prostitutes and lepers and encouraged him to stay within the boundaries of the good hearted and clean. But love does not have boundaries when it comes to Jesus. It is universal and should be expressed as such within the hearts of anyone who claims to announce themselves as followers. 
   As we approached a village called, "Batay Whatever", civilians welcomed us one by one. We met women who were trapped in prostitution and joined hands with a pastor as she joyfully praised God for her newborn granddaughter. As all of this was going on, I walked outside and began looking for children to begin relationship with. I started to pull small toys out of my bag and out of no where they came. From out of houses and behind bushes they ran towards me and stretched out their hands. Once all was distributed, I sat and talked with some boys sitting against a tree. We began playing games and laughing at each other when one of us lost. In the back of the group of children surrounding me stood a boy covered in dirt and grime. He smelled and had scars all over. 
   As I went to shake his hand I realized that his hands looked infected and dirty. I at that moment could of backed away or proceeded. I had the choice to risk myself of sickness or show compassion. I closed my eyes, smiled, then not only shook his hand but picked him up and tickled him. As he laughed and screamed, the thoughts of his dirty hands and body went away. Behind all of the dirt still remained a boy who just needed someone to love him. His parents refuse to bath him due to the lack of compassion they have for him, so why should I do the same? Why should I turn away from a child just because everyone else already has? For did Christ do the same to me? NO! In fact he took my infected hand and embraced my filthy body and held me, and spun me, and tickled me. He looked past my dirt and cleansed the thing that mattered. My heart. So, If I reject this child and refuse to be a vessel of Christ and help him, what good is being done?
   On our way back, I looked at my filthy hands and saw the dirt fixated under my nails. My clothes had brown spots and my pants smelled, but my heart.... my heart had grown and flourished. It shined bright and beat beautifully. A smile stretched across my face as I realized the amount of love God has for me. He saw me in that crowd of children. He saw my filth and my grime and my dirt. And He chose me. He loved me. And he didn´t care how dirty He´d get. Nor did I with this child. For in return of the love Christ showed me, I loved this child.