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.