WE ARE HOME!!!
But missing our Familia Cristiana in the DR!
Amazingly, we made all our connections this day (which started at 3:50am DR time (EDT)) - even the very tight one through customs & immigration in Miami (our nemesis). However, all but one piece of checked luggage ended up going to Dallas-Fort Worth out of Memphis! Because of waiting for the non-available bags, we missed our earlier bus to Brookfield, and were a bit later coming home... tired, glad, and also sad. Temporary farewells to our northern Wisconsin brothers & sisters: Pastor Chris, Rose, Paul & Sue; we will be in touch & meet again!
...Seeking the Lord for "what next, Lord? - how do we make You large here where You have us? ...and how do we continue partnering in Your work among our Dominican brothers and sisters?
Saturday, May 7, 2011
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By:
BLC missions team
Thursday, May 5, 2011
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By:
BLC missions team
Palmar Arriba
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| 6-7 people live in this. The cinder block to the lower right near the green hose is the beginning part of a project by the DR Mission Team to provide appropriate housing for the people with the greatest needs in Palmer Arriba. |
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Pastor Ted Krey, lead pastor of the Dominican Team, with children of the Lutheran School in Palmar Arriba. |
This Is The Day - Every Day - To Pray
Please take a moment to pray, to converse heart to heart, with The Lord our Righteousness as we travel today to Santiago to meet with the Dominican leadership team. We prayed for you this morning, asking God's Word would have Its way with you, with us, and with the Domincanos. We also prayed His Word, as He sets it before us as a feast, would not be passed by because we're too busy to sit down, enjoy it, and share it with others. Dios le bendiga!
Wednesday, May 4, 2011
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By:
BLC missions team
Rich Hearts
El Senor con ustedes! The Lord be with you! He has certainly been with us as we've reached one of our goals - accomplishing three full days of trabajo - work - on the iglesia Luterana - church building for the Las Americas congregation.
The trabajo included: pick-axing, shoveling, wheelbarrowing fill into the chancel area; running buckets of wet cemento and agua to the maestros as they laid cinder blocks; more mudding over PVC conduit and boxes for electrical fixtures; and cutting, fashioning PVC as conduit for wiring through the cinder blocks. I've become a bit handy with fuego - fire (matches and paper cement mix bags) - when the PVC has needed some adjusting. What I'd give for a simple propane torch... I asked Maudry who owns the corner hardware store and a member of the iglesia about having propane torches, and he said matches are much less expensive. Made me think of Garrison Keillor's Lake Woebegon and Ralph's Pretty Good Grocery, "If We Don't Have It, You Don't Need It."
Duane was masterful with the children today and the Evang-e-cubes which he let them keep after he had each one read through the directions in Espanol. As they did, he would talk through the salvation story mostly in English. Watching Duane served as a reminder that our goal is to be known for more than just being "nice" people who serve without pay. The goal always is to make sure others know the reason we do what we do - for the love of Christ and His love for us, and especially for those who have yet to learn of His love.
Ultimately it is always about relationships. A boy about 10 or 11, with the help of a Spanish-English Dictionary, began asking questions: how many autos do you have? How many bicycles? How many computers? For him, nada. We asked why. He said his father is poor. His mother, too, he added. He wasn't with us to ask for pesos. He did stick around for lunch - rice, beans, pollo (chicken). When it was time to give thanks and a volunteer was asked to pray, he led us. He prayed in his native tongue. (And a child shall lead them.) We ate together. He had seconds. Refused thirds, then went his way.
We have been blessed by Ivay's presence. She is a widow with three children. Always smiling, always conversing in Espanol as if we understand every word, and with a countenance which only edifies. Everyday she asks, "El groupo trabajo mucho?" (The group works much?) Word has it that a previous group befriended one or two of her children which impressed her so that she inquired more about the church and is now active. Ultimately it is always about relationships.
Please continue to pray not so much for us, but for the people of Iglesia Luterana here in Las Americas, for their pastor, Willy Gaspar and his family (wife, Santa, and daughters, Yandra and Estefanie), and more so for those like the boy who wonders about the rico - riches - of others that he and more and more would come to a rico corazon - a heart rich - en Cristo - in Christ. Dios le bendiga!
The trabajo included: pick-axing, shoveling, wheelbarrowing fill into the chancel area; running buckets of wet cemento and agua to the maestros as they laid cinder blocks; more mudding over PVC conduit and boxes for electrical fixtures; and cutting, fashioning PVC as conduit for wiring through the cinder blocks. I've become a bit handy with fuego - fire (matches and paper cement mix bags) - when the PVC has needed some adjusting. What I'd give for a simple propane torch... I asked Maudry who owns the corner hardware store and a member of the iglesia about having propane torches, and he said matches are much less expensive. Made me think of Garrison Keillor's Lake Woebegon and Ralph's Pretty Good Grocery, "If We Don't Have It, You Don't Need It."
Duane was masterful with the children today and the Evang-e-cubes which he let them keep after he had each one read through the directions in Espanol. As they did, he would talk through the salvation story mostly in English. Watching Duane served as a reminder that our goal is to be known for more than just being "nice" people who serve without pay. The goal always is to make sure others know the reason we do what we do - for the love of Christ and His love for us, and especially for those who have yet to learn of His love.
Ultimately it is always about relationships. A boy about 10 or 11, with the help of a Spanish-English Dictionary, began asking questions: how many autos do you have? How many bicycles? How many computers? For him, nada. We asked why. He said his father is poor. His mother, too, he added. He wasn't with us to ask for pesos. He did stick around for lunch - rice, beans, pollo (chicken). When it was time to give thanks and a volunteer was asked to pray, he led us. He prayed in his native tongue. (And a child shall lead them.) We ate together. He had seconds. Refused thirds, then went his way.
We have been blessed by Ivay's presence. She is a widow with three children. Always smiling, always conversing in Espanol as if we understand every word, and with a countenance which only edifies. Everyday she asks, "El groupo trabajo mucho?" (The group works much?) Word has it that a previous group befriended one or two of her children which impressed her so that she inquired more about the church and is now active. Ultimately it is always about relationships.
Please continue to pray not so much for us, but for the people of Iglesia Luterana here in Las Americas, for their pastor, Willy Gaspar and his family (wife, Santa, and daughters, Yandra and Estefanie), and more so for those like the boy who wonders about the rico - riches - of others that he and more and more would come to a rico corazon - a heart rich - en Cristo - in Christ. Dios le bendiga!
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
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By:
BLC missions team
Photos - 4/30/11 Day1
Arrival at the Santo Domingo airport... finally indeed.
Arrival at the Santo Domingo airport... finally indeed. |
| David & the guys from the Palmar Arriba congregation hard at work. |
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| Dinner with Danelle Putnam at the Keller's house. |
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| The Palmar Arriba men singing with deep devotion to their Lord Jesus Christ; John, Ariel, Juan Carlos, Eduardo & Vicar Adrien from Argentina. They sang whenever they had free time... beautiful! |
Monday, May 2, 2011
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By:
BLC missions team
May Day The Day After
As the Dominicans took the day off (a national holiday we were told - we think to celebrate May Day), we took our first full day of work at the church building site. Pastor Willy Gaspar, who has been spending his weekdays in Haiti as a liason for The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod's involvement in providing relief to Haitians suffering from cholera, decided to spend this week with us.
We walked to the site to enjoy a breakfast of empinadas, courtesy of Brian Keller. It cost Brian $9 for 9 of us, including the two dozen eggs he purchased to be used in the empinadas. An empinada is a kind of breakfast enchilada which is filled with pollo (chicken), cheese, an egg, and/or ham, and is then deep fried in a kind of turkey fryer. Delicious!
From there we finished the walk to the church site. Pastor Willy and a couple of maestros, including Octavia, were visiting before work began. As if in mid-conversation with Pastor Willy, Octavia turned to me and said, "Osama bin laden," and then drew his finger across his own neck. None of us had heard the news.
It was a good day. It seemed to some of us we were not making much progress, but when the rain came quite generously mid-afternoon and we decided to call it quits, we could tell we had accomplished quite a bit. David (pronounced, Dah-veed), another maestro, with his helper made great progress with the plastering of the bathrooms. Duane and Pastor Willy began removing three portions of the cinder block walls at the front of the wall-less sanctuary, to make room for three stained glass windows to be installed. The rest of us did various other tasks, including "mudding" (plastering with wet cement) around electrical boxes, knocking holes in the cinder block where more electrical boxes will be placed and where PVC conduit for the electric wiring will be inserted, and shoveling sand through screens to refine it as it is mixed to make cemento.
We're all surprised how pleasant the conditions have been - weather-wise. There's always a breeze, and just when it seems the Dominican sun is about to get the best of us, clouds roll in and at times provide a warm, brief shower.
Make sure you ask any one of the team members when they return to Wisconsin who Monday evening's special guest was...
Among the many blessings is the time we have to sit together and talk and share. No TVs or phones to isolate us from one another. No meetings or activities to run off to once we return from the work site. It makes life simple and relationship focused...as it should be.
The close of this May Day the day after had us looking at Moses, with the help of Aaron and Hur, with hands raised up in the air over a battle which The Lord had said all along would be His for the fighting. This view left us thinking of prayer, with hands raised high to The One with Whom all things are Possible. Lifting each other up in prayer, lifting the Dominican people up to YHWH (He Who Makes All Good Things Happen), lifting our hosts up in prayer, and lifting the church militant up in prayer. It was yet another good day, made better still with the apostle Paul's reminder, "The One Who calls you is Faithful, and He will Do It!"
We walked to the site to enjoy a breakfast of empinadas, courtesy of Brian Keller. It cost Brian $9 for 9 of us, including the two dozen eggs he purchased to be used in the empinadas. An empinada is a kind of breakfast enchilada which is filled with pollo (chicken), cheese, an egg, and/or ham, and is then deep fried in a kind of turkey fryer. Delicious!
From there we finished the walk to the church site. Pastor Willy and a couple of maestros, including Octavia, were visiting before work began. As if in mid-conversation with Pastor Willy, Octavia turned to me and said, "Osama bin laden," and then drew his finger across his own neck. None of us had heard the news.
It was a good day. It seemed to some of us we were not making much progress, but when the rain came quite generously mid-afternoon and we decided to call it quits, we could tell we had accomplished quite a bit. David (pronounced, Dah-veed), another maestro, with his helper made great progress with the plastering of the bathrooms. Duane and Pastor Willy began removing three portions of the cinder block walls at the front of the wall-less sanctuary, to make room for three stained glass windows to be installed. The rest of us did various other tasks, including "mudding" (plastering with wet cement) around electrical boxes, knocking holes in the cinder block where more electrical boxes will be placed and where PVC conduit for the electric wiring will be inserted, and shoveling sand through screens to refine it as it is mixed to make cemento.
We're all surprised how pleasant the conditions have been - weather-wise. There's always a breeze, and just when it seems the Dominican sun is about to get the best of us, clouds roll in and at times provide a warm, brief shower.
Make sure you ask any one of the team members when they return to Wisconsin who Monday evening's special guest was...
Among the many blessings is the time we have to sit together and talk and share. No TVs or phones to isolate us from one another. No meetings or activities to run off to once we return from the work site. It makes life simple and relationship focused...as it should be.
The close of this May Day the day after had us looking at Moses, with the help of Aaron and Hur, with hands raised up in the air over a battle which The Lord had said all along would be His for the fighting. This view left us thinking of prayer, with hands raised high to The One with Whom all things are Possible. Lifting each other up in prayer, lifting the Dominican people up to YHWH (He Who Makes All Good Things Happen), lifting our hosts up in prayer, and lifting the church militant up in prayer. It was yet another good day, made better still with the apostle Paul's reminder, "The One Who calls you is Faithful, and He will Do It!"
Sunday, May 1, 2011
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By:
BLC missions team
Familia Cristiano (Christian Family)
Bueno Domingo! (I think that means Good Sunday, or Good Lord's Day!) This is the day the Lord has made; we will be glad and rejoice in it!
We were glad to have Pastor Ted Krey, overseer of LCMS missions in Latin America, lead our devotions Saturday evening on the veranda. We listened to Corinthians, specifically Paul's reminder of being in Christ means the old has gone and there is now a new creation; there is change. It is not as it used to be.
Pastor Krey spoke of baptism being the means by which the old is drowned so that the new surfaces and rises again - it is the Easter season! He reminded us of what Luther said about the old within us, "Though drowned, the old is still a pretty good swimmer!"
There are definitely changes taking place here in the Dominican Republic. For a church which is five years old, it is inspiring to hear the stories of individuals who have been changed. There is the 18 year old girl whose parents, in exchange for about 18 months of income, "gave" their daughter to another who would "care for" her. The "care" amounted to prostitution. She eventually gave birth to a daughter. Her mother despises her for having taken the child to be baptized in the church. This young woman, though the "old" is swimming hard, is one of the "new," changed in the church here.
Speaking of church, they tend to not speak of "church." Church has the reputation of being instituitionalized. The "established" church tends to be void of relationship - as in "new," changed relationships. So, Pastor Krey says they don't speak of themselves as church planters as planting churches, but as planting familia Cristiano, "Christian family." The "new," changed church of the Dominican Republic is Christian family which is not limited to what we tend to think of as family - our own flesh and blood immediate and extended family. Familia Cristiano consists of those who once were very lost but now have been found, and in being found have been changed, made new for the first time in Jesus Christ.
On a side note, the church building (perhaps it would be better to refer to what we are constructing as the Center for Familia Cristiano) sits on rock - literally solid rock through and through. Our host facilitator, Brian Keller, says that the maestros will go three feet deep into the solid rock for the building's footings. In his opinion, that's 2 feet more than what's really needed. But they want to make sure the building will stand no matter what (Haiti is the other part of the island, and we know what happened there). Figuratively, what a powerful witness and reminder to the universal familia Cristiano. We are built and we stand upon The Rock, which is Christ risen.
And as to familia Cristianos throughout Latin America, Pator Krey says there are some tough times in Guatemala, Bolivia, Panama and other places. I asked him what he thought is behind the present struggles of these familia. He said two things - theological education, and planting other familia Cristianos in their own countries. What he was saying is how these two things are not as prevalent as they once were for these churches.
I hear him saying it all comes down to The Word and Reaching Out. Our theology as Lutherans is firmly Word-based. We are educators, or at least have been known as such since we became the second largest parochial system in Norte America (the Roman Catholics being the largest). Our education has always insisted the tenets of the Reformaton: Sola Scriptura, Sola Fide, and Sola Gratia - by Scripture alone, by faith alone, and by grace alone. And as it's put in a song I learned years ago in Mexico, "Solamente en Cristo," Only in Christ.
This is what we are seeing and hearing and experiencing today in the Dominican Republic. We are meeting people who are being theologically educated by The Word Alone so that their footings will be will grounded and established in The Rock upon which they stand as new creations, Jesus The Christ. And we are seeing and hearing and experiencing familia Cristianos being planted here in Santo Domingo and to the north of us in and around Santiago - all within a mere five years time!
Is this all happening too fast as if it's all but a passing fad? Not so long as there is all this rock beneath our feet and theirs - "They all ate the same spiritual food and drank the same spiritual drink; for they drank from the spiritual rock that accompanied them, and that rock was Christ." Again, Corinthians...
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