Life is Hard. God is Good.

This past month since returning from Christmas break has been awesome and also full.  It's been overwhelming and sometimes confusing.  I've also felt homesick and with the desire for deep relationship that I just don't have yet.  It's been a season of listening and really trying to discern God's voice.  And one where God is forcing me to remember that before anything else...

GOD!
HE IS GOD. 
HE IS GOOD.
AND HE IS FAITHFUL!

We as a community have experienced loss since being back: We've done life alongside a family as they struggled through a death of their young baby, we've found out that several office staff in Austin will be leaving the ministry in the coming months, and we are mourning the loss of our current director and doctor and his family as they leave to go back for the states after Easter after having served here for over 5 years.

                                

In Family Ministry we've continued life as usual during the busy season of parent meetings, preparing for the new literacy program, and organizing new student inscription without our director to lead us due to medical leave for three weeks.  It's been challenging.

At some point in the last couple of weeks, without really understanding why, I started to feel down and a deep desire for home and for comfort.  I believe that even though many of the changes and hard things are happening around me and not necessarily to me, I started to feel the emotional and physical strain.

BUT GOD!

And, today as I reflect on my feelings, thoughts and questions during these weeks, God has used several people and situations to point me to Jesus, remind me of the places where I have fallen short in my thoughts, and as always He points me to where I need to grow, remembering that all things work for the good of those who love Him.

I do not take for granted the fact that God sees me in my desire for "home."  Just last week he sent my church to run the Makarios annual retreat in Jarabacoa, a town about four hours from where I live up in the mountains.  It was chilly,  refreshing, and restful.  It helped me refocus not on circumstances but on the cause -- the reason that I'm here... Christ. I praise Him for three days with the entire American and Dominican Staff, playing, praying and listening to God's Word and for special time with people from home.

He knows just what we need.

We had the opportunity to reflect back on the past, remember when God changed our hearts, how He called us to this community, and the blessings we've come to have as a result. Truly, I do feel blessed to be a part of this great work and this community.

And we come back home... to life as normal.

YES!
Life here is hard.
It is not comfortable.

And while I recognize that I do not lack many of the comforts like many other missionaries around the world, God continues  to challenge me where I am now.  And while much of my "normal" has been my normal for almost 5 years now, it is still just hard sometimes.  (Below are pictures of my normal washing routine.  I wash outside in a typical Dominican washer, spin the clothes and then hang them up on my porch. For me it is somewhat therapeutic to spend my day in the washing process.  During rainy season, though that process often is challenging.)

 

But God!

I see Him.

I see Him in the fact that even though I choose to dry my clothes outside, and while some days pass where we don't have sun, somehow they do eventually dry.

It's been SO rainy lately.  But God somehow has allowed work to be done on the bridge that connects Pancho Mateo to Montellano. It's almost complete. It broke back in September during the hurricanes, but soon people will have a better bridge, making life a whole lot easier for many of our kids and their families.

I see Him in the ladies who continue to walk in their love for Christ and desire to continue to learn about Him.  These two are from Chichigua.  They accepted Christ recently and have been slowly going through a basic discipleship book with me.  They cannot read so the process has been slow, but God has been good.  He keeps them interested and with a deeper and deeper desire to know Him.  (AND YES!  They will be a part of the literacy program! GOD IS GOOD!)

GOD IS ABUNDANT!

Andrea and I are gearing up to begin the first cycle of the Literacy Program (a pilot program for the Family Empowerment Ministry) just next week.  We've been preparing since we got back from break, and there is a LOT to do, but GOD has shown us His abundance and every time we meet with our Support Team who will be the teachers who will carry out the program, there are more and more who wish to help.  God has provided us with Makarios teachers, missionaries, local church members, community leaders and a mom and sister of some Makarios kids.  When I say that I see His abundance, I mean it!  He is working.  What a privilege to be a part of what He is doing.


God continues to allow me and my co-worker and sister in Christ, Nicole, to challenge a group of teenage girls in their beliefs and way of life.  Working through talk sheets, we have spent the last month talking to them about love and what God's Word says about sex, something that many in most cultures only learn about through pop culture.  They are memorizing verses, books of the Bible and reading their Bibles.  We believe that while they are not yet believers, God's Word does not return void.   They are developing some good practices. May God soften their hearts for Him.


Kaylee, Jenna and I are currently planning for the graduation and celebration for the women who will soon graduate from our year-long discipleship through Fundamentals of the Faith.  We have about 15 women who regularly participate and are praying that they finish strong.  It has been a lot of work which includes attending once a month, memorizing scripture and books of the Bible, and filling in homework.  Our last class is in May!

GOD FILLS ME!

Since October, I have had the opportunity to participate in a weekly English service at church where a small group of us gather at church to worship and hear God's Word in English.  And, there've been some fun adventures including a morning riding horses on the beach and spending a birthday weekend with friends.

                           

Please pray for:

• the salvation of K (and other non-believers that I am working with) who I have the opportunity to pour into.  She's interested in God's Word, but hasn't come to know Him yet.  She is a mom of two Makarios kids. Pray that she would understand the love that He has for her and come to know Him as her Lord and Savior.
• the 14 women from our three communities who are ready to learn to read.  They will participate in the 4 month pilot program.  May God open their minds.  May He help our volunteers as they learn a different way to teach, and more than anything, may they learn about God and His power!  About half of the ladies participating and volunteering are not believers.  Please pray that His Word would not fall on deaf ears as each day will begin with a devotion.
• the women who are involved in the Fundamentals of the Faith Discipleship program.  We are in the last stretch with graduation in May.  Please pray that we will come together as a team to help each other memorize and complete homework.  Mostly, pray that they will take what they've learned and desire to duplicate it in their church communities.
• me to be content in where God has me right now and wise in my decisions for the future.
• my relationships with those around me, that they would be deep, sincere, and open to vulnerability.
• provision for a car in the next month to help me in my various facets of ministry and to help serve family ministry.