Giving Cat a Voice

Several days ago we celebrated the end of our third year of the GO Seminary of the Americas.  We invited the students, teachers and their families as well as other collaborators to join us for a day at the public beach in Sosua, celebrating a year of hard work, theological discovery and a deeper understanding of the Churches call to overcome the culture of the broken world with the culture of the Kingdom of God.

Kerlyn giving instructions to the Seminary crew at the beginning of our day.

Kendrix and Kerlyn Pena, brothers who are third year students that will soon lead a church plant in the town of Tamboril where they grew up, joined me for some hang out time down on the beach away from a lot of the hustle and bustle.  We met our waiter, Richard.  He’s Dominican but was raised in Queens, New York from the time he was 10.  Richard explained that he continuously made poor decisions.  That he was frequently in and out of trouble until he got into real trouble some time ago.  He did 17 years of hard time of a 27 year sentence.  He got off early for good behavior and was immediately deported.  He’s been back in the DR for a year.  He’s a year younger than me.

We invited Richard to join us.  His transparency allowed us the opportunity to be quicker friends.  He didn’t know who we were yet but he didn’t apologize for his past and we didn’t shame him for it.  We continued to hang out.  This is incarnational ministry… being present with cultural outsiders, with sinners, with what the self-righteous religious identify as “those” people.

We were overlooking the beautiful beach and ocean.  A geographic location whose beauty is compromised by the brokenness of humanity, it’s reckless drunkenness and drug abuse, it’s prostitution, it’s exploitation and failure to live up to its own dignified expression of God’s image.  Some Dominican women came and sat down next to us.  I noticed a young Haitian girl on the beach near the water’s edge.

She couldn’t be missed because some Dominican men that worked the beach were heckling her and chiding her.  She couldn’t have been more than 15.  She had stripped down to a bikini and was arranging herself, scowling at her hecklers and then redressed.  I heard her vocalize and then saw her sign.  It became clear that she was deaf.  My heart sank.  Not with pity, but with understanding.

This girl has the misfortune to be a young woman in the context of the Dominican Republic.  It’s a life hard enough already for Haitian women, being positioned on the lowest rung of the sociological ladder.  Added to this is her deafness.  Deafness here means absolute vulnerability and on a public beach in a country known as the Thailand of Latin America for its own brand of sex trafficking it means that she is at risk if she is not already being exploited.

The reality of her deafness becomes clear and it hits.  It’s like I’ve been struck by a bolt of lightning.  I have two deaf, American daughters with cochlear implants.  They know sign, they speak, they hear crudely but have as much access to all of the world, hearing and deaf, that one can currently imagine.  They are not at risk.  They are protected, insulated from the sex trade, loved, cared for, not alone… in part because they were born to Vicki and I, but also because they were born in America and not Haiti, or not of a Haitian couple in the Dominican Republic.  This young woman, this girl, could just as easily been one of my own daughters had soul been sown to flesh differently.

Kendrix, Kerlyn and Richard continue to speak.  The Spirit is speaking to me.  “Go get her.  Feed her.  Silence the hecklers with your love and treat her like a queen for this next hour or two.  Show her love and hope and care without exchange.”  And so I excuse myself.

I walk down the steps to the beach through the continued sounds of men being less than they are intended to be and walk out to her near the water’s edge.  I start signing to her. At this point I don’t know if she knows an actual sign language or just a more general kind of charades.  But she does.  It shows that given her life she’s more blessed than others that face her same challenges in this context. She’s been to some kind of school.  I sign to her that I have children, girls, that two of them are deaf too.  I ask her if she’s hungry, if she wants some food.  She does and I motion for her to come with me. 

We walk back through the same on-lookers, hecklers before, now silent and watching.  As a perceived tourist and American in particular, there is
a certain amount of influence you seem to just have, whether it be legitimate or not.  Part of being a Christian means leveraging power and influence for those that don’t have it.  You take the Enemy’s weapon to divide and use it to unite instead.  This is how those charged to be peace makers by their Master do the work of justice and silence the Enemy behind his own lines.   I sit her down next to us.  I ask Richard to give her a menu.  It just happens to have pictures which makes it a little more useful for this girl.  She points to what she wants and we get her a drink.  I sign to her asking her name.  She acts like she’s pulling a whisker across her face from her nose to her cheek.  Her name is either “Cat,” “Chat,” or “Gato,” depending on whether or not you’re interpreting into English, French/Creole or Spanish.  I finger spell my name for her and that it’s nice to meet her.

At this point I’m concerned that Cat will think I want some kind of “compensation.”  I don’t know that this is the case but that’s the problem, I don’t KNOW.  So to be safe it’s time for me to excuse myself, pay the bill and leave.  Earlier Richard pulled me aside asking for some specific financial help because he claimed to need a few more pesos to purchase a phone.  I told him that I’d see what I could do.  But now my concern was that if I don’t leave, Cat will think I want something but if I do leave they will run Cat off and just keep the money spent on her behalf.  I pulled Richard aside, “Promise me you’ll treat this girl like a queen for the next two hours and I’ll help you with what you need.  Deal?”  “Deal.”

I said good-bye to Cat and left.  As I got to the other side of the beach I realized that I’d forgotten to ask for the receipt.  I went back 10 minutes or so later and Kerlyn went with me.  When we arrived back at the little restaurant Cat was feasting on a huge platter of food, Richard was sitting by her and looked up at me, smiled and said, “I’m taking good care of her, man.”  And he was.

As I got my receipt I asked if I could get a photo with Cat and she signed, “Yes.”  I signed to her that Jesus loved her and said good-bye again.  When I looked at the photo later I discovered that she had signed “I love you.”  I hope she knows or learns to understand if she doesn’t already that the one she actually loves is Jesus.  I was just trying to follow him and I’m not sure how well I did.  But I hope it further awakened in her, her own dignity as an image bearer of our God.

Pray for Cat.  I don’t know her story.  I can only guess at the hardships she faces.  I don’t know where she is today, who cares for her, etc.  I know that she’s at risk.  I know Jesus loves her and pray God has put and will put other Christ followers in her life to build into her, to lift her up, to honor the image she bears.

One Clean Windshield Worth 7 Lives…

We have a saying at the GO Seminary of the Americas: "The fingerprints of the local church should be all over its neighborhoods. The community should love the church so much that even if it disagrees with what the church believes, it would grieve if it were gone."

We want to plant and lead the kinds of churches in our communities that would leave those respective communities feeling diminished by our absence because our redemptive presence was so strong.  When Jesus walked into a village things changed for the better.  When a church is established in a neighborhood things should be positively different not because of us but because of who we follow and how we follow him.  

In our Incarnational Ministry and Strategies II course students are challenged to develop ways of creatively engaging their culture with the Gospel and ever-serving presence of the local church.  We want to pour ourselves out for others and invite them to be a part of us if they are so led.

Today something completely unexpected happened.  Today we hit the streets with squeegees, sponges, cold bottles of water and fliers.  We thought we were just washing windshields and reaching out to public transportation drivers that serve our neighborhood.  We later discovered that we were also saving lives.

Public cars labeled with the same letters follow the same routes and are a form of public transportation here in the Dominican.  We have a circuit that runs directly through one of our neighborhoods.  They pack their cars full of fares and their passengers can get from one side of Santiago to the other and back by following the connecting routes.  These men drive all day long in crazy traffic (they make a lot of the “crazy” themselves) and it’s thankless, hot work.  Because the “A” car circuit goes through our neighborhood daily for up to 12 hours at a time, these drivers are considered a part of our community.  One of our students asked “What if we serve them and let them know that we care for them and are grateful for their work?  We could wash their windshields and give them water.”

It was a fantastic idea!  Culturally, here in the Dominican, when a windshield gets washed at an intersection or elsewhere there is an expectation that the driver will pay for the service, EVEN if the service was initially refused.  They almost always have to pay something.  The students wanted to turn the system upside down.  We’ll serve them at no cost AND we will give them a bottle of water as a thank you for their service and invite them to the neighborhood church.

So we prepped, got materials together, and set out to the “A” car route.  It went like this: 1. Student hails the car and begins immediately washing the windshield 2. While another student sticks his head in the car insuring that the service is free and 3. Hands them a bottle of water 4. While saying, “We’re able to clean your windshields for free because Jesus cleaned up our lives for free.  Your windshield will get dirty again but Jesus can clean up your life forever.  If you want to know more about it, come visit us one Sunday.” 5.” Here’s a flier with a scripture, address of our building and times of service.  Have a great day!”  The scripture is from John 4:13-14 and reads: “Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again,  but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”

We did one car after another… more than 80.  But one was unique.  The driver took the flier after we finished and handed it back to a passenger as he drove off.  Towards the end of the street the car stopped and the passenger got out.  He walked back to the students.  He asked them to wash the windshield of his life.  At first they were confused.  He broke down and confessed, “You guys are here for a reason.  For me.  I changed my mind.  I changed it in the back of that public car after I heard what you said and read this verse.  I need that water.  I’m at the end.  I had made up my mind to murder my family and kill myself today but now I won’t.  I’m not going to do it.  I was going to do it tonight but now I can’t do it.  He went on to tell of extreme financial difficulties, that he had not been able to provide for his family, that he can’t find work to provide for his wife who is pregnant with twins and the twins and singleton they already have together.  He was at the end of his rope, desperate and ashamed, believing that they would all be better off if they were just dead.  All together there are 7 of them.

The students prayed for him.  They took up a modest benevolent offering to get him through the night.  They confirmed where he lived and got his contact information so that they could follow up with him the next day and connect him to the church and pastoral staff.

Something as basic and ridiculous as a squeegee saved the life of two adults and 5 children today.  We never knew weeks ago when this plan first was born that it would be used in such a miraculous way.  The church, the People of God, went to the streets today and a difference was made.  Lives were saved.  It’s an encouragement to be sure but the question follows, how many has the Church lost due to its preoccupation with comfort and complacency?  How many more will die?

Today the fingerprints of the Church were on a squeegee that taught me that pouring ourselves out in small and great ways is a matter of life and death.  We only discover this in the act of serving.  There is a real battle going on that cannot be fought from a posture of comfort.

 

May the Church reject complacency in favor of a commitment to grow in its service and its redemptive engagement of the culture and community surrounding it.

Redeeming, Renewing, Restoring. 

Giving Tuesday... Help us Keep Making a Difference

Jeff teaching an impromptu class with Seminary students at the GO Leadership Development Complex land that will one day host our GO Seminary of the Americas that Jeff is currently developing and teaching at.

Vicki, lending a voice to Haitian pastors GO
Partners with in isolated parts of the country.

Raena loving on children during our service trip to
Phaeton, Haiti.

The Rogers family has just completed serving a year and a half on the island of Hispaniola!

Make an ONLINE DONATION today in support of our work with GO Ministries in honor of Giving Tuesday!*

You’re supporting our work to see the island of Hispaniola Redeemed, Renewed & Restored!

Specifically, we are developing the Seminary of the Americas which is in its third year of service.  Currently, Jeff is overseeing the training and helping to teach 25 different students and is adding a new cohort of up to 15 in January, 2015.  There will be at least one new church plant, one relaunch and the founding of one Celebrate Recovery ministry coming out of the graduating cohort of 12 in the fall of 2015 after they complete their third year of course work!

We continue to work in partnership with local leaders on the island helping secure funding for nutrition programs that provide food for about 1000 children as well as access to clean water for the poor in 10 different communities in partnership with local churches.  Our medical ministry provides access to those that would otherwise have no access to basic healthcare and our sports outreach offers leadership development to hundreds of at risk inner city youth.

We also continue to equip North Americans serving alongside of us in various partnership development initiatives to become more missional and intentional at home.  This year we helped host 80 teams which provided just over 1200 individuals to share the Gospel and be Jesus alongside of local Dominican and Haitian pastors.

Please consider partnering with our ministry today through a one-time gift or a much needed monthly partnership of $50/month or more.  You can safely and securely set up either online HERE. 

Thanks for your generosity and support!

Grace & Peace,

The Rogers

*If you already partner with us financially we are grateful for your support.  If you would like to make an additional one-time gift it is welcome.  We are grateful for your support.  We cannot serve the way we do without you.

A Scoundrel & A Picture of Jesus

“Ramón is a scoundrel and deserves to die.  He’s an exploiter.  He’s lived his life at the expense of others.  He’s arrogant.  He’s selfish.  He’ll take advantage of you.  The fact that he’s let his diabetes rage out of control and that it’s killing him slowly, humiliating him… It’s everything he’s earned.  Let him die and do the neighborhood a favor.”

This statement is the summation of what many of Ramón’s neighbors and acquaintances think about him and his current health condition.  Ramón is circling the drain due to unmanaged diabetes.  He has, until the last few months, been circling it by himself.  I know Ramón.  He is a scoundrel.  You can’t hear the intonation in my writing to hear that when I state that I write it as a certain term of endearment.  I’ve known Ramón.  He was our landlord for the brief 6 months we lived in the Dominican back in ’05.  He’s all of the things his critics have claimed but I always loved him through his arrogance, machismo and swagger.  He was and is just another spiritual orphan made in God’s image.  He’s only ignorant of the implications of such a gift, to be so made.  He need only be reminded again and again and again…  until he hears it in such a way that it begins to get traction in his heart.

Since we moved back to the Dominican in June of 2013 I’d lost track of Ramón.  I saw him here and there but he no longer lived with his wife; they were separated (no doubt due to him being a scoundrel, again, written with affection).  I knew he was in poor health but not the severity.  But I found him again, in the most unexpected of places.  I found him in the GO Seminary of the Americas where I am teaching and developing a program with a team of Dominicans and North Americans to better equip local leaders to engage more faithfully the mission of Jesus in their own culture(s).  Ramón was not there in class.  But Pablo was.

Me and Pablo

Pablo is what you’d call a non-traditional student.  He’s an older gentlemen who has started co-leading a Celebrate Recovery program in the nearby Central Church since he started the Seminary (that’s a Gospel centered 12 step program reaching out to those struggling with varieties of addictions).  During our Incarnational Ministry and Strategies class we were discussing the importance of taking redemptive ownership over our neighborhoods, seeking to be responsible to meet the needs we saw around us rather than ignoring them or waiting for others to do it.  Pablo raised his hand.  “My wife and I have started caring for a neighbor who is very sick.  Could we as a class go pay him a visit and maybe assess his situation?”

The next day during our lunch break, as a class, we walked the 6-8 blocks to where this man was staying.  We brought him lunch.  We had a nurse from our medical clinic go with us and we walked in the door.  There, in a wheel chair, sat Ramón.  This once proud rooster of a man, sat before us in the humiliation of the consequences of not caring for his illness.  He had bleeding ulcers on one of his ankles.  The other had terrible scarring from a previous infection.  His blood pressure was out of control as was his blood sugar.  Because he’s neglected his own care, the diabetes has taken his sight from him.  This compounds all of his other issues because now he cannot tell which medicines to take when, what time it is or what the proper medication or dosage is.  He. Is. A. Mess.  Here, near the end, he is the material culmination of his life’s spiritual poverty and he is alone.  Rather, he was alone… until Pablo and his wife took on the responsibility of taking care of a neighbor who was formerly a stranger.

Since this day of my reunion with Ramón weeks ago, his health has somewhat improved.  He’s been made more comfortable.  Pablo has organized his medicines in such a manner that he knows when and what to take and where it is.  Last week, 4 of our Seminary students asked to be excused from part of their afternoon class.  Ramón needed a blood transfusion and here you have to find your own donor.  They wanted to go to the hospital to see if they were a match.  This was possible because of Pablo’s advocacy. 

Today in our Incarnational class we were discussing Micah 6:8: “You know, humanity, what the LORD requires of you, to do justice, love mercy and walk humbly before your God.”  We were discussing the implications of mercy, the difference between simply showing mercy and actually loving it.  You see one can show mercy while still hating or resenting the recipient of that mercy.  One can show mercy and still feel superior to the one receiving it.  In fact, one can hate mercy and still offer mercy. 

Pablo raises his hand.  He says, “Last week when I asked my classmates to go to the hospital I also called a dear friend who is a Christian.  I asked her to go to the hospital too to give blood.  She refused and then she scolded me.  She told me that I should not be doing this for this man, that he was wicked and is getting what he deserves, that I should just let him be and suffer the consequences of the terrible life he chose for himself… that I needed to look out for myself, that the public hospital is filthy and full of bacteria and that I’m putting myself in danger for a man that deserves to suffer the consequences he earned.”  I watched a single tear from each of his eyes roll down each of his cheeks as he shared.  This woman, a Christian, failed to recognize the implications of the Gospel and so responded unfaithfully.  He knew it and this was why he was sharing.  He was as grieved for her as he was for Ramón who was receiving her condemnation rather than mercy.  She didn’t love mercy yet and because of this she would not show it.

But when you love mercy… you can’t help but express mercy.  The resources for this kind of mercy reside in knowing and loving Jesus.  Mercy is not just a “what,” it is also a “Who.”  Jesus Christ is the Mercy of God for all of humanity.  Pablo has made that mercy his own after having received it himself.  When Pablo looks at Ramón and what he has come to be, he sees himself without Jesus, like we all should who name ourselves “Christian.”  Indeed, the only difference between Ramón and Pablo is that Pablo has responded to the mercy of Jesus.  Why would Pablo want Ramón to suffer what Pablo himself also deserves but was spared because of God’s grace?  He doesn’t.  And so he, like Jesus, draws close and pours himself out for the so-called undeserving, putting himself at risk so that his neighbor might be made new.  We have not had final exams in this class but by his actions Pablo has already shown that he has mastered the course and it’s material.  He is himself a picture ofJesus… and I presume to be his teacher?  We are brothers serving a common King, nothing more and nothing less.  His love and mercy are a blessing and encouragement to me.  I hope they are to you too and that you’ll find your own Ramones and respond as one that loves Mercy, both the Person and the practice.

From one scoundrel to another.

A New Creation

Today my mind continues to race back to what was happening 9 years ago...easily the most terrifying and joyful day of my life. My knees were worn from begging God to allow the girls to survive, even when doctors told me there was only a 50% chance. My heart raced, then ached, then broke as I imagined the odds. I remember trembling in my hospital bed the night before, my hip aching from steroid shots to strengthen the girls' lungs, my husband's strong arms faithfully embracing me and praying God's hands over all his girls. I couldn't imagine a world without them. I couldn't imagine my world without them. I had only known them for 6 short months, but my heart fell in love with them long before they had names. And those we had just drawn out of a hat. The time was too short. We needed 3 more months.

 

That was the night my worn knee prayer changed. Changed to the most difficult prayer I've ever prayed. "Oh, Lord, let your will be done. I will still follow you whatever the outcome. With an aching heart, I will still follow." Then I added my P.S., "but Father, oh how I would love to watch them grow up, to shepherd them, to teach them."

56 and 61. That's the number of days these warrior girls fought in the NICU. 10. The combined number of days machines breathed for my tiny girls hooked up to ventilators. 6. The total number of holes they had in their hearts. 5. The number of blood transfusions between them. 6. How many days old they were before I ever was able to hold them. 5. The number of minutes each I was able to hold them. 5. The number of pounds they weighed...together. 3. The number of cysts in Sophi's brain presumably from an inutero brainbleed. 4. The number of days they were when I had to leave them in the hospital and began visiting my babies. 1. The nasty staph infection that turned Sophi's frail body septic. 6. The number of days old they were when their doctor told us they wouldn't survive through the night. 100+ The number of Dominican and Haitian brothers and sisters praying during a 24-hour prayer vigil at the church in Hoya del Caimito that same night. 9. The number of years old they both are today.

We experienced the most outrageous sunset tonight while cutting birthday cake outside. The kind where God just shows off. What started with hues of oranges and blues turned to pinks and blues. Taking your breathe away. Making you reach for a camera to record the moment. But the camera couldn't record such beauty. Sophi looked up and assuredly proclaimed, "God is saying Happy Birthday to us". With a smile, Raena said, "He's already answering my wish". When asked to explain, she looked at the white cloud with orange rays bursting behind it's curves and said, "Jesus is coming back to renew all things."

And this momma, this momma who gets impatient with these curly-haired beauties, who doesn't spend nearly enough time gazing into those big brown eyes to discuss what's important to a 9-year-old these days, who occassionaly yells to get them to stop bickering (I somehow manage to defend myself because they're deaf and our house is always loud, it's a ridiculously poor excuse), who nearly threw the pancakes across the room when one, not mentioning any names, ungratefully said she doesn't eat pancakes with syrup on them after I made three rounds of pancakes because the first had bugs in it, then another round because the syrup was infested with hundreds of ants, and finally because I flung them on the floor. Oh, sweet grace, and beautiful sunsets, reminding us from the mouth of this miracle, purposed, wonderfully designed child that all will be renewed. That renewal and rejoicing is not only on the horizon, but is here today. With her words, all three girls began worshipping and making up songs to their God. Because what else do you do when you see His masterpiece across the sky?

Tasting God's Promises

This journey of following that we have been on, this journey that has intensified over the course of the last 6 months as we have been thrust into the next chapter of our lives has been so rich and full of goodness. It’s not been without its concerns or stresses. At the top of the list of concerns that we’ve had surrounds how Sophi and Raena would adjust to living in the Dominican, their education, their health, their tech support without specialists easily on hand, etc…

Concern is good. Concern is an expression of love. Anxiety… anxiety is different. It is the opposite of peace and inserts itself the moment trust in God gives way.  Anxiety is the perversion of concern and is symptomatic of wanting to control all outcomes on our own terms. Anxiety indulges “What ifs,” and makes obstacles of countless hypothetical scenarios kindling embers of doubt into a raging inferno of fear induced paralysis. That’s where it goes. Anxiety distracts us, leading us to ignore everything else around us because we are so consumed by things that have not happened but might. It’s an effective tool of the enemy to draw us off course and render us utterly ineffective.

Peter walked on water. He was bold enough to get out of a boat in an effort to meet Jesus who was walking on the water towards him. He did it! He was walking on water. He journeyed into the madness of trusting that if Jesus willed it the water would hold him and against all common sense and practical knowledge he was doing it. But he got distracted. He took his eyes off of Jesus and started to look at the waves all around him. He began giving the very real possibilities around him more authority over his situation than Jesus and he began to sink… But he didn’t drown. Jesus reached down, pulled him up and asked, “Why did you doubt?”

Our journey is a different kind of dramatic than that. There have been times when we’ve been tempted to be stifled and hindered by “what ifs.” But God in his grace meets us in our fear and nudges us, rescues us from our tendency to sink and reminds us that the point is to follow Him, not to stop and obsess over the rocks we could possibly trip over along the way. We’re grateful for a God that nudges. We’ve needed nudging along the way. We’re also grateful for a God that adds to our courage as we journey forward with little signs of encouragement to keep going.

Our concerns surrounding the twin’s education given their hearing loss and needed supports to succeed have been significant. If anxiety were to creep in, this is one of the tenderest areas of vulnerability for us. So the girls’ success at school has been one of the potential stones in our path to obsess over (i.e. What are we thinking moving to a place with no support, no specialized professionals, no this, no that, why the heck would we dare get out of this perfectly good boat… you get the picture). And as we dropped them off today at their first day of Third Grade in the Dominican Republic we passed through the doorway into their classroom. The door was decorated with a rainbow. There was another on the bulletin board behind the teacher’s desk. Rainbows are cool; they’re great for kids, colorful, etc. I’d seen it the week before when I was putting tennis balls on the chairs and desks to cut down on class room noise. But I hadn’t really paid attention to the detail of the door or bulletin board until this morning as the girls sat at their desks for the first time. Both the board and the door read, “Tasting God’s Promises.”

And this is when I heard Him say in my heart this morning, “the rainbows are for you, they’re for the students but they are also for you. I’ve promised you concerning these daughters of yours. I’m reminding you that they are daughters of mine and that in as much as you are their father I am more their Father and I’m yours too. I’m no stranger to your concerns on their behalf. I will care for our daughters. And to remind you of this I’ve marked the proverbial stone in your path (Sophi & Raena’s education) both within and without with a rainbow, the first marker of my promises.” And so I walked away from a Third Grade classroom this morning completely and unexpectedly floored by our Father’s love and encouragement and any temptation towards anxiety just melted away.

I love that the teacher chose “tasting God’s Promises” rather than “taste” because it conveys on-going experience in motion; it has not been completed and we are also not waiting on it. It’s happening now and it’s an on-going discovery. So “Tasting God’s Promises,” the teacher later explained is actually their class’s theme for the year. Turns out, I think it’s mine too.

God Gives Us These Things To Build Our Faith

There it was. What we had prayed for, hoped for, consulted nearly a dozen experts on, and spent a small fortune on was sitting on a paper towel. “God gives us these things to build our faith.” That was our diagnosis today. Interesting how these words weaved together by our friend and Australian audiologist serving in the Dominican created a tapestry of courage, faith, and perseverance we could wrap our family in. Grateful that she was the one telling us disappointing news because she started with a phrase like this putting everything in perspective. The tests she performed were the same ones that slapped us in the face 8 years ago. I found myself once again looking nervously at the concrete floor hoping the tests would produce good news, rather, the news I wanted to hear. The surgery we painstakingly waited 6 years to do and saved up money to have done in May had failed. The grafted skin didn’t stand a chance against planes, humidity, ear molds, and a nasty infection that blew her new ear drum. My first thoughts led to blaming myself for what I did or didn’t do to create the situation. How do you “lessen” humidity on a tropical island? My second went to the hospital bills still pouring in and how that money could have been used to feed children here instead of on a surgery that only had a 60% chance of taking. Then it came like a tidal wave. I couldn’t look at Jeff for fear of sobbing. I couldn’t look into the big brown eyes of the fragile yet courageous one for fear of falling apart. How could I tell her after everything she’s been through that it didn’t work and we were going to have to go back to all our extra precautions, away from a pediatric ER, away from our expert surgeon, away from specialists …and then her calm eyes met mine and she reminded me that “God gives us these things to build our faith”. Before fear could consume me, Hope arrived. I learned that my faithfulness was still determined to have conditions. We would go, we would stay, if we found a teacher of the Deaf to go with us and if Sophi’s ear was healed so the risks were decreased. Our hearts continued to not only be tugged, but pushed, pulled, dragged towards moving back to the Dominican. And God has shown me on His terms that it was without a teacher of the Deaf and now, painfully, without Sophi’s ear being healed. And there it was in black ink underlined years ago from another battle with overwhelming fear “No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the Kingdom of God.” Luke 9:62

So, we walk forward in faith. We dry our tears. We dry Sophi's tears and encourage her through her fears and frustrations. So many challenges in 8 short years. Yet I look at how each challenge has grown her character deeper, her wisdom wider, her fortitude stronger, her empathy and compassion towards others greater. We can't protect our children from every hurt and every frustration. In doing so we stunt their spiritual growth, their dependence on their Creator, their character development. In overprotecting we actually keep them in shallow waters when indeed, they can swim in the deep end. We appreciate your specific prayers that the infection has not affected the electrodes in her implant and we pray against meningitis. We pray for courage and peace for Sophi as she faces old challenges.

Introducing People to GO

One of my privileges serving with GO is to introduce people to our ministry on the field, check out the brief video my friend and coworker, Reid Olson, put together about Exploratory trips with GO on the island of Hispaniola.

Opiates and Operatives

There’s a used Christian book store we pass nearly every Sunday when we take our girls to get donuts after church.  We noticed that the Book Nook must have been in a former old neighborhood drugstore because of the tile in the entryway.  It simply said, “Drugs.”

Karl Marx is popularly known for the quote, “Religion is the opium of the people.”  I imagined him walking by to get a donut and snickering a little to himself, saying, “See, I told you so.”

Opium’s medicinal purposes in Marx’s day were to sedate, relieve pain and stimulate hallucinations. So per Marx’s review religion at best was little more than a coping mechanism for the oppressed and at worst a tool for power brokers to exploit and marginalize while they secured more power and wealth.  It’s seems clear that Marx believed religion served both functions.  He believed it to be symptomatic of living in a broken world.  He assumed if we could repair the world, religion would go away.

What strikes me about this critique is considering what the spiritual environment must have been like for such a critique to be levied.  The Church is not called to numbness, to a sleepy apathy, to passivity.  It’s not called to this and when we witness it as such we must recognize unfaithfulness to the mission set before the Church.  To learn what it means to really follow this God-Man named Jesus is to step out onto water with him, to embrace any and all suffering purposefully and to pour ourselves out for others, friends and enemies alike.  And it’s not for some abstract heavenly reward… some spiritualized materialism.  It’s simply for the love and glory of God and the simple desire to see brokenness restored to rights.  It is invigorating and life begetting and can awaken radical creativity!

Christians believe that the world is broken as a consequence of an alienated relationship with God that has lead to the unraveling of creation.  Human ingratitude and the refusal to accept God as enough was the first manifestation of sin in the Garden.  It alienated us from God, from ourselves, from each other and from creation.  We live at least in 4 layers of profound brokenness.  But Jesus makes possible the healing of these relationships.  We can be whole and can grow into that wholeness and call others to it.  God, through Jesus, invites us to partner with him in redeeming, renewing and restoring creation!  God’s dealing with human sin is not the end of our spiritual journey.  It is the beginning.  Now we can be made useful and can engage the world and our neighbors as stewards and friends rather than exploiters and strangers. 

There’s no time for sedation.  The world is on fire with the consequences of our brokenness set in motion long ago.  Christians have the spiritual resources to engage these fires with grace, mercy, humility and faith.  We can face the hells of hunger, of malnutrition, of poor medical care, of desperate tragedy, of cancers, various expressions of injustice because hell has no power over us because of Jesus.  We can face the hells of inner city poverty and drug addiction because hell has no power over us.  The fear of death should not hold us.  The fear of God is the end of all other fear.  We can move into slums, we can befriend drug dealers, we can provide homes for orphans, we can share our resources, collaborate and build more secure futures so that as creatures made in God’s image we can share in a life characterized by that common dignity.  We can find ultimate meaning in the everydayness of whatever career we might have if we recognize the eternal value of those we work with and engage them daily as such, co-image bearers worthy of our love and sacrifice.  Marx had a view of the “faithful” that was characterized by a numbness that was checked out from the real world and real problems.

Smokejumper

But those that have learned about the established and coming Kingdom are not so faint hearted, apathetic and diminished.  We’re equipped to be more like smokejumpers.  We’re like those that parachute into forest fires to put them out, put an end to their violence and restore the lands compromised by them.  We parachute into the impoverished inner city.  We parachute into the slum run by the local drug lord.  We parachute into messy lives and relationships at work or with our next door neighbors.  We parachute into conflict to make peace by Jesus’ means of making peace. 

We’re smokejumpers and clandestine contrivers.  We make inroads into other countries, sometimes hostile to our presence, for the sake of the Gospel.  We develop organizations to rescue children from sex-slavery.  We establish businesses to provide dignified wages for women who formerly prostituted themselves.  We dream about how we might leverage ourselves for the sakes of others.  We find ways to serve, simple and profound.  We risk… we risk.  Because we know that everything we have belongs to God and because the fear of God brings an end to all other fear and because death has lost its sting.  If we lose our skins along the way, we’ll just trade them in.  Christians, at least in our most faithful expression of what it means to follow Jesus look a whole lot more like operatives than those under the influence of opiates.  Rather than avoiding conflicts of all kinds, we are called into them as peace makers, as first responders, as pioneers in Jesus’ name.  This is the ministry of reconciliation.

Just Two Days a Week

Imagine that your neighborhood only received water twice a week, that though your house is plumbed and you’re connected to the main, that the utility only provided service to your neighborhood 2 out of 7 days. That’s 8 days of access to water a month. Imagine also that the water never runs on the same 2 days. That’s what the community of Los Perez lives with. In fact, neighbors leave the tap on so that the sound of water alerts them to waters presence in their neighborhood and then they shout and spread the word. Imagine how your life would be different living around the availability of water and your ability to store it well. Imagine how it would affect how you do laundry, wash dishes… wash yourself. Imagine having to randomly stop what you’re doing and switch over to your water based chores… you’re reading this post and then suddenly you have to stop because the waters on and dishes need to be washed and so does the baby. Along with all of that, imagine the likelihood of waterborne disease in the water you have been able to store and is all you can afford to drink.

For years now, Pastor Nico, has served this community. He lives here with his family and has established a church. Through G.O. his church is able to provide a nutrition program to the children there that would otherwise be hungry. He and his wife have taken it upon themselves to teach the illiterate adults in the community how to read and write. They have a chalkboard mounted to the exterior wall of their little house under a makeshift patio.

This summer we were able to collaborate with Pastor Nico and Mac Parrish to install a water purification system. For Pastor Nico it was an opportunity to provide safe drinking water to the people of his community in Jesus’ name in an affordable way. 5 Gallons of drinking water goes for 40 pesos (about $1.50 US). He is able to offer it for 10 pesos. This meets the people of his community where they are financially and helps to run the cost of the program. Because water is scarce we later constructed a cistern to hold enough water to be purified throughout the week. For Mac this was an opportunity to execute what would be a tremendous Eagle Scout project. At 16 years of age, he took on this very ambitious project, the fruit of which will not only improve lives but save them. This is one of 8 water project G.O. has done on the island to date. Take two minutes and check out our quick clip highlighting this great project.


The Clean Water Project in Los Perez, Dominican Republic from Jeff Rogers on Vimeo.

We are moving our family to the Dominican in June.  If you'd like to help us and help further this kind of ministry please consider making a one time contribution to "Send Us" as well as partnering with us monthly.  Details and links to donate via the web are in the panel to your right.

Three Gifts our Daughters Gave us Last Night...

Last night was a gift the Lord gave us from the girls in three parts.  The first was a song from Sophi at Taco Bell.  At Taco Bell Sophi was writing this song based on “Jesus Loves Me,” a sort of remix.  She was totally unprovoked.  She was entertaining herself.  She was singing it as she wrote it at the table.  It reads:

“Jesus, Jesus, Jesus,

Loves, loves, loves, me, me, me,

Yes He does, does, does love me

The Bible tells me so

He is strong but we are

Weak, weak, weak,

Jesus loves you even

When you sin and that’s

Why he loves you so much.”

The 2^nd and 3^rd gifts came right before bed.  Later on last night I read the Bible story about Zacchaeus to the girls. After their devotional, Raena told me that she thought everybody should be missionaries. I got to explain to her that all Christians are no matter where they work, whether they're firemen, vets, doctors, dance teachers (or at least they can be and should see it that way)... they're missionaries where they are, loving and serving people where they are at. Not everybody has to move someplace different, that's just the journey that we happen to be on. She's getting it (gift #2). It's very cool to watch.

After hearing the story of Zacchaeus, Sophi wanted to make sure that we were giving enough money to help the poor (gift #3) because he committed half of what he owned to the poor as well as repaying those he cheated four times what he had taken from them.  I explained to her that because of the work that we do, we get to help all kinds of people in all walks of life that suffer from all sorts of circumstances and especially those facing the challenges of material poverty.  These kids are keeping an eye out. Accountability comes from all over the place.

We have often wondered what our approach to life and ministry will make of our children.  We thank God for his grace in giving them hearts compelled to love others whether those others be kind or mean and spirits that desire to be generous.  They seem to be grasping things at 7 that took us longer to understand.  Our prayer is that they would grow in wisdom and peace, expressing forgiveness, mercy in humility.  They appear to be on the path…  What a blessing.

Blessing in Transition...

February 18-24 was a special time for Vicki and me.  We went back to the Dominican to help lead our annual G.O. Staff meetings.  We went down 2 days early to visit our new apartment as we prepare to move down in June.  It was a significant milestone for us as we stood out on the patio our last night there, looking up at the moon and stars with prayers of thanksgiving on our lips.  11 years prior we looked up into that same Dominican/Haitian sky on our first trip to the Dominican with Southeast Christian Church and asked God why he had brought us here.  We’ve spent 11 years discovering the answers to that question.  And so… we’re coming back.  It was a special week for one other reason.  Bob Russell came down the same week to visit our ministry and do leadership training with our staff as well as our pastors and seminary students.  Bob’s special for a lot of reasons.  His presence with us has led me to reflect on the ways in which he’s been special to me in particular.

Sophi & Raena's Baby Dedication

I grew up at Southeast.  My mother was a part-time secretary there when I was little.  I can still remember the smell of the ink of the newsletters and the clacking sound of the automated folding machine that she would use to get the letters out.  “Brother Bob” had his office down the hall.  I remember when I was 7, before I was to be baptized by my Dad, meeting with Bob in his office as he reviewed the Gospel with me, ensuring that I really understood (as much as any 7 year old could and as much as any adult can) what I was getting myself into.  For years I sat at his feet as a member of the congregation, listening to his teaching.  He was there when the twins were dedicated at the church and was present for my ordination into ministry.  And now, in what is a significant life transition for our family in moving back to the Dominican Republic, he has been present, discovering the ins and outs of our ministry and has poured his wisdom into people I care about both with regards to our staff and the local leaders we serve.

Bob teaching G.O. Pastors
& Seminary Students

Bob with our G.O. Field Staff

 

We don’t stand on our own feet.  We are not self-made people.  We are the sum total of those whose combined influences have made us who we are today and who we are becoming.  In Christian community this is how the Spirit teaches and guides us in part, through others and their lives and the lives of those that influenced them.  I’m grateful for Bob’s humility and influence, I’m grateful for his obedience.  God has used him to lay the spiritual foundations of many of which I am just one.  And I’m blessed to have been able to share a little bit of what that influence has meant in the life of our family and ministry.

Bob doesn’t like to travel outside of the U.S. much.  He’s pretty frank about it which makes me grin.  He was  outside of his comfort zone coming with us to the Dominican, but, Brother Bob, I’m so glad you did.  You were a deeper blessing and encouragement than you will ever know.  Thanks for your service on behalf of the Kingdom and your willingness to be poured out for the sake of others.

 

A Longing Fulfilled...

Eight years ago this past January, we moved to the Dominican Republic.  For the four years prior, we traveled back and forth for a few months to six months at a time between our International Headquarters in Louisville to the field in the Dominican.    A few weeks before we departed, we discovered we were pregnant.  A month after moving we discovered we were having twins.  So, our journey would include two little ones a little earlier than we had planned, but we had learned to trust God’s plans. 

Our hearts were filled with anticipation for this new journey; to have a more permanent residence, more consistent relationships, and simply to serve on the island our hearts had been bound to.  Many of you know our story and what happened next.  After only 5 short months, we landed back in the States.  What was supposed to be a short stay after our delivery, turned into an 8 year journey of faith through tears, challenges, incredible joys, victories, and miracles.

Our hearts were never released from the Dominican.  While we were not serving full-time on the field, we served stateside with G.O. building relationships, recruiting teams and partnerships, helping with the organizational structure and spending our summers in the Dominican.  While we tried not to let our roots grow too deep in Louisville, hopeful this was only a stop on our journey, God had other plans.  He led us to incredible relationships through community, inner-city ministry, and a growing understanding of Deaf culture.  The resources He poured out on our girls’ with state-of-the art medical professionals in the NICU, therapists, teachers, Deaf adults, and  other families with Deaf children was both generous and encouraging.  Even more gracious, He added another angel to our family with the healthy birth of Ella Jayde in March 2010.

The deep longings in our hearts for the Dominican and Haiti painfully remained.  For the past eight years, we’ve prayed for God to make a way for us to return.  With our girls’ special needs, we were prepared for that to be much later in our lives.  However, last summer, God began showing us in numerous ways that the time was coming sooner rather than later. 

 I type now from our apartment in the Dominican after painting the girls room because will be returning to the Dominican this June to live!  Can you stop for a moment and rejoice with us!!  I continue to read and reread “Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life.” Proverbs 13:12   Such a sweet deep longing is being fulfilled!  Thank you, God for your continued hand and guidance.  Thanks to all of you who have continued to support us on this journey. 

 

Water of Life, a Gift from the Church to the Community

One of the services we have been able to provide in partnership with local leaders serving on the island of Hispaniola is access to purified drinking water.  This effort is a ministry through the local churches to the community at large.  It is an effert to assist in renewing communities and restoring Creation.  Currently we provide access to clean drinking water to at least 9000 people.  Units like the one in this brief video are being run by pastor's and local leaders in La Mosca, Batey 9, & Batey Cuchilla as well as the Hole shown below.  We are currently slated to do 3 (and possibly a 4th) more installations in the next 6 months in 3 other communities: Phaeton, Haiti; 2 in different mountain communities near Puerta Plata (and 1 in Los Perez if #4 works out).

Please take a couple of minutes to see how this system is working in the Hole. 

Jamie Barnes & Brooks Ritter Play for G.O.!

Jamie & Brooks just headlined our Breachbent Benefit show on March 30th!  They're auctioning themselves off on Biddingforgood.com to further their impact for our ministry!

Have Jamie and Brooks come to your home and perform a private concert for you and your friends and family. The winning bidder will get an unplugged acoustic concert of shared songs between Brooks and Jamie and this will be a memory that lasts forever. When Jamie and Brooks have Grammy's piled up on their shelves you can proudly say "They performed in my living room once".

Current Bidder has secured them for $500 (as of 4/2/12)!  Auction ends on 4/8/12

Register and bid here.

You're Invited!!

Please Join Us on the Rogers' Friend & Family Trip!! 

Come serve with us in the Dominican Republic July 17-24th as we work alongside local leaders to redeem people, renew communities and restore Creation! 

 

We will be celebrating Vicki's 11th year with the ministry and Jeff's 10th with any of you that care to join us. For those of you who have never been, experience our ministry first hand and serve alongside of us. For those that haven't been in a while, please come back with us!

The focus of the trip will be helping to construct the G.O. Medical Center, serve children in our nutrition centers, children's ministry and more!

Cost for the trip is $950+airfare.

If you are interested in this trip please email Vicki

We need final commitments no later than March 26th. We would LOVE, LOVE, LOVE to see you there!!