Intensive Training...

One of our Pastors studying during the lecture

Brian teaches while Isiais translates into Spanish

I was pleased to host Brian Johnson in the Dominican from August 13th through the 20th. Brian is a professor of New Testament studies at Lincoln Christian College and came down with me to share in the training of our pastors. While he was there he taught classes, lead Bible studies in the evening and preached 3 times on Sunday. We kept him on a busy schedule!

Brian spent 5 hours a day for 5 days leading our pastors through a theological overview of the New Testament. This systematic approach is mostly unavailable to our pastors due to lack of financial resources and availability of learning opportunities. It was a huge blessing. Some pastors brought new leaders from their church so that they could share in being sharpened and in the responsibility of passing the knowledge on to the rest of the community.

The trip was a success in many ways. The Pastors were edified, Brian enjoyed his time and has committed to coming down four times in 2008 for more training. We already have him set up to come down in March along with a team of 20 Bible college students. Brian has agreed to help me in developing other contacts to come down and teach. All in all the trip was a tremendous blessing!

Brian Johnson's NT Class of 2007

A full circle moment...

We just returned from another amazing journey back to the Dominican! This trip was particularly special because we were there with one of our partnering churches, Cross Point Community Church from Nashville, TN and the church where Jeff and I first met while we were doing ministry together in college, Morgantown Community Church in KY. Pete Wilson is the pastor at Cross Point and Morgantown Community was his first church plant. We worked with him in high school ministry while we were at WKU and Pete was Jeff's discipleship leader and his wife-to-be at the time, Brandi, was was my roommate. They played a large part in our relationship that led to our marriage nine years ago. So, you can see why it was such a neat experience to have both teams in the same place sharing our vision!

Cross Point Community partners with pastor Moise. They purchased land for a church for him in Brisa del Ocampo and are building a church and nutrition center in the community. Moise meets an incredible need in Santiago as he helps other Haitians who are in the Dominican trying to find work to send money back to their families in Haiti, the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. Pictured above are Lisa, Moise, and Melissa. Lisa and Melissa are good friends and we were all incredibly inspired by Melissa's strength and faith as she worked long hours in the hot sun to help Moise and the Haitian community. Her plight is inspiring because two days before the trip she just had her last radiation treatment for cancer. Following the trip she began chemotherapy. Not once did she complain or speak of her problems, she continued to focus on the community, the children, and how she could make a difference. Please keep her in your prayers for complete healing as she battles this horrific disease.

While Cross Point Community Church worked on building the church in Brisa, Jeff spent a day working with Morgantown in Hoya del Caimito building a home for a single mother. He's pictured here with Fran.

My friend, Brandi, came on a trip two years ago and I was so disheartened that I missed her because I was in the hospital with the girls. We finally were able to spend a week in the DR together and it was a great reunion!

Scott and Dave from Cross Point take a break from digging a four foot trench in the front of the property for the wall.

Probably one of the most special things about our trip to the DR this time was spending it with Jeff's sister, LeAnn. I've said a million times that she's the sister I never had (I have brothers) and this was her second trip down. Her love for people, her compassion and her funloving spirit were amazing.

Prayer before children's ministry in Santa Lucia, La Mosca.


I pose with a little girl and her artwork after children's ministry.

Harold Mckee is an elder at Morgantown Community and we worked with him 13 years ago in high school ministry. We were attracted to his jovial spirit and his absolute love for people. He hasn't changed a bit! He is helping to turn the attention of the church he serves towards international ministry. This was their first short-term trip to the Dominican. This experience has opened their eyes in a profound way to better see the Latin Diaspora in Butler County who are attempting to provide for their families both locally and abroad.

Morgantown’s trip to the DR has deepened their compassion for their Latin neighbors. They are realizing that the poverty and exploitation they witnessed in the Dominican is a common reality that many Latin Americans in the US are fleeing. In order to get closer to this community and to learn Spanish, Harold has spoken with the Hispanic owner of a local Mexican restaurant and asked if some of the people from the church could volunteer working at the restaurant. He asked if they could bus tables for a few hours so that they can practice their Spanish and get to better know the workers! This will help them both at home and in the Dominican. What an amazing way to allow a short-term trip abroad to begin to make a long-term difference at home!

As part of Jeff's ongoing traninig series for the pastors who work with G.O. Ministries, Tom Tyndall, associate pastor at Cross Point, led an ongoing training seminar for several pastors on grace and legalism.

Our girls celebrated their second birthday in the Dominican and loved participating in children's ministry. Here, Sophi sings along with Magdelina.

Thank you again for all of your support and prayers!

Time to Put the Gloves On!

We're heading back to the DR on the 12th of July with two groups. We are joining Cross Point again as we continue together in the construction of the church for Moise Jean and the community he serves. In addition to this we will also be working with a new team from Butler County, KY.
Vicki will be getting her hammer back!
Morgantown Community Church is coming down at the same time to continue the construction of the church in Hoya de Bartola (The Hole, a functioning landfill where over 500 families live). We are looking forward to being back home among our Dominican and Haitian friends and family. We are also excited to be down with actual family as Leann, Jeff's (Older, Jeff's emphasis) sister will be down with us. And, yes, we're taking the girls with us so please pray for safe travel as well as a safe stay. Our dear friends Tim and Samira are putting us up until we return state-side on the 24th of July. We look forward to sharing more of our work in the DR and Haiti with each of you. We will do our best to update as we go if electricity and time allow. Until then the gloves are on!

Jeff looks grumpy (but isn't) as he chooses a delivery path for fill dirt

Building a Church, Building a Bridge...

In mid March we had the opportunity to go down to the Dominican with Crosspoint Community Church. We worked alongside them in constructing a church that will serve as a tool for Moise Jean and his congregation. It is exciting work for Vicki and I because this church supports us too and this Partnership with Moise is one we were blessed to help develop with the leadership at Crosspoint. Overall they have committed around $100,000 for this project even before they had secured a more permanent location for their own building (they are a recent church plant within the last 4 years or so).

Moise Jean and Ryan Bult from Crosspoint

As we worked on pouring the floor of this building I reflected on the potential of this place we were making for Moise and his congregation. This is more than just a building. It is a potential bridge between cultural enemies.

You see, Moise is Haitian and he serves a Haitian migrant working community that has come to be somewhat established in Santiago, the second largest city in the Dominican Republic. Moise would willingly serve Dominicans in his church as well but they wont have much to do with him. There is a deeply entrenched racist ideology in Dominican culture. Haitians will often respond to racism with racism which is typical of the unredeemed human condition. However, this is not the case with Moise. He knows both the implications of fallenness and redemption. The Kingdom of God means more to him then national or racial ties, then the implications of a volatile political history between two countries bound together by the same geographic space. He knows that nationalism, hatred, prejudice, and pride are rooted in sin and that apart from Christ’s healing they remain unchallenged, unaltered, and unrepented of. He is aware of why his enemies are his enemies and he forgives and loves them just the same.

Moise’s understanding of the Gospel is why this building is both a Church and a Bridge. As teams come to serve Moise they are also serving the broader Dominican community that surrounds his Church. This building will ultimately serve them too because Crosspoint intends to help finance a nutrition center there that will serve both Haitian and Dominican children under Moise’s direction and leadership. Once the building is complete, we will be able to host medical clinics in that community that will serve Haitians and Dominicans alike. Our hope and our prayer is that the Dominicans will begin to understand that the goodness that has come into their community would not be there if it was not for the existence of the Haitian Church. We hope that the testimony of service growing out of Moise’s Church will soften hearts and transform minds as they are confronted with tangible expressions of God’s love through people they would typically be at odds with.

“From now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view; even though we once knew Christ from a human point of view, we know him no longer in that way. So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us.”
2 Corinthians 5:16-19

Moise understands what it means to forsake a human point of view in light of the Gospel. He knows he has been entrusted with the ministry of reconciliation and accepts it with all of its hardships. Please join us in praying for his protection, his wisdom, and his impact in Brisa Del Campo (the community where we are building the church). Moise and his congregation have difficult, but blessed work ahead of them.

A new border...

In November 2005, my life changed forever. My heart was pierced, my perspective enlightened, and my faith challenged. When a doctor told me my daughters were profoundly deaf time stood still. I have crossed many borders, explored many cultures, and learned new languages in love and commitment to serve God's people in the world. On that day, I crossed a new border, into the Deaf culture, into a beautiful visual language spoken with the hands. I knew in my heart that God had an incredible purpose with Sophia and Raena.

In that moment, I knew that we, as a family, would cross the border and find a way to help our Deaf brothers and sisters in other countries. However, I had and still have no idea how that will happen. While we are stateside, we've been commited to sign language courses and learning more about the Deaf culture. We've been networking with people in the Deaf community to find resources available to those in the Dominican and Haiti.

On our most recent trip to Haiti, I met Judeline. She lives in an orphanage that one our pastors runs. They think she is 17-years-old. She usually has a smile on her face as she helps make and serve food to the children in the Nutrition center. She has a friend who is mute and they have created their own sign language. While they have no formal training, I could understand their signs because they are so close to ASL. To talk with her I had to speak Spanish to the pastor, he translated into Creole to the girl who is mute who would then make some signs for Judeline to understand.

I stood in amazement at her courage and strength and walked away with incredible heartache. How could she be 17 and only be able to truly communicate with only one other person? As I write this I just watched my 20 month old sign to her sister to put her cochlear implant coil back on her head before she gets in trouble for playing with it. I'm not sure at this point that I can even put in words the incredible pain I feel for the Deaf in the third world who are many times without resources and advocates. I can only commit that we will do the best we can to make sure that they don't go unnoticed or unheard.

This young lady (above) is a child in Arcenio's orphanage in Haiti

This little girl helps earn money for her family by begging at the border crossing. She is plagued by a skin disorder as well as skeletal issues. Such suffering, unfortunately, is common place in Haiti. A team member from Nashville prayed for her healing. Please join him and us in that prayer for this little girl for God's glory.



One of the children in our nutrition center in Haiti.

The Nashville team prays over a Haitian Pastor.

The team from Cross Point Community Church.

We're Returning...

Vicki, the girls, and myself leave Saturday the 10th for the Dominican. We will be helping Crosspoint from Nashville continue building a church for their partner Moise Jean. Please pray for smooth travel there and back. We will be returning on the 23rd if there are no kinks in the travel plan. We are excited to be going back. This will be the girls' first time back with cochlear implants. We're curious to see how they do. The Dominican is a very loud place but it also has lots of new, cool sounds for the girls. We appreciate your thoughts and prayers while we are away.

Grace and Peace,

Jeff

Dave Calhoun's Celebration of Recovery

Wednesday February 7th I had the opportunity to meet with Pastor Dave Calhoun of Hope Springs Community Church in Lexington, KY (http://www.hopespringschurch.com). Dave has been to the Dominican Republic at least 3 times and now his church comes down on short-term trips on a regular basis. While they were on the field they had the opportunity to get to know Eduard Gabriel and his ministry. Eduard pastors a church, oversees a vibrant Christian radio ministry (listen live by following the link under media), and is the spiritual advisor for a local government sponsored rehab facility called Hogar de Crea. Dave and Eduard struck a common chord through their mutual interests in recovery ministry. This has led to a partnership in ministry between them.

Dave for sometime now has been utilizing the recovery tools developed by Sattleback Church in Washington State. The program is called Celebrate Recovery. Its approach articulates Christ as our higher power and blends the 12 step program (developed through AA) with 8 principles drawn from the Beatitudes (find more info here: http://www.celebraterecovery.com/8principles.shtml ).

This past year Dave did a short seminar with our pastors on recovery ministry. This short time together generated much interest among the national pastors. Dave and I met on Wednesday to discuss the likelihood of a more intentional, intense training on recovery ministry this summer. I expressed to Dave that the need for such training was great. Many of the children in our feeding centers (which are located in the actual church buildings) are there in part because their parent(s) are afflicted with addiction. Drug use aside, Dominicans consume about 90% of the rum produced on the island. Alcoholism is rampant, especially in the most impoverished areas like the Hole and La Mosca. There are many communities that could benefit from such a ministry; we need only help equip the pastors and their leadership to respond to these needs.

Dave Calhoun will be with us on the field July 31st through August 7th. We will likely have an intensive seminar for 3 or 4 days to help train the pastors in using the Celebrate Recovery tools. Each start up kit is about $100. Dave already has 10 in Spanish that he intends to use in the Dominican. If you would like to fund additional kits for this training please follow the “Contact” link to the right and call or email me. I’d be glad to help you set that up. Please be in prayer for Dave Calhoun, that he will be able to make this trip and continue to influence the world for Christ through his efforts locally and globally in recovery ministry.