Sunday- DR download day1

This morning we headed out to Santa Alicia for worship. Josh, pastor of Richmond Road, shared with the people and introduced the team. He told them how excited he was to be there and how his church had been praying for the people here, since I shared the vision with him years ago.
I preached a message on Bartimaeus and Julio translated. I always enjoy sharing with the people here. Many of these people have a deep love for Jesus. Their worship is real and authentic - something we could learn from them! During my message this morning I talked about the fact that we must see that Jesus' ultimate purpose is to restore our broken relationship with God, not just to meet our physical needs. We must cry out, "Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me"
After the service, the team from Richmond Road did a lesson on "The Fall". I Always enjoy watching teams bust out the trusty old flannel graph to share gospel stories. They also had a great craft. The kids made red fruits, with a stem, and a green leaf. It also had a black pipe cleaner with eyes coming out of the fruit, which symbolized the serpent. They shared the story of how sin entered into the stream of humanity-"the fall".
We checked on the chicken projects here in Santa Alicia and even took a pic of one of the chickens laying an egg. Yeah, that may not be exciting as you read it, but it is truly exciting when it happens here because it means we are steps closer to sustaining life in this community and creating somewhat of an economy, and helping the Haitians become self sustaining people.
We also walked out to a place where they are in the beginning stages of a community garden. This is another thing we have talked about and it is great to see that they have taken their own initiative to start the process. These people live out biblical community with one another-yet something else we can learn from them. Awesome.
We ate lunch and spent time just relaxing before heading out again. We then went to a new batey called Dela Jagua in hopes of finding possibilities of service there.(-see earlier blog, titled, Dela Jagua.) After our time in that batey, we returned to the mission house and the team headed for the beach to spend some time relaxing. When they returned, Mercy made rice and beans, and I grilled up some pork and sausage. As usual, we had a great time sharing tonight about they. We even had a guest participant in our meeting the evening. My wife and daughter joined the meeting via FaceTime. I love technology! Thank you Natalie, for allowing me to chase after all that HE has put in front of me.
Now it's time to get some rest, we head back out to Santa Alicia in the morning.

Dela Jagua

We went and visited a new batey this afternoon looking for ways we might be able to start ministry projects there. We spent some time walking through the batey with a guided tour by the pastor of the church there. Here are some pics of the batey. Will you pray with us about how and if chickenchurch.org may be able to help? Here are a few pics of the batey

Back to the Dominican Republic

This morning started early. Our flight left DFW at 6am, which meant I had to be at the airport and meet the rest of the team at 4am. The rest of the team members are from Texarkana so you can imagine how early their day started.

It is always good to come back to the DR and be able to check on our ministry projects firsthand. Of course, it's always great to be able to pick up right where we left in our ministry relationships with the people in Santa Alicia and El Cea.

We are so blessed at http://chickenchurch.org to have our ministry partners here in the Dominican which act as our hand and feet of the ministry. I'm also very excited to see the starting stages of our child sponsorship program in Santa Alicia- thanks to a phenomenal partnership that we have with http://25project.org

As I write this from the plane, I'm expecting a great week with the team from Richmond Road Baptist Church and am very blessed that they have decided to partner with us in ministry.

Stay tuned for updated information about our trip throughout the week

The Church

The church has the charge of the world entrusted to it. When Christ had finished his work on earth, and went to heaven to carry it on there, he spoke of two powers to whom the continuation of the work on earth was to be committed.
He spoke of the Holy Spirit, who, equally with God himself and the Father, should come in his name to convict the world of sin, and be a divine power in his disciples to reveal himself in them, and so make them witnesses for him to the ends of the earth.
He spoke of his disciples as those whom he sent into the world, even as the Father had sent him. Just as entirely as he had lived to do the Father’s will in saving men and women, was his Spirit to do that work too. And just as wholly as the Spirit was to be devoted to that work, was the body, the church, to be set apart for it too.
The whole body of believers, and every individual believer, was to be like Christ, the light of the world, placed in the world with the one definite, exclusive object of enlightening its darkness, and bringing men and women out of darkness into light.

(Excerpted from The Coming Revival, by Andrew Murray , pg. 11)

GCS Dominican Republic Trip

Highlights from GCS latest mission trip to the Dominican Republic in December of 2012

Blessed

There is not a day that goes by that I am not reminded just how blessed I am. I have all that I need. In reality, I have most of what I want. Honestly, I am very well off compared to the rest of the world. Don't hear me wrong. I still struggle from month to month to make ends meet, but I don't worry about where my next meal is coming from or where I am going to lay my head down at night to sleep. I truly am blessed. Do I complain from time to time about my situation? Yes. Do I consider that to be ridiculous behavior? Yes, I do. Even with all that I have, and the understanding of the blessing of having it,  I still feel like it is not enough and I should have or deserve more. I do not like having that sort of attitude. It frightens me that I think that I deserve better. You ever have these feelings?

Then I'm reminded of verses such as this found in Romans 2:4
^"Or do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God's kindness is meant to lead you to repentance?"

Truth is, in light of the gospel, I understand what I deserve. I understand what we all deserve. I understand that there is no one without excuse. I understand that I, in my humanity, I can not and will not ever be able to appease the judgement of a righteous and holy God. I am however, so thankful for a Father who loves me so much that He rescued me! I am thankful for the hope we have in the gospel. I am thankful that God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. 

I leave you with this:
Romans 3: 21-31
²¹ But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it— ²² the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: ²³ for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, ²⁴ and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, ²⁵ whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. ²⁶ It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.
²⁷ Then what becomes of our boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law? By a law of works? No, but by the law of faith. ²⁸ For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law. ²⁹ Or is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also, ³⁰ since God is one—who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith. ³¹ Do we then overthrow the law by this faith? By no means! On the contrary, we uphold the law.

Thankful

This morning, as I sit in my wonderful home, with all my wonderful things, I am reminded so much more just how blessed I am. This is always the overwhelming feeling you get when you come back from being with people who have nothing, and you have just lived life with for the past 10 days. I have been going to the Dominican Republic now for many years, and doing my best to live out the gospel mandate to serve the "least of these". I have a deep love for the people there and I already miss them. I am praying for my Julio and Mercy, Pastor Bona, Pastor Chile', Anna Maria, Juan, The people of El Cea, and the people of Santa Alicia. I'm thankful this morning for the work that the Lord is allowing us to do there through ChickenChurchOrg and a strategic partnership with 25Project

It is Christmas time, so being back drives this point of being thankful even further. In a few days, I will sit with my family and open gifts and eat plenty of food, while my Haitian friends who are in the batey in the Dominican Republic, will continue on in normal fashion. I will eat more food in just two days during our holiday festivities than my DR friends will eat in a month. The amount of money spent on one another for gifts, will alone exceed the amount it would take to feed a whole batey for 6 months.

These are the struggles that many of our team members will face this week. I only pray, that this same attitude will spur us on to do things throughout the year that can help change the lives of those people and push back the darkness of injustice all throughout the world.

I also pray that we all realize that there are people, just like our Haitian friends in the batey, that surround us everyday of our lives. My prayer is that we will not be blind to the injustice and poverty that surrounds us everyday. How is your neighbor doing?