It is time that I make a post centered on what we will be doing in the Dominican Republic. Much prayer, Bible study, conversing, and other reading have gone into this post. That is in part why it has taken so long for me to write this.
Even though it has taken much time to confirm what our direction will be in the DR, it was made known to us in the days following our "call" from God, almost 2 years ago. While on our second short term mission trip to the DR, God impressed His will upon my heart while listening to a devotion given by Pete Menendez. I have written of this in a previous post ("Our Testimony"). The neat thing about the timing was that God had sovereignly arranged us to be there 3 weeks this mission trip instead of the usual 1 week. This too can be read about in the same previous post. The advantage of being there 3 weeks, living immersed, was that we got to see the "big picture" and what we were getting ourselves into. It was these 3 weeks that have gotten us through many ups and downs in our journey to get back to the DR for good. The need we saw while there (of which God revealed to us), confirmed our calling like nothing else could.
We saw many needs while there that summer of '10. All sorts of physical needs abound. Anyone that goes there on a short trip can see that immediately. But what is harder to see, and lurking below the surface, is the great spiritual need. Many who have been there (or ones that have not, but can still simply imagine), would claim that it is easy to see the spiritual need as well. And they'd be right in one regard-it is a lost world. There is a profound lack of knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ everywhere you look around. But the spiritual need that might be missed, and what we would have not picked up on if we were not there for 3 weeks (and even then if God had not revealed it), is the spiritual need within. I'm talking of the spiritual need within the church.
You see, us short-term missionaries, are not the only ones that can fool. We are not the only ones who can muster up the fortitude to put our "happy" faces on for a week, or dare I say, our "holy" faces (I know not everyone does this). The local churches there do this as well. As soon as the Americans left on the bus that summer (the one I've been talking about of '10), the whole atmosphere changed. The extreme lack of direction and lack of joy, of which we later found out stemmed from a lack of knowledge of the Word of God, overwhelmed us like a strong, rushing wind. We learned of grievous sins, current on-going sins of which I will not mention in detail, which are going on in the church. We saw what we thought were dedicated workers in the church, lose their zeal. We saw believers' desire to be conformed to the world more than the desire to be conformed to Christ. In fact, the Lord Jesus did not appear to be a significant part of most of the church there.
I remember filling Pete (the leader of these trips) in with some of the details after we returned to the States, and he said he never knew-and he'd been there 7 years. This was what God revealed to us; this was our field, and God graciously allowed us to see it. I say that because it was grace. In spite of what we saw, our spirits were strong within us. We did not flounder. We grew solemn, yet we were filled by the Spirit with confidence that we were meant to see this for our benefit. We were meant to see it so we would know what we’re getting ourselves into, and so that though it grieved us, we would still be willing. This willingness can only be attributed to the Holy Spirit-this is why I say it was grace.
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