Stone of Ebenezer

Christmas Eve in the Dominican Republic

2012-01-06T14:18:00.000-08:00

One day twelve years ago while I was sitting in a McDonald’s restaurant in Venezuela waiting for my wife and daughter, I absentmindedly gazed out of the spacious window near my seat. Without warning, a car with a real Christmas tree strapped to the top drove across my view. I can remember a small moment of disorientation coming over me as if my brain’s logic center temporarily short-circuited. For an instant I could not put Christmas and the tropics together in the same thought. It was to be the first Christmas spent outside the Northwest United States.

The thought occurred to me that not having the opportunity to see Christmas in another culture could be the case for many people. So a description of what happened on one day of my life here in the Dominican Republic could be appreciated by some. This year was the first Christmas that my wife and I have spent without having some of our family around us, and it felt a bit hollow in some ways. We found ourselves thinking back to Christmases past. So maybe taking the time to write this will also encourage me.

My wife and I decided to consolidate our time and money to buy one gift for both of us this year instead of buying one for each other. However, as I looked under the tree Saturday morning I noticed a couple of small gifts from her, and so I wanted to find something special also. She had some music planning to do for the Christmas service the next morning and couldn’t come with me, so I was secretly glad that I could make this a surprise.

Giving a shallow excuse to leave, and making sure I had my sheathed knife tucked handily in my front pocket, I began my thirty-minute walk to the nearest mall. The sky was deep blue and dotted with cotton clouds. The temperature was a balmy 86 degrees. Even though I’ve spent four “winters” here I still had to reassure myself that it really was Christmas Eve.

Music and conversation drifted from the open louvered windows of many of the houses and apartments that I passed. This is a party culture and it seems to me that Christmas seems to be the height of the party season. Some have told me that I shouldn’t expect much to get done in the area of services during the month of December. Many empty beer and liquor bottles were stacked unceremoniously next to the blue plastic garbage barrels on the sidewalk in front of the houses ready for self-appointed recyclers to take somewhere to exchange for a few pesos. The garbage seemed stacked a little higher which indicated that the garbage trucks haven’t been running much lately.

Parties here are usually loud and raucous. As I walked I could hear the booming beat of their beloved merengue music in the distance. It reminded me of my neighbors which have been playing their TV and music so loud for the last couple of weeks that we can’t stay on that side of the apartment if we want to have a conversation. So we close the spare bedroom doors and huddle in our own bedroom for the evening.

It also reminded me that at 5:30 on this very morning we were awakened by another unexpected event. We are a half block from a well used and noisy street called La Argentina. Looking from our bedroom window in our bed clothes through sleepy eyes we watched for ten minutes as a convoy of cars, trucks, motorcycles, and four-wheelers paraded slowly by. On the back of the flatbed trucks were speakers the size of horses! We could feel the music in our chests. As they moved along the wave of sound set off car alarms for a block on either side of the street. Lights were flashing, horns were honking, motorcycle engines were being revved, people were hanging out of car windows and sitting on hoods and packed in the back of pickups with every car playing different music, and drunken voices were yelling, “Feliz Navidad!!!” One could barely imagine a louder, more unorganized, reckless social gathering. All I could think of was a scene from an old Star Trek episode which depicted a society ran by a computer which allowed sinful debauchery on scheduled holidays called “The Red Hour”.

This “Red Hour” parade in the DR, I found out later, is a custom called the “mananita”. During Christmas, people begin their parties at 10 or 11 at night. When they finally finish in the wee hours of the morning they would sometimes sing for the neighbors. We recognize this most likely as similar to our custom of caroling. Well, today this custom has “de-volved” into a drunken early morning parade of loud music and cars designed to wake up as many people as possible. But living here, a person has to accept that this is a loud culture … especially at Christmas.

As I continued to walk, my thoughts were interrupted by the sight of an unkempt, gaunt, white-haired man staggering up the sidewalk toward me. I instinctively crossed to the other side of the street and placed my hand in my knife pocket. The man obliviously shuffled by clutching a green quart- sized beer bottle in his left hand as he sang some undecipherable song loudly off key.

Nearing the mall I passed the Tesoro Supermercado, a relatively new and nice smaller grocery store. On the top of the flat roof was a twelve-foot-tall inflatable Santa Claus which had obviously developed a slow leak over night. Poor Santa was face down with his hat and both arms hanging over the side of the two-story building. I couldn’t help but glance at his left hand to see if he had a green bottle in it. He didn’t.

Nativity scenes abound everywhere … on people’s roofs, on their balconies, in front yards, in the foyer of our apartment building when you walk in. When I finally reached the Plaza Internacional Mall my heart was warmed again as I admired the gigantic nativity “village” that was set up at the top of the escalators. It has the Bethlehem stable as the dominant feature, of course, but in the surrounding country side were sheep, streams, meadows, village people, moving windmills …. I fully expected to see a model train come chugging around from behind the mountains in the back. I appreciate this religious emphasis on the holiday.

Within a half hour I found an adequate gift and sat down in the food court to have a Whopper from Burger King before I headed home. The mall was crowded with well-dressed shoppers only a little more noisy and busy as normal, and I realized after a few moments that I was lonely. I missed my family and I missed my wife. So I gulped down the last few bites and retraced my route to return home.

In this country as you walk you see many people standing or sitting looking like they are doing nothing. To the average American pedestrian it appears to be vagrancy. But in this country, because of the weather or perhaps other reasons I don’t understand, people spend much of the time outside. I saw domino tables on the sidewalk or in the driveway with shouting men slapping dominoes on the table.

I’ve seen men squatting on curbs, sitting on waist-high walls, leaning back in plastic chairs on the sidewalk … people everywhere not in motion.

And they have no foibles about staring at a Gringo out of curiosity as he passes. I must admit, it still makes me uncomfortable to have a group of men who are loudly conversing as they sit in chairs on the sidewalk suddenly clam up as they see you approaching, look at you as you pass, and then resume talking when you’ve gone by.

Consequently I took three Chick tracts with me and asked the Lord to help me know where to place them. Since some people sit around, they might as well have something to read, right? I placed one on a half-broken plastic chair where taxi drivers sit and wait for their next fare. Another I put on a bench where people wait for the next gua-gua or concho car to come by with the right route number on it. The last one I placed on a wall near where I knew some “watchies” (private security guards) would be sitting.

We have three favorite tracts we use. One is about a baseball player … baseball is huge here since this city has a professional team called Aguilas Cibaenas (Cibao’s Eagles) … a winter baseball team that also gives several professional American players a place to keep in shape during the off season.

The other tract is about a girl who gets caught up in the party scene … and, as I have mentioned, partying is huge here. Our third popular tract shares the gospel with no words. We run into a number of people who cannot read well if at all. In fact, this is the burden for some missions here. Public schools require a certificate of birth and a uniform to attend. Because of rampant immorality and illegitimacy and poverty, many children, especially in the barrios (the poor parts of the city), are unable to go to school. So Carol and I are trying to get in the habit of leaving a tract or two somewhere when we go for a walk.

When I arrived home I placed my small gift under the artificial five-foot tree which stands on a couple of packing boxes covered with a sheet in front of our living room window. As you can imagine, on this small island that is only about ¼ the land area of the state of Idaho, a person doesn’t have the option of going into the woods to find his own Christmas tree, and the imported “real” trees are rare and cost-prohibitive. The tree decoration appears to be much more ornate here than what I am used to … lots of wide ribbons and bows and large bulb ornaments the size of soft balls rather than individual ornaments … the tree seems to be more for show than for sentiment.

It is also an interesting difference to note that virtually every store offers free gift wrapping. The need to buy your own wrapping paper and wrap your own gift is basically nonexistent.

Our loud TV-watching neighbors fortunately were gone for the evening so my wife and I took a picture of ourselves in front of our small tree to commemorate our “lonely Christmas”, then we popped “Holiday Inn” into the DVD player and pretended to be in snowy Idaho on a Christmas past.

While I was gone to the mall, my wife talked a good while with my daughter in Peru and we also Skyped with my son’s family in Japan who had already celebrated Christmas. We are very thankful that even though we are not with them physically we have a chance to have them in our home virtually for a few minutes. We are a generation most blessed in that regard, I suppose.

In our city of Santiago there is a monument dedicated to war heroes. In shape it is a DR version of the Washington monument … tall, on a hill, and centrally located. At the foot of that monument the city traditionally puts on a thirty-minute nonstop fireworks display at midnight on New Year’s Eve that is indeed a credit to this country’s reputation for celebration. In anticipation of this many people buy fireworks ahead of time. Just think of it as what happens in the US around the Fourth of July. Consequently, for the month of December, and especially on Christmas Eve, one can expect to see and hear random fireworks going off from many places in the city.

From our flat roof on top of our two-story apartment building we have a 270 degree unobstructed view of the sky from which we could have seen some fireworks. So what did we do instead? We turned on the ceiling fan in our bedroom and went to bed at 10:30. Were we trying to be fresh for the Sunday church service the next morning, or were we pouting because we missed a traditional Christmas with our family? Hmmmm, maybe a little of both, but that’s how we ended our Christmas Eve in the DR.

For this purpose the son of God was manifested,
that he might destroy the works of the devil.
I John 3:8 KJV

A Thanksgiving and a Huelga

2011-12-14T14:31:00.000-08:00

Unless a person is somehow connected with Americans, he doesn’t hear about Thanksgiving in another country. I don’t suppose I thought about it much until I moved to the Dominican Republic. Different countries have different holidays and Thanksgiving is a uniquely North American holiday! Some of us catch on a little slower than others. But, fortunately, I am in touch with Americans here. The school where I teach prepares students for an American education so Thanksgiving is recognized and celebrated.

My wife and I also attend an English speaking church that has a tradition of celebrating Thanksgiving. So on the Sunday before the official holiday, we gathered together after church to have a potluck. The church brought the turkey and each family brought a favorite traditional dish. Each person was asked to contribute a few pesos to cover the cost of the turkey.

Attending our service that Sunday was a man from Haiti whom we knew couldn’t afford the contribution. When the announcement was made about the money, I saw one of the men lean forward and heard him whisper to our Haitian brother, “Don’t worry, I have you covered.” He thanked him and we moved toward the cafeteria where the food was set up.

As the prayers were said and people began moving through the line, I noticed that this man was standing on the outside of the group rather than getting in line. So I asked him if he was going to eat. He looked down and with a heavy accent mumbled, “I heard there was money expected.” It was then that I realized he had not a clue what “Got you covered” meant. So I explained it to him and he gratefully enjoyed a bountiful dinner with the rest of us. We Americans need to get a handle on our idioms, if you catch my drift.

This Thanksgiving was impacted by something unpredictable. The local residents that live along the road that runs in front of our school organized a “huelga”. I mentioned this term in my last blog a couple of weeks ago. The closest translation that I can come up with for this word is “strike” or “demonstration”. Two weeks ago the huelga was a national effort. This time it was a local activity designed to draw the attention of the government to the poor plight of the county road that connects the main highway to a smaller town outside Santiago. This is the road that runs past our school.

Since many of the parents of the children we teach have influential friends in high places it has been conjectured that the strike organizers felt they could get some quick action. The name of the group is FALPO (Frente Amplio de Luchas Populares). A Google search did not give me very much information. All I really know is what I’ve heard tossed back and forth in informal conversations on campus. FALPO is loosely organized, heavily armed, and quite militant.

One of our administrative leaders who has been here only a couple of years felt that we should simply fix the portion of the road that stretches from out school to the highway since much of the traffic is related to our school. We have money in the budget for community improvement. But the advice of the Dominican leaders remained firm … do not get involved with this group. So the school remained neutral and waited.

During the week of Thanksgiving, two and a half school days were normally scheduled before we leave at noon on Wednesday for the rest of the week. The huelga was announced on Monday night. FALPO dug a trench across the road, scattered large rocks and debris, and set tires on fire. School was consequently cancelled for a day and teachers were told to stay home and “hunker down” again.

When no one responded to their noise and demands, they continued an intensified effort on Wednesday keeping everyone home again. By this time the normal holiday plans for the teachers and school-related families kicked in and the campus was empty for the rest of the week. However, we stayed in touch by frequent updates via email and the school web page. The huelga, which was thought to last no longer than a day, turned out to be a weeklong marathon. It was only on Sunday that the “all clear” email came out and we were told it was safe to return to work the following day.

In the case of a huelga only three outcomes can be normally expected:
1. Demands are ignored and the organizers give up and go home after a while.
2. The group who organized the strike is either paid off, or the demands are
met by some kind of negotiations.
3. The military is authorized to take them out physically.

In this case, it was evidently handled by option number 2. We were told that some big equipment moved in and some road construction is underway. It’s odd though, because on the half mile stretch of road on our end, it is even worse now than it was before the huelga. There must be something (a lot) I don’t understand about how things work in this country.

During the same week that this huelga and Thanksgiving were happening, I was reading through I Peter. God has used this precious book in my life many times over the years. This year chapter 4 highlighted the drama I saw enacted throughout the week.

Forasmuch then as Christ hath suffered for us in the flesh,
arm yourselves likewise with the same mind: for he that hath
suffered in the flesh hath ceased from sin; that he no longer
should live the rest of his time in the flesh to the lusts of
men, but to the will of God. I Peter 4:1, 2

Two groups of people spent the week in very different ways. One group spent their time in the flesh to the lust of men. This passage goes on to explain that this is the will of the Gentiles which results in an excess of riot … very descriptive! The other group spent their time in the flesh living to the will of God by showing love for each other and giving thanks to God. It goes on to say that we all will be judged by how we spent our days living in the flesh.

That week was a good time for me to ask myself, “How do I want to spend the rest of my days in the flesh?” Do I want to be a “huelga man”, or a “Thanksgiving man”?

But the end of all things is at hand:
be ye therefore sober, and watch unto prayer.
I Peter 4:7

Fingers of Fog

2011-11-14T12:03:00.000-08:00

Fingers of fog massaged the cool, damp earth as the sun prepared to wake up the Constanza Valley that stretched out below me. The uncomfortable bed I had endured most of the night forced me out of bed unusually early on this first morning of our school sponsored teachers’ retreat. I stealthily found my way through the dark house to the porch swing where I sat and read my Bible. A passage from Psalms caught my eye.

“He causeth the vapors to ascend from the ends of the earth.”
Psa 135:7

As the morning crept in I watched the changing panorama before me. The blanket of clouds moved into every draw and crevice of this high mountain farming valley. It gave me the feeling that I was in an airplane looking down on the clouds. Occasionally, the tip of a Dominican pine tree appeared eerily as if it were floating on a cloudy sea. It seemed that every few minutes another facet of beauty was revealed.

During the last part of my Spanish class a couple of weeks ago two colorful song birds perched on the window bars of the computer room that we meet in, and gave us a song that rivaled a scene from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Each day a bird balances himself somewhere outside my room at school and treats me and my students to the most beautiful song I think I’ve ever heard in nature. The students don’t seem to notice. It is simply part of the many extraneous random sounds of a tropical climate to them, but for some reason I’ve been noticing it lately and have felt grateful to have such beauty around me.

Unless I get carried away with too much romanticism I need to remind myself that I have this opportunity to write during a school day because the teachers were asked to stay home because of the “Huelga.” Because of the corruption and lack of accountability in government services the people of this country have developed the somewhat pragmatic method of correcting problems by organizing national strikes. They burn tires on public roads and throw rocks at cars. It is a planned day of demonstrations across this small island that can become quite dangerous. Of course, politicians don’t want this kind of unrest during their term (especially during this election year) so the hope is that they will either pay off the organizers of the Huelga or give them what they want.

Because we don’t know the language, and communication and organization isn’t exactly this country’s strong suit anyway, we are not sure what is going on. We think it has something to do with poor electrical service and the threat to raise fuel rates nearly 20%. But whatever happened in the last couple of the days the Huelga was held today and we teachers were told to “stay home and hunker down.”

This is simply the ongoing contrast that any person can find regardless where he chooses to live. It is a fact of life in a broken world. It’s just that, more recently, I’ve been seeing more of a balance in this part of the world where I’ve temporarily chosen to live.

So now when I put my sheathed knife weapon in my pocket when I go for a walk for fear of the very real possibility of being robbed, I remember the thunderstorm that made me tremble because of its intensity and power and the double rainbow afterwards over my campus later that took my breath away.

When I want to complain that it took two months to get our living room wicker furniture refurbished because of miscommunication and mistakes and lack of transportation, I want to recall the large and plentiful bunches of brilliantly colored bouquets of fresh cut flowers that can be purchased on the street any time of the year for just a few dollars.

And the next time a student asks a question about how to change degrees into radians only 10 seconds after I’ve spent 15 minutes giving examples on the board, and want answers without understanding the concept or learning how to think, and I begin questioning what in the world I am doing trying to teach in another country when I am Medicare age ......,
I need to remember … the fingers of fog.

Happy is he that hath the God of Jacob for his help,
whose hope is in the LORD his God:
Which made heaven, and earth, the sea, and all that therein is:
which keepeth truth for ever:
Psa 146: 5, 6

Loaded with Benefits

2011-10-17T15:00:00.000-07:00

On the very day that my oldest son turned 35, I started my 42nd year of teaching. The students moved into my room like an afternoon thunderstorm period after period typical to the Dominican culture. I talked with one of the new teachers who has come here after teaching in Honduras for eight years. I asked him how he would compare that culture to this culture. After a brief moment of reflection he replied, “The people in Honduras have a talking culture. I would have to say that this is a shouting culture.” Boy, did he hit that nail on the head! It has been about two months since school has started and they are just now learning to be quiet when the bell rings, listen when I talk, and clean up before they leave. Actually, it seems easier each year I am here. My reputation must go before me … for which I am thankful.

If I were asked to rank school year beginnings, I would have to rank the start of this year as the worst in my career. Due to some administrative oversight about 30 freshmen were allowed to enroll above what our school is set up to handle. This was not discovered until the first day when the schedules were handed out. It’s hard to describe the chaos that ensued for that first week while teachers and administration tried to figure out what was happening.

I had to move to a different room this year since I am not teaching biology anymore. My new room was in disarray until the last moment. When school started I found out quickly that most class lists were inaccurate and I had many more students than what my class lists said. My math colleague next door was in a similar situation and we traded 8 to 10 chairs back and forth during certain periods to temporarily handle the overload. The class lists changed daily as students with temporary schedules were shifted around, so I kept all records on loose-leaf sheets written in pencil.

The math department was not the only classes affected, obviously. The science teacher who has been here for 20 years was sitting on the early bus home at 4:00. Since this was unusual for him I asked him how it was going. This experienced teacher who normally seems in control of every situation replied with visible stress on his face, “I have to leave early … I just have to.” With a tacit nod I understood exactly what he meant.

On the weekend before our second week of school Hurricane Irene traced a large slow path that brought it directly over our little island of Hispaniola. It had been classified as an official hurricane by the time it hit us so the country was unsure about what its effect would be. We were instructed to stay home as the brooding monster hovered over the island deciding what to do. I’m not sure of the theological implications of being thankful for a hurricane, but this gift of two days of time gave our school a tremendous benefit. The worst weather we saw, thankfully, was some gusts of wind and some rain, but the new secondary vice-principal used the four-day weekend to get advice from teachers and to create a new schedule which would largely alleviate the overload emergency. It required a new class schedule to be printed for every high school student and the hiring of several new part time teachers, but after eight weeks on the new schedule it appears that the year will be a good one and it has settled into a somewhat normal routine.

Outside of school we experienced a rough start of another kind. On the day that school ended last June we moved into another apartment. So when we came back after our summer “vacation” to Idaho we were faced with the daunting task of settling in. Our daughter-in-law gave some order to the chaos in the few days we had before we left but we were now faced with finishing the move including putting up curtains and shelves and the unending list of projects that accumulate with any move.

The temperature and humidity have been in the 90’s for the three months, and our new apartment, unknown to us at the time we moved, is located in such a position that it does not cool off at night. We have three ceiling fans (with two more ordered) along with several floor fans. We have contemplated getting an air conditioner but since it is a major purchase and it costs a lot for electricity here we have decided to wait for a year to see: 1) are we staying, and 2) are we overreacting. In the meantime, it is quite difficult to concentrate on any kind of disciplined life style like exercising or cooking or studying. When I get home we usually go for a walk where we end up at a local Wal-Mart-style store that has air-conditioning and a place to sit down and talk. The temperature usually becomes almost perfect in another few weeks, so we are living in hope.

This is the first year that my wife and I have decided to stay here in the Dominican Republic because of the ministry itself. For the first three years we had family reasons to be here. So this will be a trial year to see if we feel that this will be the best place to serve the Lord in the last years of our lives. We have never felt like "real" missionaries, but it is the best opportunity we presently have to use our combined skills to share the gospel.

On a professional level I have a heart to help the math department iron out some of the problems which have caused many students to score low. I know that these are English-Language-Learner (ELL) students but I believe they can do much better.

On a spiritual level I want them to see the gospel lived out and discussed on a daily and practical level. We pray about a verse of Scripture every day in each period; we integrate what the Bible teaches with what lesson we learn; I have them memorize six verses during the year on the plan of salvation and have them take a test which explains how a person can become a Christian from what the Bible says. Most of my students come from wealthy, Catholic homes and have been in this Christian school most of their lives. So this is a tough crowd, so to speak. But God calls us to preach, not to convert.

On a family level we are praying about how to keep our family together even though they are scattered half way around the world and it doesn’t look like it will change in our life time. So it behooves us to consider what role we are going to have in our grandchildren’s lives and how we can accomplish that. This school gives a small salary which we have found adequate to live on while we are here if we are careful. So we are considering that this could be a way to save enough money to visit one of our children each year. If they can’t come to us we will go to them! Right?

So we are praying about whether or not to stay beyond this year. I have to let the school know of my intentions by this Christmas so they can begin the recruitment process.

In the meantime the Lord is blessing our family. After many years of ignoring God’s conviction in his life, our oldest son recently gave his life to the Lord. He finally came to the place of surrender to the Lord and told Him that he wanted God’s will for his life. Shortly after that, he was introduced to a girl who had a similar testimony. Within a short time they were engaged and we are planning to attend their wedding in Texas in January.

My second son, the one in Japan, is the proud father of a new little girl. She was born on my wife’s mother’s birthday so her middle name is now the same as her great grandmother which brought tears to my wife's eyes.

And it wasn’t a week later that our youngest, our daughter who lives in Peru, informed us that she was with child again only seven months after her first one was born.

And life will go on. There will probably be more births and more hot weather and uncomfortable apartments and poor starts to school years. But one thing that I know for sure … behind everything is a God who daily loadeth us with benefits.

Blessed be the Lord, who daily loadeth us with benefits,
Even the God of our salvation. Selah. Psalm 68:19

An Era Ended ... An Era Begun

2011-09-24T10:12:00.000-07:00

An era ended … an era begun. The Roy Rogers Museum closed in Branson, Missouri. Roy’s will specified that it be closed when it wasn’t able to pay for itself. That day came in June this year, and his son closed the museum. Most people today would have to Google his name to know who Roy Rogers was. An era ended! A letter came to me just before my birthday in June informing me I was officially on Medicare. This can’t be true! I am now in the Medicare generation. An era begun!

My birthday launched another landmark occasion. On that same day my wife and I boarded a plane here in Santiago, Dominican Republic to travel to Idaho for the summer. With us were my daughter-in-law and her two young daughters who had stayed with us for this past year. We flew to Moscow, Idaho to meet the rest of my family for the first-ever Dale family reunion. It was the first time our three children had actually been together for eight years.

Several months ago when we began to plan how to get our daughter-in-law and brood back to Japan, the idea of a family reunion was a small seed planted in our thinking. As we prayed and planned we watched the Lord open a few doors to allow this seed to grow to bear fruit, so to speak. Consequently all three of my children and their families were able to come. My daughter and her husband and new baby girl flew in from Peru. My son flew from Japan to meet his wife and two girls. My oldest son was already in Moscow and helped our property manager get our house ready to handle the crowd. Grandparents can ask no greater joy than to experience this kind of chaos (as long as they got along as well as they did.)

When my mother heard that my family was all getting together and that we would be visiting her in southern Idaho, she decided to get all of us brothers and their families together also. To her amazement, everyone showed up on a Saturday afternoon to eat and talk. I think it was a vivid realization to each of us to see how big our Dale family has grown. It started from the three sons of Everett and Della Dale. Each boy now has three children and some of those children are now married with kids. A head count showed 50 people which we miraculously managed to capture in one picture.

In my enthusiasm I blurted out, “Wow, this is great! I hope we can do this again next year!” The table went unexpectedly quiet and heads turned toward me. Finally my brother’s wife enunciated slowly, “You may want to speak for yourself, this was a lot of work!” So we may want to wait a few years to attempt another one.

Mama Dale is a smart great-grandma. She knew that half of the population of a family reunion (by definition) is children. And she also knew that the big people couldn’t visit very well with that many little people afoot, so she rented one of those bouncy houses that you see at carnivals.

So after the meal and family introductions at the church fellowship hall at Mom’s church, many of the families migrated to Mom’s house where this device had been assembled in the back yard. I’m not exaggerating when I say that roughly 15 children were screaming and bouncing outside in kid heaven until dark while the parents enjoyed a relatively quiet catching-up time inside . The occasional exception was when a teary little one would burst into the house sporting a knot on the head from a bouncy house collision. After a good cry and more than a few hugs from doting relatives, he/she would race out to have more fun. The house was finally empty around 11:00 p.m..

While all of my children were in Moscow for a few days by ourselves we decided to have a set of family pictures taken. A friend of ours, who loves photography, volunteered to take our pictures in the college arboretum. This was the only planned event.

Each person seemed to have his own agenda … a mental check-off list of things to do before the short time expired. One wanted to hike around on Kamiak Butte to revisit some special memories. Another wanted to build a fire at a camp ground and shoot the rifle again.

And each one went through his boxes of possessions that have been stored in the garage for years. Sometimes they did these things together … sometimes with only the wife or husband. Occasionally Mom and Dad were allowed to tag along. It was a little bit like herding cats … but when the dust was settled and each child in turn left us taking our grandchildren back to their homes scattered around the world, I noticed there were literally tears in my eyes and a prayer on my lips that God would continue to draw our little family toward a more important reunion in eternity.

I doubt if we have the ability or opportunity to do this again for a long time, if ever. So we praise God for this experience. They are gone … an era ended. But now we have a new challenge of finding how we can keep our little, but growing, scattered family together … an era begun.

Scotch Tape and Stickers

2011-05-14T06:11:00.000-07:00

Recently after a long day I plopped heavily on the edge of the bed – the first of my “retire-for-the-night” ritual. Slipping off my Wal-Mart house-slippers I absentmindedly glanced down. To my amazement I found an assortment of dirty pieces of scotch tape and some “You Are Awesome” and “Nice Job” stickers stuck unceremoniously to the bottom of my slippers.

This unexpected reminder that we have had two small children “underfoot” for this past year gave me a moment of reflection. In a short while they will be heading back to Japan to resume their lives, and we will become empty-nesters once again. Has this year been worth the investment of time, energy, and money it has taken? Have we accomplished the lofty goals that fueled this original decision? Will they remember this time with fondness? Has it changed their lives for the better? Questions like these flooded our conversation as my wife and I discussed it before falling asleep that night.

It was a year ago that we hatched this wild idea that my son’s wife and two small girls come to the Dominican Republic to live with us for a year. The girls could speak very little English and we could speak no Japanese. This prognosis of a lifetime without the ability to communicate with our grandchildren was frightening to both our son and to us, so we were open to his suggestion to have them live with us.

As we prayed about the various obstacles in the weeks that followed it became evident that the Lord was giving us an open door. So our first goal and mutual concern was to have the two girls learn to speak fluently in English.

The second goal was something that my wife and I have been praying for since they were born.

Now unto him that is able to keep you from falling, and to present
you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy.
Jude 24 KJV

Our prayer has been that each of my three children and their children will enter the Kingdom of God and be presented faultless before the presence of His glory. Apart from a few Christmas story books we sent as gifts we have had little opportunity to share the gospel with these precious girls. So this decision for them to live with us had a second goal. We wanted the girls and their Mom to understand the good news of the Gospel as they saw it lived out in the context of our family and the school they attended and worked for. So as we near the end of the year, this reminder of scotch tape and stickers made me evaluate our two-fold goal.

A few days ago while I was finishing a writing project in the living room, the girls were within earshot as they played a card game together on the kitchen table. The conversation went something like this:

L – “Do you have a seven?”
A – “No, go fishing, please.”
L – “Oh, yes, you have a seven. I know you do.”
A – “Oh, no, I don’t have one.”
L – “You know, when you lie I still love you, but I don’t feel good inside.
I’m unhappy but I still love you so much because I love Jesus.”
A – “Only Jesus lie?”
L – “Oh, no, Jesus died on the cross but he came alive.”
A – “OK … uh, do you have a six?”
L – “Go fishing.”

To the right of our living room is a small alcove in a sunny room surrounded on two sides by windows. Before we found curtains to fit we used to call it our "fish bowl" because anyone outside could see what we were doing inside. By the time the girls came we had found some curtains, so we converted it to their toy/play room. Occasionally a cake crumb finds its way into the play room and overnight the ever-present ants blaze a trail for a congregational meal.

One Saturday when the girls went in to play they found some ants. With shrieks of delight mixed with disgust they got on the floor to watch them. Soon they were talking to the ants, scolding them for entering their world. The seven-year-old said something and the four-year-old copy cat sister echoed. This crescendoed until they were yelling trying to out-do the other.

L – “You are bad ants and shouldn’t be here.”
A – “You are bad ants.”
L – You will die and go to hell.”
A – “You will die to hell.”
L – “But Jesus died on the cross but come again in fire.”
A – “But Jesus on cross and fire.”

On this same day their mother was shopping with a friend in an attempt to be ready for her upcoming departure to Japan. My wife and I were occupied with our own projects and the girls were expected to entertain themselves for some of the time. In their Japanese home they could have gone outside to roller skate or jump rope or ride bikes. Even in our home town in Idaho they could have played in the back yard. But for security reasons it is rare to have them play outside without direct adult supervision. It is a sad consequence of living in this country. However, they have learned to adapt.

Turning down a suggestion to play the Wii they decided instead to create a game using plastic bottle caps. Dividing the pile equally between themselves they sprawled on the tile floor while they invented various activities … stacking them like blocks, spinning them like tops, creating designs of flowers, pushing a hand on one and having it defy gravity as they lifted their hands up, setting it on its edge and pushing it forward with a finger so that it would shoot away but return like a boomerang. With each new discovery I could hear an exclamation of “Amazing!” and then a patter of bare feet with a squeal of excitement as they rounded to corner to show Grandpa the newest glimpse into their world.

At one point a minor squabble was brought to my attention. One had a blue bottle cap that was different that the blue cap that the other had. A visible cloud of unhappiness began to form on their normally sunny dispositions. My wife suggested trading for five minutes. After she explained what “trade” meant she set the timer. The cloud dissipated, laughter echoed in the hall way again. When the timer went off, the youngest said, “I gave to my sister so I shared.”

Right after this they found the “Wee Sing Bible Songs” book that has been lying around the apartment all year. They spent the next hour singing some songs together that they knew, occasionally asking me to help them. For the rest of the day at odd moments of transitions such as washing hands, or waiting at the table to eat, or drying off after a shower, I could hear the baby voice of the four-year-old singing on-key:

This is the day, This is the day that the Lord has made,
that the Lord has made;
We will rejoice, we will rejoice and be glam’ in it,
and be glam’ in it.

From the bedroom that evening after I said goodnight I heard both sisters singing together,

Alive! Alive! Alive for evermore, my Jesus is alive, alive for evermore,
Alive! Alive! Alive for evermore, my Jesus is alive;
Sing alleluia! Sing alleluia! My Jesus is alive for evermore;
Sing alleluia! Sing alleluia! My Jesus is alive.

Earlier that day we found them both on the couch. Big sister was reading some verses out of her personal Bible to her little sister. They were playing “Chapel”. Later I found scraps of paper with words scrawled on them in the hand of a first grader saying things like, “I will remember God”, “I give thanks to God”, “I will love your sister”,"I need to love everyone and God”, and “I will go to heaven if I believe in Jesus.” Under each one of these verses was written a Bible reference like Jon 60:1 or Jon 60:2. They had made up and were memorizing their own Scripture verses. I guess I’ll have to let them know that we aren’t supposed to write our own Scripture… one of those details they haven’t picked up on yet.

Hopefully this shallow description will help you see, as we did, that the two goals have been delightfully accomplished. They speak with each other and with us in English. In fact, it seems amazing to us that they have learned a foreign language so quickly. And they also seem to have a fundamental grasp on the gospel. On the bus on the way to school I’ve overheard conversations over the year of the oldest girl with one of the teachers with whom she sits. When my granddaughter would ask a question relating to salvation (and she loves to ask questions), the lady teacher asked in return, “Well, let’s review. What do you think a Christian is?” or “How do you think a person gets to heaven?” Our granddaughter's responses throughout the year have usually started with answers like, “People who are not bad.” Recently, however, she has been answering, “Jesus died on the cross for things I did bad and I have to believe in him to get to heaven.”

During our normal Bible book time one evening a few nights ago the oldest granddaughter asked if I would pray for her and her sister. Normally each girl says a prayer to end the devotions according to whose turn it is. So this was an unusual request. When I asked why, she replied, “Because I want to be Christian.” When I asked her to explain what she meant, she rehearsed a very genuine understanding of the gospel and her desire to receive Christ. The little one, of course, wanted to join in on the experience. So I prayed for both of them.

From that time on she has been telling everyone that she runs into that she has become a Christian. She is reading a verse in the Bible each day and wants to talk about it all the time. I know that the gospel is so simple that a child can be saved. In fact, Christ holds up the faith of a child as the example of saving faith. How real this is, time will tell, but it is another indication that God is answering our prayers.

Both girls have been sweet and trainable all year long. They have learned more than we expected, and we praise God for that. What they remember of this year and how it impacts their lives is yet to be seen and something we will bring regularly before God in prayer. I honestly believe that next year when I look at my slippers each night I will sincerely miss seeing the assortment of scotch tape and stickers.

The living, the living, he shall praise thee, as I do this day:
“The grandparents to their granddaughters” shall make known thy truth.
Isa 38:19 (with some applicable alterations)

Papa No-No

2011-04-22T09:50:00.000-07:00

In the Dominican Republic the entire country celebrates a week long holiday just before Easter called Semana Santa (Holy Week). For that reason our school gives that week off each year and it becomes our spring break. Experience has taught me that once a teacher hits spring break in the school calendar, any serious attempt at education in the weeks that follow is only an illusionary dream. I’m exaggerating, of course, but it does feel that way. It’s only a glance and a sigh until the end of the year. So I knew that this would be our last chance to get out of Dodge for a few days to relax before hunkering down for the end-of-the-year-May-Madness that infects every institute of education.

My daughter-in-law from Japan and our two young granddaughters who have been living with us this year will be leaving soon. We wanted to give them one more taste of a Caribbean beach before they leave. We reserved a couple of rooms in a resort at a nearby beach town called Cabarete. It is famous for its beaches and a sport called kite surfing, but the main reason we selected it was because it was close and familiar. She is about five months along now in her pregnancy and we didn’t want to travel very far for our spring fling.

The word “vacation” conjures up different images for different people. For my wife it is defined as anywhere she doesn’t have to cook or do dishes. So this time we arranged for something called “the all-inclusive”. This is the first time we have tried this in the three years we’ve been here and it turned out to be a relaxing experience. It reminded me of what a cruise on a ship might be like.

A large board in the central lobby listed various activities scheduled for the day from which we could pick if we wanted. These ranged all the way from water aerobics to line dancing to kids’ club activities to learning how to dance the salsa. In the evening, entertainment events were available such as a Michael Jackson impersonator or a movie.

However, the activities that beckoned to us most were a bit less extravagant. Our granddaughters were up at 7:00 on that first morning. We heard a small rap on the adjoining door. When I staggered out of bed to answer, two girls wearing bathing suits and broad, anxious grins pleaded, “Pool, please.”

So we spent hours (joyfully and willingly) watching them play in the figure-eight-style pool or playing tag with the waves on the beach.

It has been said that eventually one gets to the age where slipping into something more comfortable means taking a bath in a tub of Ben Gay. After three days of trying to keep up with our girls I realize that I may have entered that age. We craved time to sit on the balcony just outside our room and bask in the tropical warmth and each other’s company.

Three meals were served buffet style each day with a snack bar open the rest of the time offering hamburgers, nachos, and Italian-style pizza cooked in a large, open stone oven. Drinks were available on demand. Our favorite turned out to be a tropical drink called Banana Mama. Waitresses in short skirts and smiling men in uniforms combed the eating areas filling water glasses and cleaning up empty plates. All of them could speak English “a little bit” (a-lee-tul beet) and were most likely hired because of their infectious smiles and charming personalities. One waiter named Rolando delighted in teasing our youngest granddaughter. Whenever he would find the sandal that she would invariably drop on the floor while she was eating, he would stick it in his pocket so she would see it and squeal in protest. He came to say goodbye just before he took one day off.

With this kind of abundance and availability I would guess that each of us easily put on an extra five pounds. It was truly a vacation in the sense of escaping our normal routine, but it is also something one would tire of after awhile.

It did not escape our notice that most of the patrons were European … German, Dutch, Spanish. I discovered a day later that the identity bands that each person wore were color coded based on what language we spoke …. very pragmatic. I also noticed that I could find very few hot pink bands (English speakers). All the English speakers I greeted were from Canada … not one from America.

The resort is located on one end of Cabarete beach which extends probably two miles along the arc of a natural shallow inlet. To walk off some of our caloric intake my wife and I took a long walk along this beach. As we moved from one end of the beach, where mostly Europeans were visiting, to the other end, where mostly Dominicans were visiting, we noticed a stark contrast. As we walked farther along we saw more trash strewn on the beach, more dogs running loose, more boom boxes belting out LOUD party music, more laughter and drinking. It was like walking from a library into a bar. With one exception we decided that we preferred the library end of the beach.

That one exception was an event which occurred one late afternoon on the first full day of our stay. My wife and I had spent a couple of hours watching our granddaughters on the beach and wanted to retreat from the sun and sand. We left them in the capable hands of their mother and went to get a drink and lie in a hammock in the shade. About an hour later our daughter-in-law hurriedly approached us with a worried look on her face.

A group of four women in blue uniform shirts had approached her while she was on the beach. They showed her an album of possible hair braiding styles and asked if she would like one for herself and the girls. Intrigued, she asked how much it would be. They didn’t tell her directly and with some more persuasion Akari agreed. Keep in mind these were Haitian women speaking broken English in a Spanish country to a Japanese woman. The confusion that must have existed at the Tower of Babel comes to mind as I describe this, but I think they used it to their advantage.

When they were almost finished with the last person they told her it would be 6000 pesos for each person. This translates to a total of around $500 American dollars and, of course, she didn’t have anywhere near that amount with her. My daughter-in-law is a compassionate person and felt trapped, especially when they told her that at least two of the ladies were pregnant and they needed the money for the coming babies.

Because I had been to the beach a few times before, I was aware of the beach hawkers’ tactics and I knew she had been taken advantage of. I also knew I had to step in to deal with this situation, and I dreaded it. Just before I went out onto the beach I checked with my wife to ask how much she would expect to pay if she had her hair styled in a local salon. We settled on a certain price. I pulled out three one thousand peso bills and headed into battle.

With the four women surrounding me I explained that they had taken unfair advantage of my daughter-in-law. Because of their dishonesty of not stating a price before hand, she was led to believe she had enough money to pay for it. She had to come to me and this made me upset, I said.

These women knew only rudimentary English and most likely didn’t understand all my words but they knew what I meant. When they realized that I wasn’t going to pay them what they wanted, the conversation became quite animated. The oldest of the four became quite aggressive and I matched her volume syllable for syllable. When she saw that the commotion was creating a scene she said, “Shhhh.” So I told her, “Oh, you don’t want me to make noise? I will make big noise! I will tell everyone what you tried to do if you don’t take what I offer you.” As I turned to go, the older woman grabbed my money and said, “It OK, we take it.”

The next day we walked past them as they hovered on the outskirts of the beach in the shade waiting for their next target. As I went by, she looked at me, and then turned to the women who were with her. With a wag of her finger she nodded toward me and said to them, “Papa, no-no!”

A similar situation happened on the day we left the beach. Arriving at the bus station we discovered that we would have to wait for two hours for the next departure. So we decided to grab a taxi to take us to the other bus station that had a bus leaving in a half hour. A man at the counter heard our conversation (he grew up in New York) and told us that he worked for a taxi company and he would send a taxi right over. We thanked him, moved our luggage outside, and waited. Soon a taxi screeched to a halt and an older man loaded our luggage into the trunk. When he asked for 300 pesos I winced and told him that I paid only 500 pesos for the entire six-mile trip from the resort … but I would consider 200 pesos even though it is nearly twice as much as an equivalent trip in Santiago. When He countered with 250 I told him to take the luggage out. He dropped his shoulders in resignation and said, “No, no, it’s OK.”

In some ways living in a third world country is like living in a battle field. I recently attended a one day self-defense seminar put on by a couple of ex-military Christian men. They have seen that the foreign missionary is a highly visible target for certain unsavory types and certain precautions should be taken when living in another country. This is a discussion for another day, but it made me realize that I am living in a battle field of possible danger and unfamiliar customs. Reading in Psalms recently I realized that God’s protection and help is a very real and practical thing.

Though an host should encamp against me, my heart shall not fear:
Though war should rise up against me, in this will I be confident.
One thing have I desired of the LORD, that will I seek after;
that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life,
to behold the beauty of the LORD, and to inquire in his temple.” Psalm 27:3,4

This kind of dickering and assertiveness is not natural to me, but I’m finding it to be an important survival skill in this country, and an area that God is using to help me grow in my faith. Maybe if I stay here long enough, my nickname will become, “Papa, no-no.”

The Horror Movie Chapel

2011-03-10T12:59:00.000-08:00

The members of our school board are men that love the Lord and have a sincere desire to see the gospel presented to the students. Part of their missionary concern is demonstrated by occasional appearances on campus for board meetings, or to speak at our weekly chapel, or to spontaneously observe school life in action.

On this particular Friday the president of the school board hovered around in the back of the outdoor gymnasium where about 150 high school students had gathered for the weekly chapel service. The senior class was in charge. Their short program was designed to convince the other students of the urgency of witnessing to their friends. After a short skit depicting a young man who died suddenly in a car accident, a couple of senior girls (all the speakers were girls) took turns presenting the message that our friends could spend an eternity in hell because we didn’t bother to tell them how they could be saved.

This was interesting to me, considering an estimated 80% of our students come from non-Christian homes. Be that as it may, a fascinating scenario emerged from this situation. Right after the last senior gave her pep talk on witnessing, the students watched a video clip from the Internet. It was a dramatization about a young man who had been killed in a car accident and was waiting to be taken to hell. He was writing to his friend Zach who had never witnessed to him.

This video was a very emotional production. At one point this young man was saying, “I hear some noise at the door! (gasp) The door is opening!! (Pant, Pant) The demons are coming to get me!!! They are coming to drag me into the lake of fire!!!! OH, GOD HELP ME!!!!!”

Just prior to this point the president of the school board ambled next to me and pointed out a young man who was reading a book. Leaning over he whispered, “Is that allowed in chapel?” I assured him that it was not allowed, and then moved over to take care of it.

Walking to the culprit’s location, I discovered that he was in a row where I couldn’t get his attention. So I decided to ask a girl to poke him for me. I didn’t stop to think that this girl might be totally engrossed in the video much like a teenager watching a horror movie. When I touched her shoulder, she screamed. I thought she was going to have a heart attack on the spot. This, of course, did catch the attention of the intended transgressor along with a couple dozen others.

Speaking of horror movies, it is scary to think how fast this year has gone. In just a few weeks we will have spring break. And, as any experienced teacher knows, it is only a breath and a nod from then until the end of school in June. What I thought was going to be an unbearably busy year is now all but gone. In its wake are left the memories … precious memories of living a year with our granddaughters. This is the way of God’s grace through hard times.

The accreditation committee of which I was chairman submitted its final report which has given me the feeling that I have a new lease on life. My daughter gave us a new granddaughter in February while my wife was there in Peru to help her for a couple of weeks.

Our New Granddaughter Cesia

Our daughter-in-law is now pregnant … a natural but unexpected consequence of seeing her husband for the first time in four months when he visited us over the Christmas break.

As a vapor on a frosty February morning (in Idaho, that is) another year is gone and life marches on. We will continue to take one year at a time … by God’s grace … relying on His faithfulness.

Psa 71:17,18 Oh God, you have taught me from my youth and I still declare
your wondrous deeds, and even when I am old and gray, O God, do not forsake
me until I declare your strength to this generation, your power to all
who are to come.

Occupy Till I Come

2011-01-24T16:34:00.000-08:00

A four day weekend has given me a rare opportunity to lift my head and take a deep breath. The occasion is some kind of Catholic holiday that I don’t quite understand, but I do appreciate the time away from school to evaluate where we’ve been and what we should be doing differently for the rest of the year.

One thing I noticed right away is that I haven’t written a blog entry since October. This is regrettable and something I want to correct. With my daughter-in-law and two grandchildren living with us, our household has been a bit hectic.

In addition, our school incorporated three significant changes this year which has impacted my schedule adversely.

1. The high school changed from a block schedule to a skinny schedule which
means that I now teach 7 out of 9 periods a day.

2. Three of these periods are new subjects that I haven’t taught before.

3. Since this is an accreditation year for our school (those seasoned teachers who are reading may now take a moment to shudder with empathy) I was made a chairman of one of the nine major committees.

Needless to say, each of these facets of the year has been like a pack of Idaho wolves taking a savage bite of time from an unsuspecting hiker. So what has happened to this poor wayfaring stranger over the last four months? A few comments about my recent daily Bible reading will probably answer this question with reasonable satisfaction.

I’ve followed with curiosity Paul's decision to be in Jerusalem for the day of Pentecost and then to go onto Rome.

"After these things were ended, Paul purposed in the spirit, when he had passed through Macedonia and Achaia, to go to Jerusalem, saying, After I have been there, I must also see Rome." Acts 19: 21

"For Paul had determined to sail by Ephesus, because he would not spend the time in Asia: for he hasted, if it were possible for him, to be at Jerusalem the day of Pentecost." Acts 20:16

When other disciples of the Lord heard of Paul’s decision and knew that it was a dangerous decision to make, they tried to dissuade him. Some "wept sore and fell on Paul's neck, and kissed him, sorrowing most of all for the words which he spake, that they should see his face no more." (20:37,38)

Others "said to Paul through the Spirit, that he should not go up to Jerusalem."
(21:4) It even came to the point where a prophet named Agabus tied up his own hands with Paul's belt and confronted him publicly saying, "Thus saith the Holy Ghost, So shall the Jews at Jerusalem bind the man that owneth this girdle, and shall deliver him into the hands of the Gentiles." (21:11)

When Paul did not change his mind, the disciples finally accepted his decision. "And when he would not be persuaded, we ceased, saying, The will of the Lord be done." (21:14)

This scenario is interesting on several levels. First, the disciples were giving advice in the “Spirit” (notice the capital letter). It is mentioned specifically several times. Secondly, Paul did the opposite of what advice they were giving because he was bound in the “spirit” (notice that it is not capitalized). Then they trusted that the will of God be done.

This leads me to believe that the will of God is not necessarily a specific geographical decision. In other words, the decision on whether or not to go to Jerusalem was not the issue that God was concerned about. In the “Spirit” there were very good reasons to NOT go, and in the “spirit” there were some very good reasons to GO. Paul expounds on these reasons.

"And now, behold, I go bound in the spirit unto Jerusalem, not knowing the things that shall befall me there: Save that the Holy Ghost witnesseth in every city, saying that bonds and afflictions abide me. But none of these things move me, neither count I my life dear unto myself, so that I might finish my course with joy, and the ministry, which I have received of the Lord Jesus, to testify the gospel of the grace of God." Acts 20:22-24

Evidently God uses other believers to point out all sides of a specific decision, the believer then makes a decision based on how he purposes in his own spirit, and then we trust that the will of the Lord is accomplished.

So let me draw a few principles from this if I may:

1. The will of the Lord can be accomplished wherever I decide to stay.
God's will is not necessarily location but concerned with the attitude
of the heart wherever I am.

2. Believers need to be strong in their opinion about another's intended
decisions so that the Christian decision-maker can receive input to
challenge his thinking. We are all sinners saved by grace and are
susceptible to deception in our thinking, so we all need that.

3. Decisions to serve the Lord should not be made solely on the basis of
physical needs and safety (Maslow’s hierarchy of needs). They should
be made on the basis of God's kingdom and a desire to serve him in the
best way possible for as much time as He allows before we face eternity.

Based on this kind of thinking my wife and I have made two decisions. The first is that we have decided to stay here in the DR to teach another year. This decision was not an easy one. Paul was single … I am not. He didn’t have children and grandchildren … I do. He probably did not have many possessions (ie – a house)… I do and it makes things complicated. So I know I can’t make my situation a direct parallel to this passage.

However, it gave me much to think about and pray over. We have a limited number of productive years where we will have the physical ability to do what we are doing now. To put it simply, I feel “bound in the spirit” to stay. I truly want to use every ounce of skill and energy that God has given me to influence as many people as possible for the Kingdom.

The second decision is to have my wife leave me forever (at least it will feel that way.) Our daughter who lives with her husband in Peru is expecting her first child. So my wife is flying down to see her on the first of February to help care for the new little bundle. She will be gone for a small eternity (about three weeks.) This also was a big decision but we felt “bound in the spirit” to support our daughter’s family in this way.

In principle at least, it appears to me that the basis of decision making is pretty straightforward. I know it hasn’t felt that way either to my wife or me these last few months as we wrestled with these two decisions, but maybe we made it more difficult than it is because of our lack of faith. In a parable, Jesus laid out the duty of a believer during the time he has left on the earth.

"A certain nobleman went into a far country to receive for himself a kingdom, and to return. And he called his ten servants, and delivered them ten pounds, and said unto them, Occupy till I come." Luke 19:12, 13

We are simply to keep busy doing the things that promote his kingdom with the “pounds” that he has given us. He has given us freedom to make specific decisions based in part on input from other believers, and are eventually judged according to our attitudes of service or laziness. So, Lord willing, this will be the words on our lips for another year in the DR … occupy till I come.

The Mean Guy Car

2010-10-02T15:08:00.000-07:00

One of the reasons that God allows certain experiences in our lives is so we can learn eternal values. We know this because He tells us in Deut 8:3

He humbled you. And let you be hungry, and fed you with manna
… that he might make you understand that man does not live by
bread alone, but man lives by everything that proceeds out of
the mouth of the Lord.

This week God allowed an experience in my life which brought an eternal value into crystal clear focus. At 6:40 AM I left my apartment in a middle class neighborhood to make the five minute walk to the bus stop like I have done every weekday morning for the past two years. Since I teach at a small Christian school in a large city in the Dominican Republic, our school provides a private bus service to pick up the school teachers in the morning and take them home after work.

My six-year-old granddaughter and I picked our way along the familiar half-dirt, half-paved, deteriorated road on the three-block walk to the bus stop. It had rained the night before so the pot holes were filled with water. The patches of mud forced us to walk on the sidewalk as we came to the last corner.

In this country it is safer to walk in the street if no cars are coming. The sidewalks are full of cracks and bumps, holes with no manhole covers, re-bar sticking up in the cement, trees, guy wires, garbage barrels, piles of sand and rock ready to mix for a home improvement project, telephone poles, and guard dogs that scare you half out of your wits as they lunge unexpectedly at the gated driveways. Our normal practice of walking in the street was interrupted on this particular morning.

My granddaughter chattered about the chickens she usually sees each morning and a lizard she was hoping to chase. The sun was just beginning to rise on this unusually cool and overcast Monday morning. My backpack was slung over my left shoulder and I carried my granddaughter’s smaller PUCCA backpack in my right hand so that she wouldn’t have to drag it in the mud.

Just as we rounded the last corner about a block from where the elementary teachers were standing at the bus stop, without warning, a motorcycle appeared from out of nowhere with two men on it. They stopped in front of me and the man on the back slid off and approached. At first I thought they were going to ask for some money as is typical in this country. Both were Dominican young men probably in their late 20’s with a slight build. Neither looked particularly menacing until the driver of the motorcycle produced a chrome-plated pistol with a dull finish and pointed it at my chest. It looked like a cross between the kind of gun that policemen carry on cop shows and the kind of gun that Ben Cartwright carries on Bonanza.

While the driver brandished the gun, the other man came closer toward me mumbling something in Spanish and making motions which indicated he wanted me to give him everything in my pockets. With sudden awareness, I knew what was happening. For the first time since coming to the country over two years ago, I was being robbed at gunpoint!

Oh, I had heard stories about the motorcycle bandits. A year ago our director’s wife was walking with her adult daughter in our neighborhood and they were accosted by a man on a motorcycle who attempted to rob them of a camera they were carrying. The wife of a man in our little Spanish church almost had her purse snatched by a drive-by motorcyclist as she got out of her car one afternoon not far from here. However, both of these were without a gun and both were unsuccessful robberies because they screamed. This time I instinctively knew that this was different and I had to make a decision. Do I resist or do I give in?

My first thought was of my granddaughter who was watching this whole scenario from the sidewalk behind me. The second thought was of what they were going to steal. In my left pocket was a new IPhone which I had recently received from the States. In my right pocket were a Bible verse pack and another cell phone. In my hip pocket was the equivalent of more than a hundred dollars in cash since I was planning to pay a bill after school that night. My wallet also contained my local debit card and major credit card, so it would be a chocolaty mess to sort out if all of this were missing or stolen.

Thoughts of fear were also intermingled. What would happen to my wife and children if I were killed in some senseless street robbery? All of these thoughts flashed through my mind simultaneously in probably less than ten seconds. Then something strange happened.

As this man came close to me, my moment of indecision was replaced with anger. How dare these men rob an old man with his young granddaughter in broad daylight! In English I shouted very loudly, “What do you intend to do? Shoot me right here for a couple of bucks?” When he put his hand in my pocket I knocked it away. His thumb got caught on the opening of the pocket and my pants ripped open from my belt to my knee. The other man began waving the gun in a more determined and menacing posture. Then I reacted in a blind rage.

I don’t remember exactly what happened next. I heard myself shouting in an attempt to make a lot of noise. At one point I was in the middle of the street grappling with the first man. I fell over their motorcycle knocking it over with me on the top of it.

When I got up to continue the fracas the man with the gun picked up the bike, the other jumped on the back and rode away as fast as they came in. I chased after them until they disappeared around the corner and sped off on Calle Argentina.

The loud commotion had its effect. A shabbily dressed man from the direction of my apartment was coming hastily toward me. As he approached, he asked with concern on his face what happened. I simply stated in broken Spanish, “La drone!” (the thief) Not knowing how to speak Spanish I simply shook his hand to thank him for his concern and turned to find my granddaughter.

Another man from the other direction approached cautiously with a similar look of concern. He was a well-dressed black man obviously from Haiti. When I told him, “La drone,” he motioned to the first man on the other side of me as if to ask if he were the thief. I assured him that he was not, but rather the thieves had been on a “moto-concho” and were now gone.

As I tried to calm down from my adrenaline rush I realized that my granddaughter was crying. We walked hand-in-hand to the teachers who had witnessed most of the attempted crime. They quickly suggested that the bus drop us off at my apartment and wait while I put on some new pants and to consider keeping my “nieta” home since she was obviously shaken up by the ordeal.

As I changed my clothes, my granddaughter talked with her mother to explain what happened. She decided that she wanted to come to school with Grandpa. As she got on the bus she went directly to the back of the bus into the waiting arms of all those nurturing elementary teachers. By the time we reached the school she was smiling again.

It has been about a week now since I was robbed at gunpoint. It appears that my granddaughter has coped with it quite well. Although, I should mention that she spent part of that same evening after she got home from school making some guns and knives out of paper so she could protect me from the bad guys on the motorcycle. And for the next few days she gave me more hugs than she has the whole two months that she has been here.

About a month ago my granddaughters and I watched a movie called Shiloh … a movie about a dog who was threatened by a mean guy who drove an old red Chevy pickup. Ever since then, every time we see a pickup the girls exclaim, “Look! The mean guy car!" Now, whenever we drive downtown in a taxi they point to motorcycles and say the same thing.

As for the school, well, they stepped security up another notch. We and the rest of the teachers are being picked up and dropped off at our doors now. Certain security devices, such as peep holes in the apartment doors, which have been on the back burner of the school budget, are suddenly being installed at the apartments by the school maintenance team.

As for me, I had a few scrapes and bruises that I discovered about an hour later … nothing serious. The only thing that was missing was my favorite Timex watch with a Velcro band that I’ve had for six years. The thief must have grabbed it in the scuffle and ripped it off my arm. So it appears that I have to buy a new watch and repair a pair of pants. It could have been worse … a lot worse!

This incident reminded me of something I learned in Venezuela where I worked for a year and was robbed five times. When a person is faced with a life threatening situation, his actions are usually determined by a gut reaction rather than by logic. It’s funny. I’m a trained martial arts “expert” (in a manner of speaking.) After studying karate for three years I received my brown belt. When I was attacked by two men in a similar manner 12 years ago shortly after I received my brown belt I instinctively dispatched the men with several karate moves.

This time, my reaction was the furtherist thing from karate that one could imagine, probably because karate has been the furtherist thing from my experience for the last 12 years. My point? I think we tend to react during moments of danger rather than reason. As I’ve replayed that scenario over in my mind a hundred times since, I tried to analyze what I should’ve/could’ve done differently. I’ve concluded that my response of anger may not have been the wisest thing ... at least according to the opinion of several Dominicans. And yet it was my unpremeditated response.

So an eternal value has come into very clear focus. Regardless of whether I use karate, or shout loudly, or whether I react by resisting or giving in, God will be with me in all situations. My responsibility is to do what is right to my best ability by the power of the Holy Spirit at the moment, and I can trust God with my life until He takes me home to heaven.

En el dia que temo, Yo en ti confio
(What time I am afraid, I will trust in Thee.)
Psalm 56:3

Whirlwind Romance

2010-08-03T11:49:00.000-07:00

While sitting in an airport a few days ago waiting for a flight that would take me back to work in the Dominican Republic, I realized that had just experienced a whirlwind romance with nostalgia. I’m not sure I can remember a time when six weeks have seemed so short.

Two years is a long time to live in another country, so when we traveled home this time it seemed as though we were seeing Idaho with new eyes. Everything seemed so clean and organized and beautiful.

In the school where I teach, most of the teachers are from the Midwest and the East coast. So when I tell the students, “I’m from Idaho … you know, out West?” their foreheads furrow with the look of a deer caught in the headlights. So, since I was going to be home this summer, I decided to take a few pictures to put in an album for my curious students to look through. My “few” pictures snowballed into 100 as I saw my home state through the eyes of gratitude and appreciation.

My wife became a bit miffed on a few occasions when I would suddenly swerve to the side of the highway and say something like, “Wow, let’s take a picture of that black angus standing in the road,” or “Wow, look at the sun glistening through the sprinkler system in that alfalfa field.” Things like buffalo in a farmer’s field, water running in corrugates of a beet field, acres of golden grain on rolling hills as far as the eye could see, a tractor with a fork lift loading hay onto a semi, hop vines hanging heavily on slanted wires … was for me a trip into nostalgia. These pictures will be worth a thousand words to teenagers who have lived their entire lives in a crowded city in a third world country.

According to our custom we carefully planned our short summer. Two weeks were to be spent in our hometown of Moscow, Idaho to touch bases with our home church and to set up various medical and financial appointments. Living abroad is a little like taking a trip with a used car ... you can’t afford problems on the trip so you spend a lot of time on maintenance before you go. The other four weeks were planned to stay with my mother in southern Idaho and also see our son who lives nearby.

Our home in Moscow has been rented out for the past two years so we technically didn’t have a home to come back to. Fortunately for us the downstairs renter decided not to come back to college next year, so we were able to live in this small apartment for the time we were there. It was an interesting sensation living in the place where our college-aged children lived while attending the U of I years ago. But we preferred to spend the majority of our time in the more comfortable environs of my mother’s home.

In 2 Timothy 2:13 Paul comments:

"If we believe not, yet he abideth faithful: he cannot deny himself."

As I look back on this short, nostalgic summer I think that this would be my testimony. Although we tried to be faithful in our intake of the Word and our exercises and personal disciplines, it became pretty obvious at the end of the summer how unfaithful one can be during a summer whirlwind romance with nostalgia. However, God was so faithful to us. I want to re-count at least three fundamental areas that the Lord provided for us this summer.

Number 1 – Health

For the last two years Carol has fought with pain in her back and on the right side of her body which has kept her from walking as much or doing as much physically as she has been used to doing. So trying to find a solution to this became a high priority for our visit to the States. Through a series of providential circumstances God directed us to a specialist who diagnosed the cause. Lord willing, she will be back to normal in the near future we hope and we praise God for this provision of health.

Number 2 – Clothes

When we went to the DR two years ago it didn’t dawn on us that there is basically only one season here … summer. In Idaho we have a summer wardrobe, a winter wardrobe, etc. But in the DR we wear the same wardrobe every day of the year. In addition the humidity makes you perspire just putting on your socks, so the clothes have to be washed after you wear them one time usually. In the DR when a person asks how the weather is, I’ve heard them describe it as, “Today was a “one-shower day.” Some days of the year are “three-shower” days.

The bottom line to all this is that after two years our clothes were just plain worn out! “So why didn’t you just go downtown and buy some more clothes?” you ask? Well, the answer to that question could be the subject of another blog entry, and it is certainly the reason for many fruitless hours of frustrated searching by my wife and me in the DR. But to answer that question I will simply compose myself and answer calmly, “IT ISN’T THAT SIMPLE when you don’t know the language and can only choose from styles that are, shall we say, quite different!”

Consequently we came to the place sometime last year where we decided to wait until our trip to Idaho to replenish our wardrobe. Therefore one of the major objectives we prayed about was the basic necessity of appropriate clothing. Through another series of providential circumstances the Lord led us to find what we needed and we praise God for this provision of clothing.

Number 3 – Fellowship

What I have to say now may be more of a personal struggle than it is a principle of Christian living. I find that as soon as I leave the routine of normal living (in my case teaching school in another country) and do something different (in this case a whirlwind trip to Idaho) my walk with the Lord seems distant and contrived. I go through the motions the best I can as I juggle the unpredictable schedule each day … read the Bible, go to church, pray … but it still felt like it was two different worlds.

This is precisely why the Scripture warns us not to trust our changing feelings or emotions, so I guess it was a good exercise in faith. However, one exception to this was the contact with precious brothers and sisters in the Lord that we hadn’t seen for at least two years … and in some cases even longer.

During a time when solid churches are falling away from the foundation of the faith, and individuals are looking outside the authority of the Scriptures for answers to life, I found it solidly encouraging to have fellowshipped with three churches and a number of individuals who are continuing with the Lord and walking in the truth. My wife and I felt a little bit like John must have felt when he penned the words in 2 John 3:

"I rejoiced greatly that I found of thy children walking in truth, as we have
received a commandment from the Father."

One of the items we wanted to buy this summer was a cover for our Bible. We weren’t able to find that luxury item in the DR so we were using the boxes that our Bibles were shipped in. The leather cover that I chose has a picture of a tree etched on the front with a partial verse written under it that reads “Stand fast in the Lord.” Every time I open the Bible this year I want this to be my prayer.

Going back home was nostalgic. Memories flooded my mind … good memories … happy memories … of raising my family in Moscow … of growing up in southern Idaho. … and we appreciated in a new way the beauty of our State. I need to change mental gears and get ready for another year of work, but I am grateful for this whirlwind romance with nostalgia that God allowed in our lives this summer.

Why Did The Chicken ...?

2010-06-03T12:49:00.000-07:00

Teaching school must have some intrinsic rewards that keep me coming back for over forty years. The problem is that during the last two weeks of any given school year I can’t remember them. The schedule becomes more hectic as the deadline approaches. The kids begin turning off one by one like bubbles popping in a bubble bath. After 40 years I should be used to it, but it seems just as difficult to close out this year as it has any of the others. It’s all part of teaching in a high school, I guess.

Since I moved to the Dominican Republic to teach in a small Christian school, one thing is new. Until now I’ve never had the privilege of teaching seniors, and therefore never have had to face their particular brand of finishing out a school year. I am referring, of course, to the traditional senior prank … that primitive need for a class to leave its mark like a wolf cub learning to mark his territory. This year is one that I won’t forget for awhile.

Arriving at 7:06 AM on the teachers’ school van as usual, we filed off the bus, and marched up the tiled corridor that opens onto our campus. As the panorama of the campus became visible, each mouth opened in surprise one by one. Yellow, police crime-scene tape stretched across several pathways causing us to stoop in order to pass under. “For Sale” signs (Se Vende) were placed on certain teacher’s doors. Old uniform shirts hung on make-shift clothes lines. Picnic tables dangled precariously from trees. And, of course, the proverbial toilet paper hung from virtually every tree.

An eerie silence seemed to hang over the campus as the teachers wandered speechlessly through the senior prank artwork. One had to be there to appreciate it, but it really did seem like a sort of artistic collage.

They did not miss a trick. Later, when I tried to open my room by turning the door knob … can you guess? Oil was smeared on the doorknob as well as on the banister railings and all the freshman lockers. When I looked at the security camera above the high school mall area I noticed that someone tried to spray shaving cream over it in an attempt to put anonymity to these actions, which brings up an interesting question. How did they get away with this? Our campus has four security cameras with an armed 24-hour guard (referred to as a “watchie”). Was he sleeping? Did they bribe him? Many unsettling questions are unanswered. However, apart from a spray painted palm tree most of the artwork did not appear to be malicious … thankfully.

The most memorable feature of their mark upon history was not the hanging picnic tables or the bouquet of balloons over the campus hedge. While the teachers were walking through the campus in the eerie, stunned silence we heard the chirping of birds. Since there are many vocal birds here in the DR I didn’t think much about it.
As I started up the cement steps to my room I noticed that the chirping grew louder. Rounding the stairway landing and looking up I couldn’t believe what I saw.

In front of me were about a dozen fuzzy, yellow, new born chicks scattered on the steps. When I made it to the top and looked down the hallway I saw about 200 more chicks huddled together on scattered newspaper. Across the campus I heard shrieks of surprise coming from the female elementary teachers as they encountered a similar sight.

Over the outside wall near the entrance to my room I peered into the outdoor covered cafeteria to see a hundred more chicks scattered across the floor and sitting inside the upside down cafeteria tables. Awareness of the enormity of this slowly floated to the top of my consciousness. The campus was filled with hundreds of baby chicks!

Since my first two periods were senior classes who were now gone, I spent most of the morning cleaning up the mess outside my room left by the chicks and the seniors. Scooping them up four at a time with both hands I placed them in cardboard boxes and also in the deep set science sink in the back of my room.

By the time I tried to put bowls of water in the crowded boxes the chicks looked like a drenched frightened kitten after her first bath. And when I was kicking the newspapers together into a pile to throw away I found another chick hiding under the classified ads. The entire day was colored by those chicks in one way or another.

When I tried to do some business in the office I heard the now familiar chirping coming from the vice-principal’s office. He was gone so my curiosity drove me inside his office. It took about five minutes but I eventually located a small cluster of four frightened chicks huddled behind his door. I put them in a collection box that was set up in the teacher’s lounge for orphan chicks found during the day.

Certain students carried a chick with them to classes all day. A horrified teacher reported on the bus on the way home that she saw a student clutching a chick in one hand while eating a donut out of the other. She was predicting we would all die from bird flu as a result of this prank.

At the end of the day many chicks found their way home with various students. Some teachers brought small clusters of up to forty chicks with them on the bus to find a home for them. The chicks in my room were eventually collected by the school janitor who roughly poured the boxes of chicks together like someone pouring water into a container. Later, when I held my head in my hands at my desk trying to enjoy the first peace and quiet of the morning, I heard more cheeping coming from outside my window. Peering out the aluminum louvered windows I saw a neighbor woman who lives on a small farm next to the school walking with a box of chicks perched on her shoulder. I found out later that the director contacted our farmer neighbors and gave most of the chicks to them.

So intent was I in caring for these pitiful little creatures that I completely forgot about the last awards assembly of the year. At the time I was supposed to be handing out awards for my math and science classes I was babysitting 200 chirping chicks. I’m not sure I will be able to forgive the seniors for that embarrassment. The vice principal accepted my apology and said that he was able to stand in my place with little effort.

Another event is now chalked up in the annals of senior prank history, and I suppose next year’s class will try to top that. And on it goes … forever. When I arrived home that afternoon after school the thought crossed my mind to look up chicken jokes on the internet. Why did the chicken cross the road? You know, that sort of thing. The teachers’ end-of-the-year awards banquet was scheduled for that night and I had been asked to give a small devotional. I thought it might be a good ice breaker. But, you know what I did? I took a nap instead. It had been a rough day and I really didn’t care why the chicken crossed the road.

Missions and Mistakes

2010-05-24T15:35:00.000-07:00

In preparing to come to the Dominican Republic for a teaching ministry I asked our home church to send some illustrated Bibles. It seemed like a great way to share the Good News with interested people – especially when the literacy rate cannot be assumed to be high. So our church sent several large, heavy boxes of these illustrated Bibles called “Good and Evil”.

Somewhere along the way, one detail was overlooked. The Bibles that were sent were in English and this country is a Spanish speaking country. Since a private missionary airline service flies our mail in from Florida the postage was another dollar and a half per pound above what the regular postage was. This made it economically impractical to send the books back. Our mistake sat for over a year in our spare closet.

On Easter Sunday a few weeks ago my wife and I attended a small English speaking church in the evening that needed a substitute piano player. They had asked my wife to play the piano so we enjoyed some English speaking fellowship for a change.

After the service I met a middle-aged bachelor who was also visiting this church for a few weeks while he rested from his mission work. Thomas worked for a mission organization that is founded and operated by the Haitian people. He is the only foreigner who works with them. Part of his responsibilities require him to be a mediator between them and the various English speaking organizations that they find necessary to communicate with in order to get their job done … especially recently in the wake of the earthquake. They are trying to get supplies to help their churches with such items as food and tents and Bibles.

The organization is called God Aid Us. Its initials (GAU) in the common language that Haitians speak mean something like “go get it done”. Obviously, something is lost in translation. However, I was impressed with the way they seem to operate. They want to put most all money and supplies that are given to them into the hands of the common people. Therefore they have a low budget grassroots ministry where there is very little administrative costs. For example, Thomas sleeps in a tent or in someone’s home instead of a hotel when he visits a place to help.

One goal of GAU is to teach the people to be independent. One facet of that is to teach them the language of the Internet … English. So, English classes are in demand. They teach English by using English Bibles … what they can find … or any kind of Christian material in English so they can share the good news of the gospel of Christ. Can you see where I’m heading with this?

When I told him the story about our mistake sitting in our spare closet his eyes lit up. The following day he showed up at my apartment and took those Bibles off my hands. This was such an encouragement to know that God can use a mistake for His glory.

Fresh Eggs

2010-03-21T14:22:00.000-07:00

My request for a local purchase had been submitted to the office a week ago and approved by my vice-principal … and still I had not received what I needed for my biology lab. The lab had already been delayed once because of this problem so I thought I had better rattle some chains. The squeaky wheel method seems to work very well in the Dominican Republic except I don’t particularly like that method of getting what I need.

Knocking on the door of the secretary who was in charge of local purchases I tried to ask where my merchandise was that I ordered a week ago. She is Dominican and speaks English a little and so communication can be pretty painful depending on the subject. So I reminded her that I had a biology lab where we were observing semi-permeable membranes and needed a dozen fresh eggs and some vinegar.

With an elaborate explanation she told me that she has been trying to find a dozen eggs everywhere and no one has them. Puzzled, I asked why she couldn’t simply go to the grocery store and buy some. With an incredulous look she said, “Oh, no, can’t buy eggs there so easy.” She went on to explain that even when she went to the farm to buy some, the farmer wouldn’t let her because it would crush the box on the assembly line.

By this time I was very confused and pressed the question telling her I saw some only yesterday when I was at the local grocery store near my apartment. She finally asked help from another lady who is a bit more fluent in English. An animated conversation ensued in Spanish which attracted the attention of two more Dominicans who stopped to help.

Finally the newly enlisted translator turned to me and said, “She wants you to know that she can’t find any eggs with little chickens in them anywhere.”

“No, no,” I responded, “Not fertile eggs … I want normal eggs … you know, the kind you eat.” After a short translation my original secretary smacked her head with her hand and with a loud laugh exclaimed, “Ay yay yay!” (The same reaction Ricky had with Lucy.) She had been making trips and phone calls to several places for a week for something I didn’t want. By that afternoon I had the eggs in my teacher mail box and the lab came off as scheduled.

The only way that I can figure she became confused was that on the order form I said, “One dozen fresh eggs to be used for a biology experiment.” I remember on the farm when I was young the word “fresh” related to fertility, such as “the heifer will freshen next week.” So it is possible that in Spanish a direct translation of that word gives the idea of fertility. Maybe I should have said “raw eggs”. Anyway, this is one more example of how the language barrier is a definite battle.

Shortly after Christ raised Lazarus from the dead the chief priests and the Pharisees met together in a council to formulate a way to deal with this trouble maker. Then Caiaphas the high priest suggested that it was better that Christ should die rather than have Rome destroy the whole nation for rebellion. Then John in his gospel commented that without realizing it the high priest had sovereignly prophesied that Jesus would die for the nation ... and then he added,

"And not for that nation only, but that also he should gather together
in one the children of God that were scattered abroad." John 11:52

From the very beginning God had planned to offer the gift of salvation to men of many tongues. Praise God! When the Holy Spirit was given to the church the sign was speaking in unknown tongues. So even though it is difficult, my wife and I want to understand this culture and this language better so we can share the gospel and enjoy closer fellowship with our Dominican brothers and sisters in Christ.

L.I.P. Discipline

2010-03-06T14:45:00.000-08:00

On the outskirts of the central lawn on the campus of the Christian school where I teach in The Dominican Republic, there are two prominently displayed signs. On both of them are the large simple letters “L.I.P.”

Anyone who attends school or teaches here knows what that means. It is an acronym which stands for “Learning in Progress” and it is even written into the official discipline code for the school. On the detention write-ups there is an option for the teacher to check which says, “L.I.P. violation”. So I have also included this in my personal discipline procedure.

Whenever any student does anything that detracts from my goal of teaching my subject, I write an “L” next to his or her name. It could be talking without permission, forgetting materials, getting out of his seat without permission, not paying attention, or any number of unfocused activities. It is a great catch-all for undesirable behavior. When a student receives his fourth “L” I assign an hour’s worth of detention.

On this particular day in biology we were working on a lab which allowed them to observe the process of anaerobic respiration (also called fermentation.) They were to put some corn syrup and a yeast-and-water solution into a balloon and tie it up. Seems simple enough, doesn’t it?

As I walked around the room checking on the progress of each group with my record book open I found Carlos (not his real name) in the middle of a L.I.P. violation. He had blown up the balloon and was pinching the neck of the balloon in order to let the air out with funny whistling sounds. In another context it may have been pretty funny but I had to give him a mark for not attending to the task I set before the class. In his case this was his fourth mark.

After class I handed the detention sheet to him to read and sign. When he discovered that this was going to cost him an hour’s worth of hard labor for the school his eyes grew wide as he stammered, “You’re not really going to give me detention, are you?”

“Yes”

“But why?”

“Because sentence against an evil deed is not executed speedily, the hearts of the sons of men are fully set to do evil.”

“Huh?”

“Because, Carlos, if I don’t follow my own rules then you’ll know that I don’t mean what I say and you won’t learn how to do what is right.”

At this point his eyes flickered with thought for just a moment, and then he continued as if he had had similar conversations before.

“But don’t you want to be like God, Mister? God shows mercy.”

“You bring up an interesting point. It is the same strategy that the woman of Tekoah used when she confronted King David about restoring his son Absalom from being banished.”

“Huh?”

“What I mean is, while it is true that God is a God of mercy and we should strive to be like him, he is also a God of judgment. You’ve had mercy three times this semester, and now it is time for you to experience the discipline of judgment.”

“You mean you’re not going to change your mind?”

“That is exactly what I mean.”

Three days later I received notice that the sentence had been carried out and he has not received a L.I.P. violation since.

Biblical Integration

2010-02-19T13:15:00.000-08:00

Integrating my Christian life and biblical truth into the math classes that I teach here at this small Christian School in the Dominican Republic has been the biggest challenge I've had since I’ve been here. But in biology it has never been hard. It seems like every class something comes up that cries out for the Creator to speak.

Recently it was the subject of energy flow … all the way from the sunlight that the autotrophs (plants) capture and turn into food by photosynthesis, to the heterotrophs (animals) that eat the food produced by the plants and convert it into energy by cellular respiration.

The last step of this flow of energy is when the organism dies and other organisms called decomposers (bacteria, fungus, worms) cause decay, and the energy is released back into the environment. I read several passages from the Bible about the certainty of death and gave a couple of stories of animals I’ve seen that had a blanket of worms on them after dying. It was a perfect time to remind them that physical death is certain, but it is not the one to fear … it is spiritual death. It was a gospel moment.

On the way home on the bus that the teachers ride I heard another story that helped me focus more on the reason that I am here. A fourth grade teacher at SCS, who is herself the daughter of missionaries in Africa, told me of an incident that happened in her class just before a lock down drill that the school was planning.

She was running through the procedure with them so they would know to hide in a certain corner of the room when they heard the three short blasts of the air horn. While they were hiding she would lock the door and crank shut the louvered windows. One of the children with great sincerity asked her if she would be able to hide also. She explained that she would hide but only after she made sure they were safe.

One thing that elementary teachers have learned is that when children ask questions they ask extremes, like, “What if there were TEN guys and they ALL had grenades and rifles?” She assured them that the bottom line is that she would die for them if that is what it would cost for her to protect them.

At this point several of these little nine-year-olds began to cry … like real tears …, “You mean, Miss, that you would actually die for us?” Some of the students in her class began saying that they would die for her too … the same response the disciples had when Christ was discussing his coming death. This was a gospel moment that you couldn’t pay money to create. There is someone who has already died to make sure you don’t have to die. What an opportunity this Christian teacher had to share the gospel one more time.

Sometimes I wonder if I didn’t get stuck on the wrong end of the educational stick. The elementary students seem so teachable and open sometimes. The high school students are not quite so tender. My ministry is a bit different on several levels, I’ve concluded.

The first level is simply age. They are older and not as pliable and teachable. It seems that my attempts at sharing the gospel are on the intellectual, reasoning level … or sharing my own experiences … and they certainly love to listen to my stories. But I don’t see the same emotional response as our fourth grade teacher described.

The second level is personality. My approach to teaching is a time-conscious, goal-centered, no-nonsense, disciplined approach to education. And the Lord only knows how much these upper-class, well-provided-for teenagers need this kind of training. Whether or not they respond to the claims of Christ presented at our school, they will at least be exposed through me to the kind of discipline and hard work and respect for authority that the Christian life represents.

I probably won’t win any teacher of the year award, or be the teacher that seniors ask to speak at their graduation, but they will learn what honesty is, and how to pay attention when I speak, and stay on task during work time, and that there are consequences for laziness or misbehavior. All this takes training and consistency.

Many of these students are raised by nannies not mothers, driven to school by chauffeurs not dads, and picked up after by maids who do what they are told or be fired. So I figure that what they need most is routine. So this is my ministry, and I’ve accepted it.

Just before the bell rings that signals the beginning of class I position myself by the door. At the right time I close the door and take roll. If anyone is out of their seat or talking after I close the door I put a mark next to his name. Then I pray for a few seconds and come to the front of the room to begin the class. We are usually on task within two minutes of the tardy bell.

During class I have three simple rules:
1. Stay seated in their assigned seat during class ... with no talking
2. Look at me when I talk ... with no talking
3. Work during study time ... with no talking.

Any infraction of these rules results in more marks next to their names with detention after three have accumulated.

Class begins with a discussion over yesterdays homework, continues with a lecture on the day’s topic, a quiz over yesterday’s material, and study time to begin the new assignment … in that order. When they want scratch paper for their quizzes I ignore them unless they say “please” and “thank you” and they cannot leave the room when class is over unless the room has been picked up and clean.

These are daily routines which I consistently enforce and it usually takes the student around three months to be comfortable in this environment. This approach has proven very effective in training my students to maintain an effective learning environment. My prayer now is that my teaching ministry will continue to improve as I learn to integrate my Christian life and Biblical truth into the classroom.

Escalator Eats Girl

2010-02-08T13:33:00.000-08:00

My middle son visited us during the Christmas vacation. He came from Japan where he lives and works, so he thought that the safest way to carry his money was with traveler’s checks. Little did he know that the Dominican Republic is not set up to effectively handle traveler’s checks.

In fact, one day we walked for a half hour to a nearby mall for the purpose of trying to cash some of them in either of the two banks that were in that mall. One bank was closed and the other tried to explain in broken English that they could not cash them for one reason or another. We didn’t really quite understand but that was alright. This had simply become another typical DR dead-end that we have come to expect since living here for a year and a half now. Fortunately my son was technically a tourist so even the walk was enjoyable while we did some sightseeing and caught up on some father and son conversation.

While we were looking around the mall we rode up the escalator. In front of us was a young couple with their small daughter fashionably dressed in jeans. The pant leg on the right side was frayed at the bottom and when she reached the top, the escalator grabbed her pant leg and began to pull her into the machinery.

She began to scream as her jeans were being sucked in, and the parents were equally horrified as they saw what was happening. Fortunately we were far enough behind to keep from bumping into them while they frantically tore the pant leg free.

At the top of the stairs as we walked into the food court I instinctively grabbed my son’s hand and he grabbed mine. A couple of seconds later we simultaneously realized that we were two grown men who were holding hands as we walked. We quickly released at the same time as I said, “Oh, sorry, I was thinking that you were your mother.”

“That’s OK,” he replied. “I was thinking that you were my daughter.” It was a natural protective instinct, I suppose, after witnessing a potentially dangerous situation, but it still gave us a chuckle.

The $20 Christmas Wrap

2010-01-31T10:39:00.000-08:00

The language barrier is a very real battle to be fought when a person is in another country. Here is one example of a battle that I lost.

Waiting for some medicine at a pharmacy in a large Wal-Mart-type store here in the Dominican Republic I passed the time of day with the school nurse who had come to help me. It was near Christmas so the store was brimming with customers and chaos. She was telling me why we can’t find rolls of wrapping paper here in the DR like we can in the States.

At home we do things on our own … clean our own house, polish our own shoes, wrap our own gifts … but here it is common to have other people do these chores for us … usually for a tip. So the stores have the custom of offering free Christmas wrapping for gifts purchased at the same store. Right next to the pharmacy we could see the long counter where a half dozen young ladies were busy wrapping gifts for people who were standing in lines three or four deep.

So it was only logical for me to ask the people at the towel store if they would wrap nine individual Christmas gifts when I went to pick them up later. Since our daughter was getting married a few days after Christmas, a number of our relatives were spending Christmas with us and we had purchased towels embroidered with their name and a personalized design for gifts.

The lady who had originally taken our order a couple of weeks ago speaks a little English and she was there, so emboldened by this new information I asked if this store offered free wrapping. She said that they did wrap gifts but it would cost a little bit extra since they used a special box instead of wrapping paper. So I asked how much extra.

When she answered, “Seventeen” I quickly multiplied that in my head by nine and figured I could afford an extra 4 or 5 dollars if it meant I didn’t have to do all that wrapping at home … especially since I couldn’t find any wrapping paper anyway.

When I came back 20 minutes later a different lady was at the cash register. She said something in Spanish so I handed her a 500-peso bill expecting 350 pesos in change. She gave me one of those funny looks that I couldn’t interpret and said something else in Spanish. A chunky man with shiny black hair next to me said, “She say she want 630 peso.” When I told him there must be some mistake he shrugged and looked away.

At this point the young woman who knows a little bit of English who helped me before came over to see what the fuss was about. After talking to the cashier lady she turned to me and repeated, “You need more money.” So I told her, “Listen, figure this out for yourself … nine packages times seventeen pesos each is …..”

Interrupting she said, “Seventeen? No, I said Seventy!” Even when she said the two numbers with labored emphasis I could barely tell the difference. As my head quickly tallied the problem I began to feel sick. This small language problem increased my little wrapping project from four dollars to almost twenty dollars, and I knew I was trapped. To their credit, when they discovered the problem they compromised by accepting only the 500 pesos that I had. Their gesture cut my loss by about four dollars, but it still was another hard lesson in the language barrier wars.

The Thing Was Done Suddenly

2010-01-10T05:44:00.000-08:00

In the last month we’ve felt like a trailer in a tornado. For anyone who has gone through the experience of getting one's daughter married a few days after Christmas, you will probably empathize. I must admit, however, that doing this in a different country such as the Dominican Republic makes it a whole new ball game.

Somewhere during the whirlwind Carol and I read the account of Hezekiah in II Chronicles 29. His father had turned the heart of Judah to the ways of the kings of Israel. Molten images had been set up for Baalim in every corner of Jerusalem, and the house of the LORD had been neglected.

When Hezekiah began to reign he wanted to do what was right in the sight of God. The first thing he did was to clean out the house of the LORD and to establish the role of the Levites. When it was all cleaned up Hezekiah rose early and told the rulers of the city to gather at the house of the LORD. He told them that he wanted burnt offerings and sin offerings to be made for all Israel … now! So they scrambled to get things done.

In all the rush and confusion there were not enough priests to handle all the burnt offerings. But by the end of the time this comment was made, “So the service of the house of the LORD was set in order.” In other words, it got done. It may not have been done perfectly, and things were a bit hectic, but it got done.

When Carol and I talked about this portion of Scripture together we couldn’t help but apply it to what was happening with our daughter’s wedding. In fact, when we read the conclusion of the whole story we laughed out loud:

And Hezekiah rejoiced, and all the people, that God had prepared
the people: for the thing was done suddenly. II Chron 29:36

Notice that God had prepared the heart of the people and that there was rejoicing. I feel that this is what happened to us by the end of the wedding. So let me catch you up on what happened.

When our daughter was first put into prison we began to pray about ways to encourage her. Since I was at the age and experience where I could retire, and it was probable that she could be released after 3 ½ years of her sentence, we decided to see if it were possible to be in the DR when she was released. Our desire was to give her a half-way house, so to speak, so she could have a stable place away from her old environment so she could put her life back together. At the same time we could spend some time with our daughter and salvage some of the relationship we’d lost over the years.

When Carol found the math position at Santiago Christian School on line and I was eventually hired we felt that this was allowed by God to accomplish this purpose. One needs to bear in mind that this plan took over three years to concoct and hatch. It required interviews, retirement, studying calculus for a year, moving to a foreign country, and a myriad other life changing activities designed for the purpose of being in the right place at the right time to help our daughter. We knew that God did not need us to accomplish His work in her life. We were simply asking God to allow us to be part of it.

Cherish met Carlos in prison while he was ministering at the prison with his sister a year ago last Thanksgiving. At that time Cherish would still be in prison another six months and we had already been in the country four months. So this whirlwind romance came out of left field for both Cherish and us, and it is not what either of us anticipated. So let’s see how this pencils out on paper … by the time we get back to Moscow, assuming we stay here for the third year as we’ve promised, we will have spent four years of our life in trade to get six months with our daughter. Yep! It was worth it!

Another wrinkle in the fabric of our man-made plans was the Presidential pardon. None of us ever thought that our daughter would be pardoned by the president of this country. And yet through a series of amazing circumstances this is exactly what happened. So now, because of this one event, she is allowed (actually “required”) to leave the country, and her new husband is able to take a job in Peru that was offered to him.

This whole thing is not surprising. I’ve been a Christian long enough to know that my plans will almost never work out, and that what happens in their place is always better. “God’s plan is better than ours.” I need to say that over several times because this is basically the definition of a life of faith, right?

A man’s heart deviseth his way:
But the LORD directeth his steps. Prov 16:9

In one sense we are fortunate that the wedding actually happened. I suppose part of the reason for this feeling of disorganization and chaos is simply because we are in the DR and our daughter has adapted to the Latin life style. It is something I’m still not comfortable with, to say the least, but it has something to do with spontaneity and getting things done by personal contacts and face-to-face communication.

To start with, whether or not there would be a wedding was up in the air several times. When they were first engaged they enthusiastically wrote a number of people indicating that they would be married in December. As time went on, her fiancé was not finding a job and they had no money. Since things didn’t seem to be working out, they postponed the wedding. Unfortunately, they didn’t inform everyone.

My son in Japan wrote to say that he had bought a plane ticket and was coming to the wedding in December.

This helped them to decide to get married on the same day they had announced previously but re-arranged the plans so that it would fit a minimum budget. In that sense I believe God blessed them by supplying their needs. For example, a family from my school allowed them to use the beautiful surroundings of their country home for the wedding, and a photographer volunteered her professional services, both of these as a gift. There were numerous other smaller “gifts” which testified to God’s literal provision for their needs.

Two weeks before the wedding another problem came up which they felt was serious enough for them to cancel the wedding until it was resolved. The shower that was planned was postponed and everything sort of came to a halt. We were afraid to tell our relatives who had already purchased plane tickets and were ready to come. So we waited for a week to see what would happen.

A week later Cherish learned of her Presidential pardon and her ability to leave the country, so the wedding was back on again. So this whole scenario was giving their wedding a sort of on-again-off-again feel to it. I met several people who asked in a surprised tone, “You mean the wedding is on again?” So this helps to explain a little why “the thing was done suddenly”.

The wedding day itself was an exercise in flexibility. Our daughter had to spend the day before the wedding in the Capitol city, which is two hours away, so she could pick up her official “freedom” documents. They could care less that she was getting married the next day. She didn’t get home until the wee hours of the morning on the big day.

After spending a few early morning hours preparing the wedding site with friends, she, along with my wife and mother, went to get their hair done and fancy makeup put on. They couldn’t find the salon for a while, so it added to other last minute problems to put the wedding two hours later than when it was scheduled.

This is a funny thing. All the North Americans arrived on time and were checking their watches at five after. The Dominicans showed up late and enjoyed casual conversation until it started. I asked several Dominicans what was normal at a wedding in their country. All of them agreed … they never start on time, and they come to see the bride, not necessarily to show up for the wedding on time. So, get this … Cherish was having a normal wedding in this country!

I’m not sure I’ve ever been part of a wedding without a rehearsal … until this one. I guess it is part of the culture to just wing it. Oh, it worked out alright, I suppose, but it kept me guessing during the whole service what was coming next. For example, when I walked my daughter up to the front with her on my arm I stopped and waited for the pastor to say, “Who gives this woman to marry this man?”

The anxious groom kept trying to come toward me to grab her and I kept motioning him back. Just a bit awkward! It probably looked like I was changing my mind about giving my daughter away to this stranger from Peru. I finally realized that the pastor wasn’t going to say anything so I finally gave in and released her.

The entire wedding was performed in Spanish. So I kept turning to the teenage son of the groom’s sister who was sitting behind me to ask, “Are they married yet?” He finally said, “They aren’t married until the kiss!” And kiss they did, and at that moment I knew my daughter was gone. She will be living in his home country Peru and we will have to add another column to our traveling budget if we want to see her. Sniff!

As a surprise our daughter wrote and sang a love song for her new husband. This was a special treat for us as well since we had not heard her sing in public for several years.

She also borrowed an idea from her mom - the unity candle. She purchased two small candles and had one large candle made to be lit from the two smaller ones to symbolize two lives becoming one.

When the time came for that part of the ceremony right after her song, three or four men surrounded the candles while one of them held a huge round photographer’s flash reflector. The weather up to this time was beautiful and sunny all day even though it had rained the night before. As the afternoon wore on the wind was picking up and we could hear thunder rumbling in the distance. We were on a high hill overlooking the city and could see the storm approaching.

The people surrounding the candles was an effort to block the wind, but no one else could see what was happening. Fortunately their efforts were unsuccessful so with a flare of Dominican spontaneity they moved everything under the shelter that was behind us. Although it was still windy in the open shelter it provided enough protection to keep the candles lit.

This was the time where the bride and groom individually expressed their gratitude to different people and praised God for the events in their lives. Even though I knew it, this was a good reminder to me that God loves and provides for us even though we don’t make perfect decisions, and the wedding was beautiful even in spite of the bumps of disorganization.

The unity candle must have been an unfamiliar custom to many that attended the wedding. When the large one was finally lit during the small wind storm they were battling, the bride and groom each blew out the individual candles as they were supposed to. Then the groom’s youngest nephew who was standing nearby leaned over and gave a big blow at the big candle as if to help the bride and groom who had obviously forgotten to blow it out. I could hear all the North Americans including myself audibly suck in their breath as if to say, “Oh, no!” He was grabbed by a couple of bystanders and the flame flickered to life again. Isn’t this a great picture of what happens in a marriage through the years as the winds of life try to blow out the flame of marriage?

For the next two hours people ate a simple catered lunch and engaged in reception-type conversation while the photographer took the family pictures.

The wedding ended gradually and unceremoniously like a wind-up clock at the end of the day. One by one the people left until only a handful of us stayed to throw bird seed at the pickup as it rolled out of sight with an exhausted bride crumpled in the front seat.

We now have a daughter married to a Peruvian and a son married to a girl from Japan. Does anyone know of a cute AMERICAN girl we can introduce to my remaining single son? Maybe we can have another wedding and do it suddenly also, because now I know that God will prepare our hearts and we can rejoice.

A Trip to the Beach

2009-10-15T17:50:00.000-07:00

One would think that if a person lived just a few miles from some of the most beautiful tropical beaches in the world that he would visit often. The truth of the matter is, up to a month and a half ago we had only been to the beach twice even though we have lived here over a year. The first time was a school sponsored trip to introduce us to what was available. Since it was during the first week of school a year ago the whole experience was a blur and I was more worried about how I was going to survive school which was opening in a few days. The second trip was in June when my mother came to visit and we wanted to show her the beaches. I suppose this phenomenon is not new. It is like living next door to Disney World and not taking the time to visit.

Last year I had a very short chain. For most evenings and weekends I couldn’t leave my make-shift office at home because I had to prepare lessons for six different preparations to teach … three of which I had never taught before. This year I not only have the lesson plans from last year but I have only one subject I have never taught. I am in educational heaven! So when a teaching colleague and his wife asked us to go to the beach with them I felt that it would be a good thing to do. However, I must admit that at first if felt sort of funny planning to have fun on a weekend.

Our daughter had other plans so we decided to go to the beach with our friends by ourselves. None of us are fluent in Spanish but we decided to go anyway. One has to realize that although we live a mere 60 miles from the beach it takes over two hours to negotiate the best road there on a public bus. Getting there and back is three fourths of the experience. I suppose it is similar to what I remember of our days of family camping.

The problems of four foreigners getting to a “nearby” beach are far more complex that a simple bus ride. For example, since none of us are fluent in Spanish it took almost a half hour to get the taxi to pick us both up and deliver us to the Metro bus station. Then, for reasons we still don’t understand, their posted departure time of 9:15 was not honored and the next bus was not leaving until noon. So we quickly walked down the block to the rival bus company Caribe Tours where we found that all the tickets were sold out. Many people were crowded into the small terminal demanding a ticket, so the proprietors were trying to arrange for an extra bus to come.

We waited for a good hour talking with our friends in the small crowded air conditioned terminal while the overhead TV was showing a special documentary about the Air Force Thunderbirds. Because of the surrounding noise level I was leaning toward my friend so I could hear him. We were sitting in a row with our two wives between us. This meant that I was sitting on only half of my seat. Soon I was aware that another man had sat down next to me on the other half of the seat. I’m not sure that would have happened in the US.

The bus eventually came. As we took a seat, a young man who looked as foreign as we did sat next to me across the aisle on the bus as we traveled to the beach. He was quite vocal and eager to speak to us in English, so we learned quite a bit about him before the trip was finished. I had noticed him earlier at the bus terminal. He was with a dignified Caucasian woman who spoke Spanish as well as English. She had helped me understand what was happening when I tried to get my tickets. He was wearing shorts and had a T-shirt with a large picture of a mug of beer with the caption “Better than Mistletoe”, so I had quickly sized him up as one of those single Americans who come here for a few weeks of drinking and immorality. As we got to know Scott I was reminded again of how we can’t judge a book by its cover.

In reality this young man was from England (complete with the most exquisite English accent) and he was a missionary with an organization called YWAM (Youth with a Mission). This organization has charismatic leanings so he had his share of curious beliefs and doctrines. However, he appeared to have a genuine love for our Lord having been saved out of a world of selling drugs.

At Puerto Plata the bus stopped for a little more than a half hour while we waited for another connection to finish the trip to Sosua. My colleague friend wanted to confront Scott about how his testimony didn’t seem to match his T-shirt, but Scott disappeared after he got off the bus. We, on the other hand, waited in the crowded outdoor bus terminal while beggars took their turns giving an appeal. One skinny man who spoke and acted like a woman lifted his dirty T-shirt to the crowd to reveal some kind of device sticking out of his abdomen. After a short presentation he wandered through the crowd to collect money.

A toothless wrinkled women wearing a baggy dress that had not been washed in weeks had a different approach. She singled out a person and simply stood in front of them and wiggled her fingers near her mouth in an unmistakable message, “Give me some food.”

The bus finally arrived and we were dropped off on the side of the road in Sosua. Fortunately our friends had been here before so they knew how to get to the beach on foot. It took the next hour to find the beach, locate a changing room, decide where to park our bodies for the afternoon, and rent some beach loungers from a man named Lucio.

For the next two hours we lounged in the shade, went swimming in the crystalline turquoise waters, and --- warded off the beach hawkers. Every ten minutes our American bubble of “space” was invaded by sellers of homemade candy, fruit which they cut up with a large knife right in front of you, hair braiders, and jewelry which is always “free to look”. We learned very quickly how to wag our fore finger back and forth in a cultural symbol of “No, we don’t want any!” One group of men wanted to sing for us. My friend hired them to sing a love song for his wife’s birthday which happened to be on that very day. With eyes closed and mouths wide in musical passion it was obvious that they were missing more teeth than they were talent. They were actually quite good and it was a memorable experience.

During the entire afternoon two or three men shared the beach right next to us. They were brawny with tattoos all over their body like sailors on leave. The women with them were undisputedly women of the street whom they had hired for temporary companionship. The men spoke in English quite loudly all day using the “F” word profusely as if trying to out-do each other. The public displays of affection with the harlots were embarrassing to look at. One of the men was from Michigan and wore a prominent tattoo of the Christian fish symbol on his upper right arm.

When it was time to leave I went to the local pay-for-use bathroom to shower and change. My Christian friend approached the man from Michigan to ask him if he knew what the symbol meant that he displayed on his arm. Without a blink of an eye he replied, “Yeah, Jesus Christ God’s Son Savior”. My friend then told him that his behavior indicated that he didn’t really know who Jesus was. The man glared at him and said, “Take the log out of your own eye, buddy.”

This is an amazing story for two reasons. One, that my friend didn’t get his clock cleaned by this guy whose biceps were bigger than my thigh. And two, that a man from America who had obviously had some kind of Christian background could consider himself a Christian and yet engage in worldly behavior condemned by the Scriptures. To me this is an example of the kind of thinking occurring in many churches today justified under the label “freedom in Christ.”

When I came out of the bathroom I gave the woman who was sitting there a ten-peso coin for a “propina” (a tip). She sits there all day collecting money for the use of the bathroom and selling toilet paper. With my gesture of kindness I said, “En el nombre de Jesucristo”. I wasn’t brave enough to take on a brawny tattooed professing Christian but I wanted to identify with Christ in a small way.

Just before it was time to leave I watched three young bucks strut up the beach with an obvious attempt to show off for the girls. They looked to be late high school, muscular, cocky. Suddenly without warning, one of the Dominican young men, the one with his hair dyed blonde, took three fast steps forward, jumped into the air turning a complete 360 degrees, and landed on his feet in a perfect gymnastic move worthy of the Olympics. Unfortunately my wife and the others weren’t there to see it.

We walked to the Metro bus in time to buy our tickets and have an ice cream cone before its departure at 5:50. Before boarding the bus I asked the terminal attendant for the bathroom. I was directed to a urinal in the side of a building located in a shallow cement stall … no door … simply a urinal that looked like a low water fountain. Although I had to use it, the situation was a bit too public for me to be comfortable … although the people passing by didn’t seem to notice or care.

The sun retires every night between 6:30 and 7:30 all year long, so it was dark by the time we reached our home town of Santiago around 8:00 and took a taxi home. The trip to the beach was over. Out of the eleven hours we were gone, eight was spent getting there and back and only three hours were spent on the beach itself … just another trip to a Dominican beach.

Pagan Christianity

2009-08-08T07:38:00.000-07:00

In my various trips through the Old Testament prophets in the last few years, I’ve discovered something which I call “Pagan Christianity”. The heart of this phenomenon is succinctly summarized in this phrase from Jeremiah 32:33.

And they have turned unto me the back, and not the face.

This gives an interesting mental picture of how the nation of Israel was approaching God, and the reason God was bringing judgment upon them.

For a long time I used to think that Israel simply turned their back on God. In my mind I saw Israel one day saying, “I’m tired of serving God. I’m going to try the religion of my pagan neighbor for a change.” So presumably they left the temple and built a new idol somewhere else.

Now, I’m not sure that this is an accurate picture of what actually happened. The next verse adds more information.

But they set their abominations in the house, which is called by
my name, to defile it. Jer 32:34

In other words, instead of throwing out what they had, they simply added to it little by little … changing it just enough to suit their purpose … and still be able to call it godly and righteous. They turned their backs on God, but not their face. This makes more sense when I compare it to my own fleshly tendencies.

In my youth, along with Peter of old, I frequently said to myself, “If I should die with thee, I will not deny thee in any wise.” Knowing what Christ had done for me and the fervor I felt in those early years, I could not picture myself ever turning away from God.

As I’ve grown older I’ve learned more about myself and the weakness of my flesh. Evil presents itself to me more commonly as “the little foxes that spoil the vines” (Song of Solomon 2”15) rather than “a lion in the streets” (Prov 26:13). The path of apostasy is strewn with small compromises carefully justified by a deceived heart.

There is a way that seemeth right unto a man, but the end
thereof are the ways of death. Prov 16:25

Therefore the nation of Israel had come to a place where they were worshipping idols (have turned unto me the back) but were saying, and probably even believing, that they were worshipping God (but still thinking they were facing him.) Jeremiah explains the mechanism of this sad process of pagan Christianity a few chapters earlier.

The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked
who can know it? Jer 17:9

Jeremiah confirmed this when he admitted:

O LORD, I know that the way of man is not in himself: it is not
in man that walketh to direct his steps. Jer 10:23

Now this is a terrifying concept if you stop to think about it. In Jeremiah we are told that prophets were prophesying lies and false visions and divination (14:4), they were near with their mouths but far away in their reins (affections, emotions, feelings,) (12:2), and they thought they were worshipping God when in fact they were walking in the imagination of their evil hearts (11:8-10). How did they get to that point? And, more pertinently, how do I know that I am truly seeking God, or if I’m merely following fleshly desires cloaked under a mantle of righteous sounding reasons?

The danger is real … I know. In my own experience I’ve been caught red-handed in this trap of hypocrisy many times … especially in my marriage. I will say that I am serving my wife, but when certain layers are stripped away I realize I am actually serving myself. Maybe some can identify with this. So how do I know if my heart is deceived?

It is interesting to note the verses that follow this mechanism that Jeremiah laid out. After he mentioned that the heart was so deceitful that no one could know it, he says:

I, the LORD, search the heart, I try the reins. Jer 17:10

And after Jeremiah reminds himself that the way of man is not in himself, that he doesn’t even know how to make the right decisions, he states:

O LORD, correct me … Jer 10:24

The answer to my fear of hypocrisy, and the antidote to apostasy, is … the Word of God! The answer is not subjectively analyzed. The Lord reveals it objectively in His word.

The attitude of Israel toward God’s word is traced through Jeremiah:

They have not hearkened unto my words, nor to my law, but
rejected it. Jer 6:19

The word of the LORD is unto them a reproach; they have no
delight in it. Jer 6:10

Finally a day came when they were confronted with God’s words through Jeremiah, and their scoffing remark was “Where is the word of the LORD?” (Jer 17:15) Without knowing it a person can be practicing pagan Christianity if he does not delight himself in the Word of the Lord.

My school teaching job is starting next week, and in my typical pattern I am having nightmares of unruly classes. I’m also thinking through daily schedules and life priorities. This type of introspection seems to accompany the beginning of every school year for me.

I suppose this is why the book of Jeremiah hit me so hard this year. It made me ask the big questions. What am I doing in the DR? Am I really serving the Lord, or have I made it sound like I am, both to myself and to others? Am I deceived or am I living a life of faith? Am I a pagan Christian or a growing Christian?

To be honest, I’m not sure I can answer those questions. And when I try, my thinking gets all gummed up inside, if you know what I mean. But if there’s nothing else I’ve learned in Jeremiah, it’s this …. if I honestly delight in the written Scriptures, God is faithful to convict me of sin and reveal the truth. He will search my heart, and try me, and correct me… if I am in the Word.

So, rather than second guess my motives, I’ve decided to approach this year in the same way that Jeremiah approached his “job” expressed within the pages of his book.

1. Decide to trust and hope in the Lord with everything I do instead of
in the flesh.

Cursed be the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm,
and whose heart departeth from the LORD. Jer 17:5

Blessed is the man that trusteth in the LORD, and whose hope the
LORD is. Jer 17:7

2. Understand that I cannot trust my own heart since it is deceitful, so
look to God to direct my steps and correct me.

O LORD, correct me, but with judgment; not in thine anger, lest
thou bring me to nothing. Jer 10:24

3. Daily set aside time that allows me to be in the Word on a consistent
and personal basis.

Thy words were found and I did eat them; and thy word was unto me
the joy and rejoicing of mine heart: for I am called by thy name,
O LORD God of hosts. Jer 15:16

In his second letter to Timothy, Paul warns that as we move closer to the end times the church will not endure sound doctrine and will eventually have a form of godliness but deny its power. I honestly believe that we are seeing today what Jeremiah was addressing in his day … apostasy in the church and in the lives of individual professing Christians as they refuse to separate from the world and tremble at the word of God.

For who hath stood in the counsel of the LORD, and hath perceived
and heard his word? Who hath marked his word, and heard it? Jer 23:18

I Am Resolved

I am resolved no longer to linger, Charmed by the world’s delight;
Things that are higher, things that are nobler … These have allured my sight.
I am resolved to go to the Savior, Leaving my sin and strife;
He is the true one, he is the just one … He hath the words of life.
I am resolved to follow the Savior, Faithful and true each day;
Heed what He sayeth, do what He willeth … He is the living way.
I am resolved to enter the kingdom, Leaving the paths of sin;
Friends may oppose me, foes may beset me, Still will I enter in.
I am resolved, and who will go with me? Come, friends, without delay;
Taught by the Bible, led by the Spirit, We’ll walk the heav’nly way.
I will hasten to Him, Hasten so glad and free;
Jesus, greatest, highest, I will come to Thee.

by Palmer Hartsough

In The Place Which He Should Choose

2009-07-11T13:45:00.000-07:00

An interesting phrase punctuates the end of chapter 9 in the book of Joshua in the Bible … “in the place which He (God) should choose.” Before this phrase was penned, Joshua had led the people across the Jordan on dry ground. In this miraculous event God demonstrated that His spirit was upon this new leader as He had been with Moses. Then, in the first battle in the Promised Land, Jericho falls with a blast from the trumpets and a shout from the people. A few days later, after a reminder of total obedience to the God of Israel, the neighboring city of Ai is destroyed in a mighty victory.

Then Joshua builds an altar unto the Lord God of Israel in Mount Ebal. He made the altar according to the exact specifications spelled out in the written law of God. Then he wrote a copy of the law of Moses on the altar and afterward assembled all Israel together to read every single word of the law to everyone ... including the women and children and strangers that were among them. (Josh 8:30-35)

Then we come to the chapter where we find this mysterious phrase ... "In the place which He should choose". (Josh 9:27) The inhabitants of the land hear of what is happening and begin to create military alliances to fight against Israel. At least five kings mobilize forces to march against Israel. In the meantime however, one of the cities hatch a different plan.

Gibeon was a prominent city, as powerful as one of the country’s royal cities, and "all the men thereof were mighty." (Josh 10:2) They had a better chance of resisting Israel than Ai did. But they had heard about God’s command to Moses to destroy all the inhabitants of the land and they believed that the Lord God was powerful enough to do it. So they proposed a plan of deception.

Pretending to come from a far distance to seek and worship the God of Israel they asked for asylum and to be admitted as fellow worshippers. Evidently this concept was not new to the leaders of Israel because there was already a contingency of “strangers” who traveled with Israel and worshipped with them. So Joshua and the princes of Israel made a league of peace and protection with them. Then the Scriptures succinctly state: “and the men … asked not counsel at the mouth of the Lord.” (Josh 9:14)

Realizing their mistake three days later, Joshua and the leaders of Israel were properly embarrassed before the congregation. To avoid the wrath of God for breaking a treaty, they allowed the Gibeonites to live, but they relegated all of them to the position of forced labor. From that day onward, the Gibeonites cut wood and drew water for the congregation and for the altar of the Lord … "in the place which He should choose."

A careful reader of Scripture has to pause for a minute to ask why this little phrase was added to this sad story. The phrase, of course, was not new to the writer of this book (probably Joshua) or to the people of Israel. When Moses repeated the law to these people in the book of Deuteronomy just a few months before, he used this phrase six times in chapter 16 alone! It is as if Joshua finally understood what Moses had been trying to say... "Remember, Joshua, it is not about what seems right and logical to you at the time. Life is always about seeking God's counsel in the Word and finding what He should choose."

One morning during my Bible reading I read this verse:

“Bring my soul out of prison, that I may praise thy name:
the righteous shall compass me about;
for thou shalt deal bountifully with me.” Psalm 142:7

In the margin I had scrawled in pencil “A verse for my daughter 4-28-08”.

And in the next chapter this verse was underlined:

“Cause me to hear thy lovingkindness in the morning; for in thee do I trust:
Cause me to know the way wherein I should walk; for I lift up my soul unto thee.” Psalm 143:8

In the margin I had penciled these words: “Santiago Target decisions 5-3-08”.

I was reading Scripture that God used in my life a year ago to wrestle through some big decisions and to comfort me in some heavy concerns that I had at the time. It felt like a grandmother must feel as she runs her fingers over an old photo.

A year has passed and God has been faithful. A year of teaching in a Christian school hasn’t killed me. Our apartment is set up and livable. Our daughter is out of prison and has been living with us for almost a month now. The righteous have compassed us about with many emails of joy and encouragement. If I may, we have crossed the Jordan and we are now ready to dwell in the Promised Land.

Based on this story of Joshua I can assume that once God begins putting the pieces of a puzzle together that we have been working on for a long time, it is easy to make decisions without taking the time to consult God. I need to remember that our lives ahead here in the Dominican Republic should still be lived “in the place which He should choose.”

I don’t know why Joshua forgot that lesson, but I figure he was maybe under a little pressure knowing that five kings were marching against him very soon. In my case I know that when the school year will start in the middle of August (kind of similar to five kings marching toward me in battle), I will have the tendency to make decisions without taking the time to seek God’s face. My sincere desire for our little temporary family is that, for as long as the Lord has us together, we will dwell in our Canaan “in the place which He should choose.”

The Condo on the Beach

2009-07-10T09:48:00.000-07:00

A generous friend of ours knew that he was giving up his lease on a condo at the beach at the end of June and wasn’t going to be around to use it. So he offered its use to some of his friends. So thanks to his kindness and the grace of God my wife and I had the privilege of spending a few days at a condo at the beach with my mother and our daughter. This was looked forward to with great eagerness since we had not been to the beach since last August.

There are two major bus lines here in this country. The more modern, sleek, expensive line is the Metro which we have always used for our jaunts to Santo Domingo when we visited our daughter. The Caribe bus line is a bit shabbier and less expensive. So we have affectionately dubbed it the poor man’s bus. This is the bus we chose to ride for our two hour trip to the beach since the terminal was closest to our destination.

The green and yellow Greyhound-style bus stopped when we reached Sosua, a popular North Shore tourist town, and we were informed that this was the place to get off. As the bus sped off leaving us in a cloud of blue smoke we realized that we were nowhere … no terminal, no stores, just somewhere in a little town on the side of a road with two large suitcases and one Grandma who was going to be overcome with heat exhaustion any moment.

Cherish grabbed the first taxi she saw in order to get us off the road … an old car with seats that looked like they came from a hillbilly’s shack. Carol was a bit concerned because the trunk wouldn’t close and figured that the luggage would bounce out on the pot-holed roads. But we made it safely a few blocks to a local air conditioned grocery store. While the women did some shopping so we would have food at the condo for the next few days, I stayed out in the small oven that had a sign on it that said “taxi” in order to protect the luggage. The taxi cab driver kept wiping the back of his neck with a dirty white towel while trying to make conversation with phrases such as “sol caliente” or “mucho calor”.

Although the car looked like the winner of a demolition derby, the driver was a nice man and agreed to take us to the condo, which was probably three miles outside of town, for 300 pesos (about $9.00). Beggars aren’t choosers so we took him up on it. The next time we needed a taxi we found a large SUV with air conditioning for the same amount of money which we used for the rest of the time.

The view from the condo balcony was like something from a picture postcard. However, two details were left out in the condo description which made a huge difference to us. One was that it was on the third floor in a building with no elevator. The second was that only one of the three ceiling fans worked, and that fan only on low. None of the two air conditioners were functional. But some of the times a breeze would come off the ocean which made it tolerable.

We couldn’t get enough of the view. I noticed that about 90% of our time was spent on the balcony just sitting in the chairs and watching the scenery. The beach was basically a private beach

but it had its traffic … local condo dwellers taking a stroll, a woman and her son looking for shells, a horse and a rider from the nearby Sea Horse Ranch, a miniature Chihuahua barking at a sand crab, and, of course, the endless rhythm and sound of the waves. The whole experience was quite mesmerizing.

The condo is roughly half way between two popular beach resort towns … Sosua and Cabarete. In my mind I loosely compare them to Cannon Beach and Sea Side, Oregon which we used to visit regularly when the kids were smaller. Sosua, like Cannon Beach, is smaller with snorkeling and a museum of Jewish history. Cabarete is like Sea Side … lots of go-carts, night life, windsurfing, and activity. As a result Cabarete was our choice to visit the next day when we decided to do our souvenir shopping for Grandma.

We hit the streets around 10:00 that morning and were done in an hour. To be honest, I think Grandma would have bought anything just to say that she was done so that she could get out of the heat and humidity. I asked the lady of a small souvenir shop if Grandma could sit in her plastic chair under an overhead fan while Carol and Cherish were finishing shopping. She agreed. The back of the seat was cracked and it was wired together with baling wire but it was sturdy enough to give Grandma some temporary respite. When They came later to show the floppy beach hat they bought me so I wouldn’t look like a tourist, they looked around at the jewelry and bought some bobbles. So this lady’s generosity paid off a little bit.

When the shopping was over we made a beeline to the beach which is only a block or two from the main street no matter where you are. The little alley we chose as a path to the beach dropped us into a little place called Guinness Irish Pub, so we found a table and ordered something to drink. We sat under a large fan around a heavy wooden table for the next hour sipping on some very fancy tropical drinks with umbrellas stuck in them.

Eventually we moved just outside the pub onto some beach recliners under the palm trees to set up sort of a base camp. If at least one person stayed with our paraphernalia, the rest could walk, look for sea shells, and wade in the ocean … whatever.

When I noticed that Grandma had been gone a while I decided to find her. Five minutes later I saw her in the distance stooping over to pick up another small shell. I should mention here that after two days of combing two beaches, there seems to be no sizable sea shells deposited on these beaches here on the north end of the island. There’s probably a scientific reason, but all a person can find are small shells … which Grandma found plenty of.

When I caught up with her I noticed she had her hometown newspaper with her. The local newspaper in Caldwell will put your picture in the paper if you take a picture of yourself holding the paper in another country. She did this the last time she visited us in Venezuela and she wanted to do it again. So I suggested that this beach would be a great location for her picture since it is world famous for windsurfing and kitesurfing.

Just as she posed with the newspaper and I was ready to snap the picture with the curve of the tropical beach behind her, two topless female sunbathers walked slowly into view on their way to the water. Resisting the urge to snap the picture as joke, I lowered my camera and said, “You’ll have to wait a minute … look.” When she turned to see what was happening she was properly embarrassed. We Idahoans are just not adjusted to the European influence that we see pop up occasionally on the beaches here.

For the couple of hours that we hung out on the beach we had to constantly contend with the private vendors wanting to sell us their wares … homemade sweets, picture albums, sun glasses, jewelry. There was one woman that passed us maybe four or five times with a basket of fruit on her head with a large knife standing on end. She was a large black woman and she must have walked five miles in the sand just in those few hours we were there.

The way these vendors caught your attention was varied. My favorite was a round faced younger woman selling some kind of a picture album. She came directly to Carol saying, “oh, my, you are such a beautiful woman.” Then pointing to her wares she added, “To look is free!”

Locating a restaurant on the beach we decided to have a late afternoon lunch so we wouldn’t have to cook when we came back to the condo. It took a long time for them to take and make our order of chicken nuggets and a DR special, but this is typical in this country. We used our time to talk and watch the beach sights. Grandma's favorite sight was the native boy hired to rake the sand in front of our table and then wet it down with a garden hose. With the little bit of ocean breeze blowing on that garden hose mist, it made her feel cool. All enjoyable experiences associated with this visit had to have the descriptor “cool” attached to it.

Carol ordered an interesting shrimp dish where each shrimp looked like it had just been taken out of the ocean. In fact, it was just like the crayfish we dissected in biology class this year. I could identify the antennae, the eyes, the thorax, and the swimmerets. As it turned out, my scientific observations were not very appetizing. We finally had to ask the waitress how to eat something that looked like a miniature lobster. She didn’t know! So we just cracked it open with our fingers and peeled it like a very tough egg. Sometimes we feel like the country hicks we are.

The man with the air conditioned SUV taxi picked us up at Cabarete and dropped us off at the condo to relax for the rest of the evening after a full day. We played a crazy card game that Grandma taught us called Hand-and-Foot and took a dip in the pool before bed time. About that time I began to wonder what the common people were doing.

Designating our last day at the condo as a “do nothing” day we simply enjoyed the last few hours of this trip to paradise by relaxing. That evening I heard many excited screams coming from the beach. It was nearing evening and the waves were the largest we had seen since being here … presumable from the storm that had passed through the day before and treated us to the most fantastic thunder and lightning show we can remember seeing over an ocean.

The amusement park sounds intrigued me so I went down to the beach to find a group of about six people trying to ride the crashing waves. So I joined them. I discovered that if I swam past a certain point where the waves were breaking that a person could bob up and down on the crest of each big wave giving a sort of roller coaster thrill. It was so much fun that I forgot that I was out of shape. I paid for my hour of water aerobics for the next two days of sore muscles.

When Grandma came to investigate some time later I knew it would be too turbulent for her to come into the water, but I wanted to talk to her, so I began to swim to the shore. I rode a wave in and was deposited about 20 feet in front of my mother. However, I lost my footing and fell down.

She was talking to a couple of the girls who had been there originally. When I made it to my feet I looked up at them to say something clever to regain my dignity. Suddenly the eyes of all three of them became very round with panic as they looked at me. Just as I lifted my hands to shrug with a gesture of “What?” a huge wave hit me broad side on my back. The wave was taller than I was and I had no idea it was coming.

The wave crashed me forward in a tumbling ball of legs and arms, and then when I thought I could take a breath it dragged me back into the ocean across the sand filling my swim suit with handfuls of sand and feeling like sand paper on my skin. I knew consciously what was happening but I couldn’t control it.

Both women with Grandma were young and asked Mom, “Should we jump in to rescue him?” Oh, that would have been one for the Moscow newspaper … “RETIRED MOSCOW SCHOOL TEACHER PULLED FROM OCEAN BY 25 YEAR OLD GIRL.” Fortunately Grandma thought I could take care of myself and gave me a second to regain my composure. Eventually I found my feet and made it to shore a bit more humbled.

For a date Carol and I walked up the beach one evening to find a small restaurant that someone told us about. The name of the place was Natura Cabana and was absolutely idyllic. Located under a large conical thatched roof, the tables were elaborately set but no one was there. It was 5:30 when we arrived and a friendly waiter asked if he could seat us. We looked at the menu and placed our order. After opening the bottles of water and pouring it over the ice in our cups in a way that reminded me of pouring champagne he casually mentioned in an accent, “Do you know restaurant not open til 7:00?” (Another situation where we are supposed to know the rules but nothing is posted.)

After a bit of awkwardness he disappeared. Just as we were getting our things together with plans to return in an hour and a half, he came back and said, “I talk with chef and he say he start early for you.” With our gratitude expressed we asked if we could walk around to enjoy the grounds. What we found amazed us!

Unbeknownst to us, we had stumbled into a nest of New Agers. This place is some kind of a spiritual retreat center to help people “maximize your mental momentum and reconnect with your inner self.” Each of the ten cabanas (or bungalows) had a distinctive personality with unique architecture using local materials like cacoba, bamboo, coral, and artistic stonework … all illuminated seductively under the concepts of Feng Shui (whoever that is).

For “greater disconnection and spiritual growth” they even have a Yoga temple … the perfect place for uplifting the spirit (of darkness), practicing yoga, and meditation. I found it interesting to note that it was advertised first as a place to reconnect with your inner self, and then as a place to disconnect. Does anyone understand this stuff?

I think my personal favorite was the Attabeyra SPA (the goddess of waters in Taino culture). This SPA is the center of “spiritual” leisure offering all types of treatments such as massages, facial, mud or chocolate wraps (?), reflexology, and steam baths in their mystic “Mushroom”. The Taino Indians, by the way, was a sub-group of American Indians that lived in the Dominican Republic when Columbus landed here. They had many gods who were always angry and had to be pacified by elaborate and numerous sacrifices. Similar to our own North American Indians, they were an idolatrous culture … certainly nothing to be resurrected and emulated. But then again, that is exactly what the New Age religion is doing … bringing back idol worship and darkness … the doctrines of demons. Even though it seemed so ridiculous at first that it appeared humorous to me, after a few minutes humor was replaced with a deep sense of sorrow.

A comment by Walter Chantery seems appropriate here:
“No one who has God’s spirit can walk through our world without deep groaning of sorrow and distress when the stench of immorality fills his nostrils.’”

It seemed that I felt some of what he was talking about as I walked through those grounds. Coincidently two celebrities had died on this same day … Michael Jackson and Farrah Fawcett . Both were very talented and by outward appearances had seemingly gained the world but lost their souls. It was a somber note to reflect on.

At the restaurant, a pretty woman, who appeared to be on the back side of 30 introduced herself as the owner, expressed her desire that we enjoy ourselves. I could only imagine the unrest she had underneath that pleasant façade. And just think! All this spiritual refreshment and idol worship is yours for the modest price of 130 US dollars per night per person. Of course, this does not include SPA treatments, food, or a 16% sales tax.

On the way home at dusk as we hiked through the sand back to the condo, the sky was ablaze with the pinks and oranges of a tropical sunset over the ocean.

My heart and my mind later went back to the words of a Psalm that I read a few days before:

Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but unto thy name give glory, for thy mercy,
and for thy truth’s sake. Wherefore should the heathen say, where is now their God?
But our God is in the heavens: He hath done whatsoever he hath pleased.

Their idols are silver and god, the work of men’s hands. They have mouth but they speak not. Eyes have they but they see not: They have ears, but they hear not:
noses have they, but they smell not: They have hands, but they handle not:
feet have they but they walk not: neither speak they through their throat.

They that make them are like unto them; so is everyone that trusteth in them.
O Israel, trust thou in the LORD: he is their help and their shield. Psa 115:1-8

Out of Darkness

2009-07-10T06:31:00.000-07:00

“Oh that men would praise the Lord for his goodness, and for his
wonderful works to the children of men! For he satisfieth the
longing soul, and filleth the hungry soul with goodness. Such as
sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, being bound in affliction
and iron; Because they rebelled against the words of God, and contemned
the counsel of the most High: Therefore he brought down their heart with
labor; they fell down, and there was none to help. Then they cried unto
the LORD in their trouble, and he saved them out of their distresses.
He brought them out of darkness, and the shadow of death, and brake their
bands in sunder.” Psa 107:8-14

When I read these verses exactly one year ago before I came to the Dominican Republic I saw my daughter’s face on every verse, and with a father’s heart I prayed that God in His goodness would “satisfy the longing soul” and bring her “out of darkness.” Specifically my three biggest requests were that He would meet her spiritual needs, protect her physically, and release her from prison.

One year later (June 15th) I was reading the same passage and I still had the same concerns, so I laid those same three requests before the feet of Jesus.

Two hours later the phone rang. A friend told my wife that they had picked up the judges’ decision for her recent appeal and Cherish was to be legally released on parole! In fact, he was on his way to deliver the decision to the prison and to get Cherish.

At 1:00 that afternoon Cherish called on a cell phone as she was in the car pulling away from the prison. She was absolutely giddy! She knew that morning when she got up that it was the day to receive the decision of her court appeal, but during her devotions told the Lord that as much as she wanted out, she truly wanted His best for her life. It had not escaped her notice that when she rebelled against the words of God, He brought down her heart with labor. It was in prison when she cried unto the Lord in her trouble. He sent His word and healed her … in prison. So she knew that it could still be God’s will for her to remain in prison.

So she got up that morning and continued her normal routine of prison life not wanting to take anything for granted. I believe that once she has started this parole request five months ago with the resulting roller coaster ride of hope and disappointment, she has been humbled under the sovereignty of God, and like Nebuchadnezzar has learned that the Most High ruleth over all the earth. At least she expressed sentiments similar to this to me.

Somehow the inmates learned the news of her release before she did. While she was busy with her routine prison chores she looked up to see a group of screaming, excited girls running toward her. Some were in tears of joy … some in tears of sorrow knowing she would be leaving. I can hardly imagine the bond that these girls must feel after being together for four years in a hard situation like this.

While she was on the phone with us for the first time as a free woman I asked what she was going to do. With a slight hesitation she said, “I haven’t thought about it … and I don’t think it matters right now.” She couldn’t get over the feeling of being able to look around without seeing an “agent” (prison security guard), or to lift her arms without having handcuffs on. Oh, she did mention to Carol that she was thinking about robbing a bank. I’m pretty sure she was joking … right?

Our daughter spent the night in the capitol Santo Domingo so she could visit a few of the Christian friends who had been such a support and fellowship in the last few years. It reminded me of Peter in the book of Acts when he was miraculously released from prison. He immediately went to share the news to his Christian brothers and sisters who were praying for him.

While our daughter was in prison, the computer game Wii was invented, we can see our granddaughters while talking with our son in Japan on something called “Skype”, and Cherish lost both of her grandfathers. She is catching up on the technology, but nothing can replace the loss of family or the memories of being able to say a proper goodbye. One of her main prayer requests was to be able to see her only surviving grandmother …. my mother. God answered that prayer in a wonderful way.

On the same day that her grandmother boarded a plane to fly to the DR to visit us, our daughter walked out of prison as a “semi-free” woman. And, on the same day that Grandma landed in Santiago, Cherish came up to welcome her at the airport. On that day (June 16) we saw our daughter for the first time since she was on parole and saw my mother for the first time in a year.

For the next two weeks we witnessed an answer to prayer as our daughter and her grandmother spent time together. Grandma taught her how to line dance. They swapped stories, walked on the beach, shopped at malls, and went to church together. Just as my wife’s grandmother Sasser has been a strong, godly example in her memory through the years, I believe Grandma Dale will be the same for our daughter who sincerely wants to please God.

Grandma has gone back to Idaho now and we are beginning a new life together with our daughter. I praise God that He brought her out of darkness, and the shadow of death, and brake her bands in sunder.

In Quietness and in Confidence

2009-06-04T16:03:00.000-07:00

My wife and I received news a few months back that our pastor in Idaho is struggling with several medical conditions that they are trying to sort out, and it is taking a long time. An otherwise robust man who finds joy and confidence in being independently active and serving others is suddenly unable to do much … except wait.

Even though my wife and I are removed from the situation since I am teaching school in the Dominican Republic, we have been praying for him and his wife. Recently the Lord laid them on our hearts so we sent an e-card to express a word of encouragement.
The message I wanted to convey was inside of me but clarity and succinctness seemed to be out of my grasp. Even after I sent the card I felt like I didn’t say what I wanted to say … but I didn’t know what to say differently. So I continued to mull it over in my mind.

It seems that this situation with my pastor is not unique. Even from personal experience I know that the Lord allows circumstances into a believer’s life over which he has no control … something so big that it defies “fixing” by human effort no matter how hard one tries. During those times we are faced with a decision. Do we become bitter, impatient, or so desperate for help that we compromise our faith to get out of it? Or do we wait on the Lord? It seems to me that it becomes a tool that God uses to force us into the crossroad of sanctification … the crossroad of whining or waiting. So I guess the question I was actually wrestling with is how one should respond during these times we can’t do anything but wait.

Our experience here in the DR was precipitated by our concern to help our daughter who was sentenced to seven years in a foreign prison. Our plan was to find a job here, set up a household, and petition the judges to allow her to be released on parole for the remainder of her sentence. Although it is not as common for foreign prisoners, we knew that it was a reasonable request that was possible to be granted, so we put our plan into action.

She petitioned for her release in January and, without going into detail, suffice it to say that it is now June and we are still waiting. How does a person who desires to walk with God respond during these times when all he can do is wait? I feel in a small way, in principle, if not in circumstance, that I share a similar battle of faith that my pastor must be facing … and I didn’t know how to put it into words.

The very next morning after I sent the e-card I was reading in Isaiah. Some verses stood out to me which I believe gave some insight into answering my question.

“For thus saith the LORD GOD, the Holy One of Israel;
In returning and rest shall ye be saved;
in quietness and in confidence shall be your strength:
and ye would not.” Isaiah 30:15

In context this verse is part of a prophecy of God’s intended judgment upon Jerusalem:

“… this people draw near me with their mouth, and with their
lips do honour me, but have removed their heart far from me,
and their fear toward me is taught by the precept of men.
Therefore, behold, I will proceed to do a marvelous work
among this people, even a marvelous work and a wonder, for
the wisdom of their wise men shall perish, and the understanding
of their prudent men shall be hid.” Isaiah 29:13,14

These people professed to believe in the Lord and were going through the motions of their “religion” but it did not please God. It was the frantic motion and activity of the flesh “taught by the precept of men.”

To correct this natural tendency of the flesh, God placed in front of them a judgment. He tried speaking to them simply as one who corrects a child, but they would not listen:

“Whom shall he teach knowledge? And whom shall he make to
understand doctrine? Them that are weaned from the milk,
and drawn from the breast. For precept must be upon precept,
precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a
little, and there a little. For with stammering lips and
another tongue will he speak to this people.” Isaiah 28:9-11

Since they would not listen to simple teaching in their own language, he would teach them by using another nation with a foreign tongue to judge them … something beyond their control, to say the least.

When God brings “judgments” into our lives the reason is predictable because of His character… he cares about us and what we believe … and it is the same reason that He brought it upon Jerusalem:

“Therefore thus saith the LORD, who redeemed Abraham,
concerning the house of Jacob, Jacob shall not now be
ashamed, neither shall his face now wax pale. But when
he seeth his children, the work of mine hands, in the
midst of him, they shall sanctify my name, and sanctify
the Holy One of Jacob, and shall fear the God of Israel.
They also that erred in spirit shall come to understanding,
and they that murmured shall learn doctrine.“ Isaiah 29:22-24

And it is just as predictable that our response will usually be the same as the people in Jerusalem:

“Woe to the rebellious children, saith the Lord, that take
counsel, but not of me; and that cover with a covering but
not of my spirit, that they may add sin to sin: that walk
to go down into Egypt, and have not asked at my mouth; to
strengthen themselves in the strength of Pharaoh, and to
trust in the shadow of Egypt.” Isaiah 30:2

When we first heard that our daughter was in prison, our reaction (after the “shock-and-denial-and-feeling-guilty” stage) was to turn to Egypt. We wrote senators and harassed the Embassy looking for any way possible to get her out of prison … all to no avail. Nothing we have tried over the last four years has worked … and we have been forced by circumstances to wait.

As believers we all live in a body of flesh that wars against the things of God. God has called us to “walk in the Spirit and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh.” (Galatians 5:16) So God allows these circumstances of “judgment” into my life on a regular basis for this very reason … my sanctification. He is sovereign and knows what we need and at what time, and it is a source of joy to know that it is for a “perfect work.” (James 1:4)

The good news is that as true believers we have the strength to endure and emerge victorious:

“We know that whosoever is born of God sinneth not; but he that
is begotten of God keepeth himself, and that wicked one toucheth
him not.” I John 5:18

Another dimension that I missed in this whole concept is seeing it from God’s point of view. Wrapped up in my own world I didn’t see the patience of God. He is also waiting … for me to grow up.

“And therefore will the LORD wait, that he may be gracious unto
you, and therefore will he be exalted, that he may have mercy
upon you: for the LORD is a God of judgment: blessed are all
they that wait for him.” Isaiah 30:18

By faith I truly want to embrace these times of rest and quietness. I want to pray instead of worry, learn doctrine instead of go to Egypt. My prayer for both my pastor and myself is that, as we face this time of waiting on “God’s judgment”, our strength would be in quietness and in confidence.

“Then judgment shall dwell in the wilderness, and righteousness
remain in the fruitful field. And the work of righteousness
shall be peace; and the effect of righteousness quietness and
assurance for ever.” Isaiah 32:16,17

Policeman Lying Down

2009-05-04T08:12:00.000-07:00

Many motorcycles and cars were ignoring the speed zone in front of our small school where I am a teacher here in the Dominican Republic. In an effort to protect our patrons we constructed two large speed bumps … one on either end of the entrance to our school. Now the speedsters have to slow down or experience dire consequences.

Recently, one of my colleagues who is trying to become more proficient in Spanish asked a Dominican taxi driver how to say “speed bump” in Spanish. The taxi driver replied, “Policia acostado”. Translated this means, “Policeman lying down”. He went on to say that if it is a particularly large speed bump they call it “Captain of the policeman lying down.”

We all need to slow down … and I’m convinced that God places speed bumps in our lives on a regular basis to force us to wait on Him. My wife and I have experienced this several times since we moved to the DR last fall, and more recently … with our daughter.

One of the main reasons for accepting the job offer at Santiago Christian School was to establish a stable home for our daughter to come to when she was released from prison on parole. This was supposed to happen in January, and to condense a long story down to a number of small speed bumps, she didn’t come to court for her parole request until April 3rd at which time we felt pretty confident that she would be released. Then, due to circumstances none of us could have foreseen, she was denied parole and we have had to slow down and wait on the Lord one more time.

For various reasons, our daughter felt it was prudent to appeal her case rather than to wait for three months to re-apply for parole. The law states that when an appeal is made the court system must reply with a new court date within 20 days. So our daughter immediately submitted an appeal and we began our 20-day wait for the reply.
Two weeks later we had still not heard from the court system and I read these words from my Bible one morning before school:

“I had fainted, unless I had believed to see the goodness of the Lord
in the land of the living. Wait on the Lord: be of good courage, and
he shall strengthen thy heart: wait, I say, on the Lord.” Psa 27:13,14

How many times had I read these verses over the last 46 years of my walk with God? But this time I saw the truth in a different light. It revealed to me the reason that God puts speed bumps in our lives. These verses are the testimony of a man who had walked with God from his youth (Psa 71:17) and it comes at the conclusion of the chapter. Looking back, we see that prior to uttering these amazing words David had described his driving motivation of life:

The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord
is the strength of my life, of whom shall I be afraid? Verse 1

One thing have I desired of the Lord, that will I seek after; that I
may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold
the beauty of the Lord, and to enquire in his temple. Verse 4

When thou saidst, seek ye my face; my heart said unto thee, thy face,
Lord, will I seek. Verse 8

Teach me thy way, O Lord, and lead me in a plain path, because of
my enemies. Verse 11

David is virtually shouting his desire to know God, to walk in a path that pleases God, to live in God’s strength rather than his own. This desire resonates with my own … and I would also venture to say that it is the desire that the Spirit places within the heart of every person at the new birth.

So how do we get to know God and receive this spiritual strength for godly living? David concludes simply that when we come to those speed bumps that God places in our lives, those circumstances over which we have no control, and we wonder if we will ever see the goodness of the Lord again as long as we are alive, that we should “wait on the Lord … and he shall strengthen thy heart.”

A day after that encouragement from the Word, we received a message from our daughter to let us know that her appeal has been scheduled for May 21st. At that time she will appear before a type of Supreme Court and will have a chance to share her testimony one more time … only this time before five judges. So we are now in the middle of what has been a 33-day wait. (Are you seeing a pattern here?) And who knows what will happen on the 21st?

In the meantime in the land of the living we are seeing the goodness of the Lord. My school’s board of education granted me special permission to go to the court on that day with my wife to be with our daughter even though I have already used all my allotted “personal days” of leave for this year, so they were very gracious.

Just before Christmas a teacher who was moving back to the States sold us her bed so our daughter would have something to sleep on. During Semana Santa (“Holy Week” where schools are released for the week before Easter) I came down with a pretty nasty cold and was sick six of the seven days. (In my eyes this was a “Captain of the policeman lying down” because we had to cancel a trip to the beach!) Because of my irritating cough at night I decided to sleep in the other bedroom on our daughter’s bed to allow my wife to get some sleep. For the first time, I discovered that I wouldn’t let my dog sleep on that bed (if we had one.) So now we are going through the tedious steps of buying another bed … a project in itself guaranteed to increase faith in 12 arduous steps for any couple who has moved to a new country, does not speak the language, and has no personal transportation. This extra time of “waiting” has given us the opportunity and time to hopefully get this done before she comes.

Our daughter continues to call us twice a week with her five-minute reports of her extended time in prison. God is ministering to her heart in a similar fashion and she is sounding more humble in her conversation. In each of our lives both she and we are seeing God’s goodness and learning what it means to live in His strength as we wait on the Lord’s timing.

Isaiah put it this way:

“The Lord is exalted; for he dwelleth on high … and wisdom and
knowledge shall be the stability of thy times, and strength of
salvation; the fear of the Lord is his treasure.” Isaiah 33:5,6

This is something that all believers need to learn and practice, and it is best learned as we wait on the Lord … when God puts in front of us a “policeman lying down”.

The Eight-day Wait

2009-04-05T18:05:00.000-07:00

For eight days we waited. Ever since our daughter presented her request for parole in court last week we waited for the phone call that would tell us what the judge decided.

She has spent three and a half years in the women’s prison … half of her original sentence … and according to the law here in the Dominican Republic she is qualified to request “freedom”.
If the prisoner has papers in order, a person lined up who agrees to give her a job (called the “Garante”), and has a record of good behavior, she is quite predictably allowed to spend the rest of her sentence living and working in the country. For this reason we moved to this island eight months ago to teach in a Christian school and set up an apartment so she could with us when she was released. And now it was Friday, the day we were to receive the news.

Friday was a half day of work … an early release from school to accommodate the upcoming spring break. In this mostly Catholic country this upcoming spring break week is called Semana Santa (Holy Week) and it is a major time of partying. Without a Catholic upbringing I lack the perspective to understand what is truly happening, but as I understand it, many people don’t go to work, the beaches and resorts are packed, and there are many drunken parties. It is the end of 40 days of Lent … and these people do know how to break Lent! Trying to teach the concept of “Integration by Substitution” to my calculus class on that last day was difficult. It was like a jockey on a thoroughbred race horse trying to keep him under control as he steers him into the starting gate.

Somehow the students survived my class, the bell rang, and they charged out the door at noon. When the last student disappeared I reached for my cell phone to see if my wife had heard any news. In my limited understanding it seemed pretty certain what the news would be.

Several months ago the judge who has been handling our daughter’s case asked to meet us. He knew that soon he would be arbitrating a parole request and wanted to meet the people that she would be released into the custody of. At that time he impressed us as a compassionate judge who truly cared for prisoners and wanted to do what was right and was favorable to the idea of releasing our daughter.

Then several months later when he knew he was going to be absent on the day of her scheduled hearing he called our daughter personally to tell her not to show up. He didn’t want her to have a substitute judge who was unfamiliar with her situation and risk the chance of denial. Her papers were collected and in perfect order, the garante came to court and testified on her behalf, and her record of participation in the prison showed her to be a model prisoner. And … to top it all off in my plan … it was Semana Santa … a full week of not having to work at school. It was the perfect timing for God to release her so we could have an unpressured reunion with our daughter.

Number 2 on my cell phone quick-dial brought my wife’s voice on the second ring. Yes, she had heard some news. The parole request had been denied! Although I had prayerfully and mentally rehearsed my dependence on God’s will and timing in this matter, a person does have to plan ahead for the future based on what seems will logically happen, if you know what I mean.

It seemed very logical that she would be released, so we planned to leave town Friday night and stay overnight at a friend’s house with her before going to the beach for the weekend.

Carol had her clothes ready to pack lying on the bed and I made sure I withdrew some money from the bank and ate some lunch before coming home. We were all ready to go … just in case. And I suppose this is the way it has to be in a sinful world when a finite man wants to serve an infinite God.

“A man’s heart deviseth his way: but the LORD directeth his steps.” Proverbs 16:9

It is the stuff that the daily walk of faith is made of. So, in my understanding, the test comes not in whether we plan correctly or not. It comes in the attitude we demonstrate when we receive “bad news” … or news that informs us that our plans aren’t going to turn out the way we thought they would.

At the moment Carol told me “the news” I thought of Job in the Bible. When he heard the bad news that he had lost his children, his health and his fortune, his attitude was:

“Naked came I out of my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return thither:
the LORD gave, and the LORD hath taken away; blessed be the name of the
LORD.” Job 1:21

How could I dare entertain thoughts of doubts or despair in such a small matter when I know that God is good and in control. So I turned my budding disappointment over to God … the same thing that Job must have done many times as a habit in the small areas before he ever came to the larger test recorded in Scripture. Only that morning Carol and I had discussed a verse in Proverbs we had read:

“The king’s heart is in the hand of the LORD, as the rivers of water: he turneth it
whithersoever he will.” Proverbs 21:1

We truly wanted to believe and act on the truth that God is sovereign.

As Carol hung her clothes back up in the closet I talked on the phone with a friend of our daughter who had visited the prison to talk with her. This friend had also picked up the paper that had the court decision recorded on it and who also talked with the lawyer to find out more details on why this unexpected decision was handed down.

Evidently a judge was recently discovered to be corrupt. He was convicted of taking money from people in exchange for judicial favors such as making sure certain prisoners were released from prison. Bribery and corruption are common in this country but it is not legal and certainly not prudent for elected officials to be caught or suspected in such dealings. Since this incident happened only two weeks earlier, the prosecuting attorney, and court system in general, were watching for anything that smacked of corruption. We discovered, contrary to what we thought earlier, that every prisoner who requested parole on that same day with our daughter last week was denied their freedom … everyone! It was a hot issue and no judge was willing to risk suspicion.

To complicate matters, Cherish appeared on a television show only two weeks earlier during which she was interviewed. As she shared her testimony she made the statement that just as God had given her spiritual freedom, she was confident of getting her physical freedom soon. The prosecuting attorney jumped all over that one and the rest is history.

Shortly after arriving home on Friday afternoon my wife and I went for a walk. The temperature was 85. The sun was out and it was the perfect climate for walking … like it is most of the time here in Santiago. We needed time to talk things through and regroup with this unexpected news.

By the time we came back home an hour later we both felt that it was important to visit our daughter at the prison the next day on Saturday. Her prison is located about a half hour from the capital and it takes roughly two hours on a Greyhound-type bus to get to the capital (Santo Domingo) from where we live. Since the visiting hours are from 9–11 AM we have to get up at 4:30 in order to make it. Carlos, a friend of our daughter, picked us up at the bus station and took us to the prison. The four of us were able to fellowship together for two hours. What a delight to share things of the Lord with our own daughter! This is a gift beyond measure!

On the bus ride back home, in my typical linear fashion, I tried to summarize what happened. My honest feeling is that our daughter has accepted this situation in the attitude of Job and is living in joy and faith trusting that God has a reason for this delay. She confessed that during these last eight days she was so confident that she would be getting her freedom that she lost “the fire in my bones like Jeremiah had”, as she put it. Although she spoke to one woman who made a profession of faith, she felt that she was cooling off in her relations with other women since she was leaving soon. So she prayed and asked God to restore the fire.

“It is interesting,” she noted as we conversed with her, “that God answered my prayer on the same day that I heard that I could not get my freedom.” As the rest of the day unfolded she was able to talk individually with seven women to share her attitude of joy and obedience to the Lord even when things seemingly fall apart. In fact, many of these women sought our daughter out to talk with her because they had heard what happened and couldn’t understand why she was still singing as she cleaned the bathroom.

As one can probably imagine, in a prison of over 300 women there is virtually no privacy. She also confided to us that modesty is a virtue that she has severely redefined since coming to prison. When she needs time to pray and read the Scriptures she hangs a blanket down from the upper cement bunk to create a small bubble of privacy on her cotton-padded mattress. We told her that she was in good company because Suzanne Wesley, the mother of John and Charles Wesley, who had 19 children in 21 years, used to sit on the couch with her apron over her head when she needed privacy to pray. The children knew she was communing with God and did not bother her during these times.

As our daughter put the “apron over her head” Friday night to spend some time with her Spiritual Father, she felt the need to sing. For an hour she sang of her love for the Savior and her desire to walk with him … no matter what. Since coming to prison God has put a desire and ability to “Sing unto the LORD a new song …”, (Psalms 149:1) so she has written a number of songs that she sings from her heart. Here are the words to a song that she wrote this past week:

Nada en Este Mundo (Nothing in this World)

I don’t want anything in this world …
Passing, vile and dark.
Tell me, what do you gain living in such vanity?
Things I used to look for, the desires that used to call me,
Don’t have any power over me anymore. (2X)
Only Your love is what I look for … in this world;
Only Your life is what I desire to live here;
Only Your grace is enough for me … to live in You.
To know my Christ …. is what I desire;
This world is crucified for me;
I don’t look for anything in this world, there’s death and suffering.
Are you confused and tired, desperate to find
True love that fills you? Jesus’ arms extended to you,
You would be completed in Him. (2X)

These words are the translation. She writes and sings in Spanish. So for at least an hour while she was singing “alone” her voice echoed down the cement halls of the prison. This seems similar to the time that Paul and Silas were in jail. After they were beaten and their feet placed fast in the stocks, they prayed and sang praises unto God, and the prisoners heard them. Later when a great earthquake opened the doors of the prison and everyone’s bands were loosed, the terrified guard asked, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?”

An American Dominican woman came to the prison two weeks ago with a story almost identical to our daughter. She was arrested for the same charge, she has a Christian mother, and has not turned her own life over to Christ. Janet is one of the seven that our daughter shared with yesterday and is now meeting with her and praying she will receive Christ. The point I am trying to make with all this meandering is that our daughter’s attitude and spirit was an encouragement to us when we visited with her on Saturday at the prison.

On a practical level we are planning the future, carefully remembering to add in our hearts the phrase “if the Lord wills.” A Christian lawyer who was present at the hearing last week saw what happened and has decided to take over her case. He presented an appeal to the court Friday afternoon on her behalf. By law they will respond and give her a date for another court hearing within 20 days. During the next court date she will be giving her testimony before five judges who will hear the case. Therefore by the end of April we will be taking another trip to San Cristobal to support her as she presents another appeal for freedom (Lord willing).

Now ... we begin our twenty-day wait.

The Most High Ruleth

2009-03-28T17:02:00.000-07:00

In the book of Daniel in the Old Testament two stories are recorded about God’s intervention in the affairs of men. The first story told about Nebuchadnezzar, the great king of the Babylonian empire, who was driven from his throne by madness and spent seven years in the wilderness eating grass like oxen. The second story describes Belshazzar, the son of Nebuchadnezzar, who hosted a large drunken party and used the golden vessels from God’s temple. He watched in terror as a large hand wrote a message of judgment on the wall.

In both cases Daniel explained to these men why God was doing this: “........ until thou know that the Most High ruleth in the kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever He will.” Daniel 4:32

This lesson must be important because it is repeated almost word for word at least four times in this book alone. The assumption can also be made that it must be a difficult lesson for man to learn. This is not surprising when I look at the classes that I teach here at the Christian school in the Dominican Republic. The students have been friends with each other for years and the Dominican culture is famous for its fondness of social events. So in my classroom it is difficult for them to learn one of my cardinal rules: “Math class is not a social event!”

The assumption that it is a hard lesson to learn is also not surprising when I look at my own life. How many times in the last month have I been angry or dejected simply because events didn’t turn out the way I had planned? Indeed, the fact that God is in charge of His universe and decides what He wants to do is something we all need to learn on a consistent basis as long as we are alive. Jeremiah was trying to express this, I believe, when he prayed:

“O Lord, I know that the way of man is not in himself: It is not
in man that walketh to direct his steps. O Lord, correct me,
but with judgment; not in Thine anger, lest Thou bring me to
nothing.” Jeremiah 10:23, 24

In my judgment this is exactly what happened this past week during my daughter’s court case. As most of my readers know, our daughter has been in a Dominican prison for the last 3 ½ years. Our prayer from the beginning was for God to use us to help her in any way that we could. God eventually opened the door for me to teach at a small Christian school in the Dominican Republic and we have been living here for the last 8 months. A basic rule of probation in the DR is to allow a prisoner freedom when half the sentence has been served if she has a place to live and a person to employ her. We moved here in order to satisfy the first condition.

The date for her parole request occurred two days ago on Thursday March 26th. Her papers were in order, both prosecuting attorney and defense attorney showed up, and the judge sat on the bench with about 50 people crowded into the small court room which had seats for only 25. The stage was set for something we had prayed for and anticipated for over 3 ½ years.

Three ladies in the women’s Bible study that Carol attends accompanied us to San Cristóbal, the small town outside of the capital city where the courthouse is located. One of the ladies volunteered to transport us in her car along the two hour journey from Santiago to the courthouse. If you know anything about the condition of the roads in a third world country and the woeful lack of appropriate signs, this in itself was a miracle of grace that we arrived at 8:58 a.m. --- two minutes before the proceedings were scheduled.

When we entered the court room we saw an austere looking female guard standing next to our daughter who was seated and handcuffed to another woman prisoner. She was dressed in pale green dress pants and a matching flowered blouse that she had borrowed from an inmate friend and greeted us with a hug and joyful countenance. My first thought when I saw her was that this lovely young woman is a direct result of God’s grace.

Shortly after she was incarcerated she came to grips with the claim that Jesus Christ had on her life. When she repented of her sins and was marvelously converted she literally became a new creature. Her testimony continues to be “I came to prison to find my freedom.” But on this day we were all expecting her to be literally set free.

After an hour of waiting for the hearing to start a man told us all in Spanish to rise. Dressed in a black robe and black hat shaped like a round 2-layer cake with a purple pom-pom on the top, the judge took his seat and we all sat down to commence the hearings.

Several prisoners were waiting with their lawyers and “garantes” to present their request before the judge. As the uniformed bailiff called out a name, each prisoner was released from his handcuffs and approached the bench while both lawyers stood. The prisoner had to stand on an unmarked position directly in front of the judge who sat behind an elevated bench about six feet away. Near the judge’s gavel stood a wooden crucifix about 8 inches tall directly in the line of sight between the judge and the prisoner. It was a solemn reminder of how much God values justice.

At the request of the judge the prisoner spoke for a few minutes and then faced the prosecuting attorney who usually had a few questions. Then he sat down while this process was repeated with the “garante” ... the person who guarantees a job and puts up bail money for the time that the prisoner is released for the remainder of his sentence.

After the “garante” sat down, the prosecuting attorney (with a black robe and a blue pom-pom on his hat) and the defense attorney (with a black robe and white pom-pom on her hat) presented their case to the judge. Then with a bang of his gavel, the judge made a decision and called for the next case.

Our daughter was the third prisoner to be called forward. What ensued was to me a most remarkable scene. Up to this point the proceeding sort of resembled my classroom in some of my nightmares during the week before school starts each year. More people were standing than were seated. It was so crowded that they were literally stepping on one another. Cell phones were ringing; people were murmuring in hushed tones, lawyers droned on in a dutiful monotone voice that I couldn’t have understood even if he did speak louder.

When Paul in the book of Acts was arrested he used his times in court as an opportunity to share his testimony. Our daughter decided to do the same thing. When she began to speak, the entire room was suddenly very quiet. At least 50 people heard about the slavery she found herself in as she lived for herself, and the freedom she found when she gave her life to Christ. One woman commented later, “You could have heard a pin drop.”

But another feature of that courtroom was noticeably different. The prosecuting attorney, no longer soft spoken and monotonistic, responded with an impassioned plea to deny this woman her parole.

Two weeks earlier, a local Christian television station decided to highlight the women’s prison. It is the first prison in the country to model the concept of rehabilitation. As a result the women have opportunities to take various classes to learn skills such as sewing, hairstyling, cooking, music, English and others. About fifteen in-mates were selected to come to the TV station to talk about their experiences and show off the clothing they sewed and crocheted, and also food they prepared. Our daughter was among these women who came because she was part of the choir of women that sang. The television host, an older man with a compassionate heart, singled out our daughter during the program to share her experience. For a few minutes she shared the gospel through her testimony to the television audience. This program was so widely watched and commented on that they repeated it again the next week. Because of the small size of the country, it was broadcast throughout the entire Dominican Republic.

During her testimony, she made a comment which the prosecuting attorney did not like. She had said that she was confident that the Lord was going to give her freedom soon. The prosecutor argued that if she were released after so many people on the island heard this “boast” that it would send a message to people that the justice system can be (or had been) manipulated by these Christians.

In an animated response, the defense attorney argued that this was simply a statement of faith made by a woman who believed in God. Nevertheless, the damage was done. The judge ruled that it was a valid point to consider and that she needed to stay in prison while he considered his decision.

On April 3rd we will hear his decision. The worst part about this is that because of the language barrier we are in the dark. When we asked the Spanish speaking people to translate what happened we heard several different stories. So I suppose that we will never know the actual truth of what was said and what happened. Many of our daughter's friends are Christian people who are well meaning and want the most positive results, so it is hard for us to sort out what was actually said from what these people believe will happen.

So Cherish is still in prison and we are still waiting — and in our human frailty questioning why. Why couldn’t the judge simply have slapped the gavel and said “you’re free” like he did for the prisoner before her. And what will eight more days accomplish? Or 3 ½ years?

Without being presumptuous I think I know the answer. She will stay in prison “until thou knowest that the Most High ruleth.” Over the years I have learned that I have a very stubborn heart. I learn lessons quite slowly. A month ago when I heard that the judge called Cherish personally to advise her not to go to court on her appointed time because he wasn’t going to be there, I began to project future events. Hmmm … the judge is on her side. This is in the bag! I also mentally rehearsed how much my wife and I have given up in order to be here and how much we’ve prayed and worked for this. I quietly reviewed all the places in Scripture where God seems to honor faith and prayer and sacrifice.

My confidence subtly shifted from “the Most High that ruleth” to looking at a set of favorable circumstances and focusing on my own efforts (however spiritual they may sound). So God has to remind me that the future is His not mine. In the book of James this attitude of thinking I am in charge of my future and that I can manipulate God by praying hard enough or working hard enough is condemned.

“Go to now, ye that say, today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a
city, and continue there a year, and buy and sell, and get gain; whereas
ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is
even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away.
For that ye ought to say, If the Lord will, we shall live , and do this,
on that. But now ye rejoice in your boastings: all such rejoicing is
evil." James 4:13-16.

So what will eight days accomplish? Maybe we will be a bit more sanctified by the truth (John 17:17), maybe a bit more purged by the Word (John 15:2,3), maybe a bit more renewed in my mind (Roman 12:2), and maybe a bit more:
“found in Christ, not having my own righteousness, which is of the law
but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which
is of God by faith: that I may know Him, and the power of His resurrection
and the fellowship of His sufferings being made conformable unto His death:
if by any means I might attain unto the resurrection from the dead.”
Phil 3:9-11.

After all, isn’t this what it’s all about? --- learning how to live by faith in the reality that “the Most High ruleth.”

Liberty to the Captives

2009-02-22T15:25:00.000-08:00

On the way to the Dominican Republic to teach in a Christian school last fall my wife and I took an Amtrak train trip from Idaho to Indiana to catch our flight. After a pressured summer to get ready for this huge step in our lives, we were looking forward to unwinding for a couple of days on the train before jumping into our brave new world.

My Bible reading schedule placed me in the book of Isaiah, so on the morning of our second day on the train I read these verses from Isaiah 61:1-3:

"The spirit of the LORD God is upon me; because the LORD hath anointed
me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the
broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of
the prison to them that are bound; to proclaim the acceptable year of
the LORD, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all that mourn;
to appoint unto them that mourn in Zion, to give unto them beauty for
ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the
spirit of heaviness; that they might be called trees of righteousness,
the planting of the LORD, that he might be glorified."

Many will recognize these verses, as I did, as the passage of Scripture that Jesus read when he initiated his public ministry in his hometown synagogue. These words describe not only his mission, but the heart of our God and Savior Jesus Christ. Indeed, it is the very reason Christ came.

“And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name JESUS:
for he shall save his people from their sins.” Matt 1:21

When I read those verses penned by Isaiah I laid the Bible in my lap and tearfully petitioned God again to hasten this day for our daughter.

In one sense I have been grateful that our daughter was sent to prison three years ago. Even though she was living in another country and didn’t tell us many details of the kind of life she was leading, we knew that she was on a fast track to destruction. When she was eventually arrested and sentenced to seven years in a Dominican prison, her train was de-railed, so to speak, and was forced to look at herself and her future in a different light.

Foreign prisons have a way of stripping away arrogance and it wasn’t long before she came to grips with God’s claim on her life. Today, her testimony is “I was sent to prison to find my freedom.” So, yes, I am grateful that God in his mercy loved our daughter enough to arrange circumstances to prepare her heart to receive an eternal pardon. As we have visited her in the prison over the last couple of years, we have watched the Spirit give her “beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness.” Praise God that today she is literally a tree “of righteousness, the planting of the Lord” and that God has been truly glorified. However, as her parents, we have also been praying for the physical deliverance of our daughter from prison.

In the Dominican Republic it is customary for prisoners to be available for parole when half of their sentence has been served. If a prisoner has modeled good behavior, has the promise of a stable job waiting for her, and a “garante” to be released into the custody of, she can appear before the judge. At this time she will request to serve the rest of her sentence out of prison but staying in the country as she reports to a parole officer once a month. Sometimes it is difficult for a foreigner to come up with the requirements for parole since there may be no contacts or family in the DR.

As we have prayed for the prison doors to be opened over the last three years, God placed on our hearts the desire to move to the DR. In time, the Lord provided a job opportunity for us and we are now working and living in a city three hours away from where our daughter is imprisoned. We are praying that the judge will see our compassion and commitment and release a certain foreign prisoner into our custody.

The end of January marked the time when our daughter served half of her sentence so she submitted all the required paper work to the judge --- and then we waited. By the way, the accumulation and submission of this necessary mountain of paper work was a miracle in itself. We had to gather notarized (and translated) copies of everything from school contracts to birth certificates, from apartment rental agreements to utility bills that we’ve paid.

The most baffling part of this for me was to picture how a foreign prisoner could get an offer of a job … which was one of the requirements for her release. Who would want to hire an ex-con who is a foreigner and whom they may have never met? It seemed very illogical to expect that. This was a lesson in faith for me. God in his grace has given her several people who have indicated an interest in hiring her.

“But … our (daughters) dealt proudly and hardened their necks, and
hearkened not to thy commandments, … but thou art a God ready to
pardon, gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness,
and forsookest them not.” Nehemiah 9:16,17

Recently we have heard that her papers were received and were in order, and that the judge has set the court date for March 5th. If everybody shows up on time (which can be a major problem in this country) then our daughter will present her case and the judge will make a decision.

When the Lord told Samuel to go to Bethlehem to anoint a king to replace Saul, he did not tell Samuel that it was the shepherd boy David until the very last moment. God had one more lesson to teach this aged man of God:

“For the Lord seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward
appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart.” I Samuel 16:7

Likewise, I realize that the Lord has led us here to the DR for more reasons than to provide a safe-house for our daughter in her transition to a “normal” life. God has many lessons to teach my wife and me on our way to “Bethlehem,” so I don’t know if this will work out as we planned. We are taking one day at a time. But right now we are fervently praying that on March 5th God will “proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound.”

The Truth Shall Set You Free

2009-01-30T16:28:00.000-08:00

Because I teach in a private school in the Dominican Republic that provides an American education, I enforce a unique rule in class which I have never had to worry about in my 38 years as a public school teacher before I retired. The students are not allowed to speak Spanish in my classroom.

The first period tardy bell rang and I closed my grade book dramatically as a signal that biology was ready to begin. With a goofy grin a student named Isaac said something in Spanish to another student across the aisle. I opened my book again to make a notation as I verbally reminded him of the rule. When he protested, indicating that I must have heard him wrong, I responded, “Then we have a problem to sort out. Please remain after class to talk about it.”

When the class was over and the students were filing out of the room Isaac came to my desk and with a nervous glance asked, “You want to talk with me?”
“I understand that you think I made a mistake,” I replied. “Tell me what happened.”
After listening to a short rendition of an account intended to justify himself I looked him in the eye and asked directly, “Did you speak in Spanish?”

Not far from us was one last student who had not left the room yet, slowly shuffling his papers in a thinly veiled attempt to eavesdrop. When Isaac lowered his eyes and answered my question with, “Well, maybe … just a little,” my little eaves dropper suddenly burst out with, “And the truth shall set you free!” So I told Isaac, “Then you are FREE to go … thank you for the TRUTH.”

This small incident is an example of something that has been on my heart recently in wake of the presidential election results and recent inauguration ceremonies. I found myself asking questions such as: What is the truth? Where do we find it? How important is it on a day to day existence? What role does it play in the life of a contemporary Christian?

All of the staff at Santiago Christian School are professing Christians. In order to teach here they must agree to a statement of faith which is, in my opinion, impeccable. Each must have a personal testimony of faith in Christ and a heart to see the gospel shared in their classrooms. This is all to say that the varied cross section of Christianity which these teachers represent is basically conservative and evangelical … but most of them are young … quite young.

As I rub shoulders with these young teachers I am surprised by certain statements:
- “I voted for Obama because I think he’s cool.”
- “As long as you’re faithful I don’t see the problem with homosexuality.”
- “I am addicted to the ‘Twilight” books.” (A series of books about a girl
who falls in love with a vampire)
- “Have you read ‘The Shack’ yet?”

These snippets of conversations by no means represent the entire faculty or the stance of the school obviously, but it grieves me that there is confusion on the most fundamental issues by some of the best representatives of our Christian youth.

When Nehemiah was sent to be the Tirshatha (governor) of Jerusalem by Artaxerxes, king of Babylon, he found the state of Jewish people to be lacking in a similar manner. They were marrying outside of the faith, allowing a mixed multitude to worship with them, allowing businesses to operate on the Sabbath, charging interest on debts and foreclosing on properties of their brethren, using the house of God to give special privileges to an ungodly, influential foreigner, and not adequately providing for the Levites and the singers who worked in the temple.

All of this was, of course, contrary to the truth that God had clearly spelled out in his written word many years before, and this group of Jews was a godly remnant who were sincere about their faith and the state of Jerusalem. So why weren’t they obeying? The answer to this may be found in the book of Nehemiah as we see his response to a situation which I find remarkably similar to what I am encountering here.

“And my God put into mine heart to gather together the nobles, and the rulers, and the people, that they might be reckoned by genealogy.(7:5) And all the people gathered themselves together as one man into the street that was before the water gate and they spake unto Ezra the scribe to bring the book of the law of Moses … which the LORD had commanded to Israel.(8:1) So they read in the book in the law of God distinctly, and gave the sense, and caused them to understand the reading.(8:8)

And they stood up in their place and read in the book of the law of the LORD their God one fourth of the day, and another fourth part they confessed, and worshipped the LORD their God .. (9:3) (They) cried unto the LORD their God … “Stand up and bless the LORD your God forever and ever and blessed be thy glorious name, which is exalted above all blessing and praise. Thou, even thou, art LORD alone; thou hast made heaven, the heaven of heavens, with all their host, the earth, and all things that are therein, the seas, and all that is therein, and thou preservest them all; and the host of heaven worshippeth thee. But our fathers dealt proudly, and hardened their necks, and hearkened not to the commandments … but thou art a God ready to pardon, gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and forsookest them not. Nevertheless they were disobedient, and rebelled against thee, and cast thy law behind their backs … And thou testifiedst against them, that thou mightiest bring them again unto thy law… Now therefore, our God, the great, the mighty, and the terrible God, who keepest covenant and mercy, let not all the trouble seem little before thee. Howbeit thou art just in all that is brought upon us; for thou hast done right, but we have done wickedly.”
(9:4-6, 17,26,29,32,33)

Nehemiah and Ezra had knowledge and understanding of what was written in the law. This is why they were grieved at what was going on around them. So they gathered the people together and simply read and explained what God had written. Not only did they see what happened to their own forefathers when the truth was ignored, they saw that this was exactly what they were doing. In the face of the truth they repented. It tells us later that they

“ ... separated themselves from the peoples of the land unto the law of God, their wives, their sons, and their daughters, everyone having knowledge, and having understanding … and entered into an oath to walk in God’s laws.”(10:28,29)

Does my heart burn when I read this ancient account of a people who ignored the truth of God’s word? It should … because, just like them, I believe we are in an unprecedented time in the history of the church where we are departing from the Word of God. We have voted for a man who promised several policies contrary to God’s will because he is “cool”. We are enamored with books that flirt with the occult. We find more pleasure in worldly entertainment than in communing with God; we read books about the Bible more than we read the Bible directly. We have allowed our time in the Word to be so minimal that we seriously entertain ideas we abhorred only a few years ago.

When these people got back into the Word and saw the truth, they made a commitment to confess their sins and to separate FROM the world and UNTO the Word. Should I as a contemporary Christian do anything less? In a time when it seems like many Christians around me diminish the importance of the Bible in their daily lives, this passage convicts me about remaining committed to my time in the Scriptures. We need the truth to set us free.

I Spent Christmas Eve in Prison

2008-12-29T15:53:00.000-08:00

One of the major strands of the fabric of reason that led my wife and me to the Dominican Republic was the fact that our daughter is there. Yes, I did feel the distinct leading of the Lord to retire from public school teaching and to use my experience to “work for the Kingdom” in a more direct and full time basis; but underneath was always the hope and prayer that the Lord would use us to be a support to our daughter in the Dominican Republic.

After praying for a few years about this, the Lord opened a door of opportunity for me to teach at Santiago Christian School. Now I not only have the mission of sharing the gospel in the classroom of a nearly 80% non-Christian student body population, but it is only a few hours by bus to see our daughter. For the past five months we have been consumed with four major goals:

1. actively trying to set up our apartment so our daughter can live with us,
2. learning how to speak of God in the classroom after 38 years of being
trained not to,
3. learning to live in a different culture,
4. and, visiting our daughter as much a opportunity will allow.

Since her birthday is very close to Christmas we knew that we wanted to visit her sometime during the holiday break. The prison where she lives sponsors two unique visitation days during the year. One is on Christmas Eve and the other is on New Year’s Eve. Normally a visitor is searched thoroughly and only then he is able to enter almost naked (at least I feel naked without my mini Day-Timer and pencil!) and allowed to stay only two hours.

But on these two special days we are able to bring in food and stay most of the day. In addition, instead of being confined to the cafeteria for visitation as usual, we are allowed to wander around outside in the exercise area. So our goal was to visit on Christmas Eve and bring as much food as we could carry on the two-hour bus ride down to see her.

Since we don’t have our own transportation it takes a series of small miracles for us to visit this women’s prison just outside of San Cristóbal … even on a normal visit. So we were praying more fervently for this special Christmas celebration. Not only did she announce that we should bring extra food to feed 20 to 25 other foreign prisoners that she was inviting to eat with her, but she has also been organizing a special project of providing some physical needs for some of the women in this prison. This attitude in the life of our daughter is nothing short of a miracle.

There is nothing like a foreign prison to bring a person to ones knees … at least this was our daughter’s experience. After living a number of years on her own in a pursuit of pleasure and turning away from God she learned the hard way the meaning of what Christ said, “Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin.” (John 8:34) She became enslaved to her own appetites until one day a foolish choice resulted in a seven-year sentence in a Dominican prison. During that first year in prison, like the Prodigal Son, she “came to herself” and returned to the Father.

Our daughter has become a living example of what David wrote about in Psalm 116:3-9.

The sorrows of death compassed me, and the pains of hell gat hold upon me:
I found trouble and sorrow.
Then called I upon the name of the Lord;
Lord, I beseech Thee, deliver my soul.
Gracious is the Lord, and righteous; yea, our God is merciful.
The Lord preserveth the simple: I was brought low, and He helped me.
Return unto thy rest, O my soul;
for the Lord hath dealt bountifully with thee.
For Thou hast delivered my soul from death, mine eyes from tears,
and my feet from falling.
I will walk before the Lord in the land of the living.

Since her conversion, she has mentioned more than once, “I came to prison to find my freedom.” It has been 3 ½ years now and it is possible that she can be released on parole to live with us in the next few months. Sensing the short time left in this prison where she has made many friends and grown spiritually with many of them, she wants to do two things:

1. Begin encouraging other women to take the reins of spiritual leadership so
the work of fellowship and witnessing can continue when she leaves.
2. Organize a way to provide for the needs of some of the “forgotten” women
in the prison.
These concerns were on her heart as she looked forward to our visit on Christmas Eve, and we were praying that we could be used of God to help.

As soon as my school released for Christmas break on the 19th we put our full attention to the task of being ready to visit our daughter. As one can probably imagine, it took us four full days to find the right ingredients in this strange country, cook all the food, and organize the details of transportation. At the risk of an understatement I need to say that it is definitely harder to accomplish projects in this country. Carol’s apple pie is one example of this reality.

Wanting to bring special foods that our daughter hasn’t been able to eat in prison (such as an apple pie) we scoured several grocery stores to assemble the closest facsimiles of the necessary ingredients that we could find. Then on the day before we were to leave I peeled the green apples while my wife attempted to make the crust.
An hour later the apples were peeled but the crust had not materialized. It just plain did not turn out. After another half hour on the Internet she came back into the kitchen brandishing a viable alternative … a recipe called “Easy Apple Crisp”!

At the very instant that she finished putting the ingredients in the 9x13 glass baking pan with the brown sugar oatmeal topping, she knocked over an empty drinking glass on the counter which shattered. Although it was a distance away it took 15 minutes of peering through a magnifying glass to satisfy ourselves that no glass landed in the dessert.

Twisting the knob of the gas oven to the estimated Celsius degrees that supposedly corresponded to 375 degrees Fahrenheit she placed the glass pan on the rack, closed the door, and waited. About a half hour later we heard the sickening sound of a loud crack coming from the oven. Sure enough, the glass pan which we had purchased in a local Wal-Mart-type store had cracked in half. (She has now learned to stay away from anything that does not have the name Pyrex!) By now our “hope” tank was pretty empty, not to mention the “time” tank that was ticking away, so we reluctantly gave up on the apple pie/crisp and focused on cutting all the grapes in half to dig out the seeds for the fruit salad. Another lesson in patience and trusting God for events that don’t turn out the way we had pictured!

But, as Psalm 116 mentioned, God is gracious. We were ready to leave the next morning at 5:15 (barely … a late night gave us only a few hours of sleep); a friend picked us up to deliver us to the bus station (barely … on the way to our place he was blocked by a drunken parade of all night Christmas revelers); the food survived the two-hour bus trip (barely … we had to wipe up a few spills when we got there); and the family that picked us up at the bus station in Santo Domingo to take us to the prison also brought some food (lots of food)! So God had graciously provided for all our needs.

The woman that picked us up at the Santo Domingo bus station knew our daughter from visiting her with a church group who does a prison ministry. She has been saved for about 10 years and God has placed on her heart to have a ministry with these women prisoners. Although married to a Dominican she is from Peru, and her parents and brother were visiting for the holidays, so they came along. What a blessing to get to know this family … each one walking with Jesus with a testimony of being delivered from darkness to light in the last few years.

While many people waited in line outside the prison to get in, we simply drove up in the car which was laden with food, and with a few animated words of Spanish, the gates swung open. This in itself is very rare but this lady is known and trusted by the prison director. The director met each of us with a warm hug and a broad smile (a bit different than the austere prison warden that I had for a mental image before I came.) She has been here for only a half year and our daughter calls her a God-sent. The conditions of the prison have improved, a lot in part because she is recognizing the benefit of allowing Christian ministries more access to help the women.

True to her word our daughter had invited 20 to 25 women for our get together in the prison cafeteria. It reminded me of my few visits to the Rescue Mission with my pastor when I was in high school. With the food perched on the cement table and the aroma filling the large cafeteria, the women were asked to meet for awhile to hear the gospel first.

While Erika, our Peruvian driver, shared the message that God had laid on her heart, the ladies listened. I looked around at the assortment of prisoners that had gathered. Some were young and pretty … others were older and had the hard lines of a tough life etched in their faces. Among them were drug dealers, prostitutes, murderers … each hearing the gospel message that in the death of Christ our sins have been forgiven and eternal life offered to any who would receive the gift by faith. It reminded me of some verses in I Corinthians 6:9-11 that stood out to me this year in my Bible reading:

Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the Kingdom of God?
Be not deceived: Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor
effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, nor thieves, nor
covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit
the Kingdom of God. And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but
ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus,
and by the Spirit of our God.

When Erika finished sharing the simple message of salvation our daughter gave an animated testimony of how the Lord answered her prayer two days ago when she was asked to do an interview at the downtown courthouse in front of several judges and the district attorney. Evidently a number of men and women who were on parole had also been asked to attend. So she used this as an opportunity to give her testimony and was thrilled at the power and peace that God gave her to do this. And she wanted the women to know how God had helped her.

After she shared this testimony and praise with the women, they asked her to sing one of the songs that she has written while in prison. With her eyes closed and hands raised in praise she sang a song about the love and freedom that she has found in Christ in the middle of a hard situation. Although I couldn’t understand the Spanish words that she was singing, I could tell that the ladies who were listening could identify with its message. One lady next to me began to cry and continued throughout most of the meeting. It had the earmarks to me of the Holy Spirit’s conviction but I’m so lost with most of what goes on in this culture with its strange language and customs that I couldn’t tell for sure. But later when our daughter talked with her she discovered that this woman wanted to turn her life over to Christ.

Erika, our Peruvian evangelist, talked with her and another woman who wanted to turn from lesbianism and smoking with the power of Christ. Both wanted to make a public decision in front of everyone so we prayed for them. Later another woman, with tears in her eyes, told me (in Spanish) that she had been praying for this woman to receive Christ for a long time.

A jubilant, rotund woman from Jamaica found my wife and me and gave us a huge bear hug as she pointed to her feet. The shoes we had bought for her a couple of months ago were the only shoes she has owned since coming to the prison two years ago. This was the first time she had the opportunity to thank us personally.

Another delivery of pajamas and undergarments and clothing were delivered on this day again to women who are too poor to buy anything. Many Latin prisons, including this one, depend on the care of relatives to provide for their inmates. Those women with no relatives nearby have many needs since they are without proper clothing and food and love. Our daughter has seen this and organized a “project” which she introduced to some of the people who minister in the prison. These people in turn have related this concern to their respective churches. With her inside information and the generosity and love of God’s people, many of these women are now being provided for in the name of Jesus.

After the preaching and testifying was over, two large pieces of butcher paper were taped to the wall and the women were divided into two groups to play Pictionary. This is one activity I felt I could be part of … a competitive game! The only problem is that I couldn’t tell when to stop drawing because they were shouting the answers out in Spanish. But this didn’t keep my side from winning by one point. (Yeah!)

When the food was uncovered and the flies shooed away, the women lined up to feast on food they hadn’t seen for a very long time … rice, chicken, fresh-fruit salad, deep fried steak strips, “I-Can’t-Believe-It’s-a-Dip” with chips, Dominican-style potato salad, chocolate chip cookies, Rocky-road fudge, and pop. Even after the ladies finished, much food was left over, so they brought it outside to offer it to the other inmates who had visitors with them sitting under large white awnings. It reminded me of the story when Jesus fed the 5000 but still had 12 basketfuls of food left over … nothing wasted but plenty for everyone.

Erika and her family remembered that our daughter’s birthday was in a few days. With great flare they produced a huge chocolate cake with a large, lighted six-inch candle in the middle. She managed to blow it out before the breeze extinguished it. Then the women sang “Happy Birthday” in English with an accent so heavy that I had to chuckle to myself. Before the song was over, every person in that huge cafeteria had stopped what they were doing and joined in … finishing with some kind of peppy, hand-clapping Spanish rendition of birthday recognition that I wasn’t familiar with. The prison has about 350 inmates in it, and although they are divided into distinct cell blocks and living quarters (called “pabellons) they all know who our “gringa” daughter is.

After we finished eating we cleaned up everything and moved outside to make room for others who were waiting to come in. For the next hour or so we visited outside with our daughter and more in depth with her friends … most of whom we had heard about for several years but never met.

Since this sunny climate is not friendly to my white, bald head I had to seek shelter in the shade near the edge of the erected awnings. Unbeknown to us it had rained that morning and a pool of water had gathered on the awning just above my head. While my wife and I and daughter were deep in discussion, a sharp gust of wind caught the awning dumping the gallon of water on us like the proverbial “bucket-of-water-over-the-door” practical joke. About a hundred people behind us laughed hilariously. I guess we were a hit as we jumped up and began to shake the water off our heads like a dog after a bath.

No less than three times our daughter mentioned that this was the happiest day of her life. She was so excited that she couldn’t even eat even though she had looked forward to this meal since Thanksgiving when we planned it. I pondered that statement on the long bus ride back home… “The happiest day of my life.” Wow! It was uttered in genuine sincerity and I had no doubt that she meant it … but a girl in prison surrounded by less than desirable conditions and the riff raff of society … experiencing more joy and happiness than any time in her life? This is a miracle of God … not only in the obvious replacement of her heart of stone with a heart of flesh, but with the work that God has been able to do through her as she is open to the Spirit’s leading in her life.

The time ended too soon. Erika had to leave to rescue her husband from babysitting their two children, so we left with her early in order to catch the bus back home to Santiago. My wife and I were beat …. after experiencing the let down of a four-day project. We found a taxi driver who delivered us to our apartment safely and we went to bed early. As I look back on this holiday it is an understatement to say that it wasn’t exactly a normal or traditional holiday celebration, but I can praise God that He allowed me to spend Christmas Eve in prison.

Harry the Tarantula

2008-12-26T12:09:00.000-08:00

Back home in Idaho we have our share of venomous insects, but I had only seen pictures and heard stories of the legendary tarantula. I had never actually encountered one, but this all changed when I moved to the Dominican Republic and began teaching math and biology in Santiago Christian School.

Last week just before school started one morning, an attractive Dominican upper classman, whom I did not know, strode into my room with a round metal cookie tin which she held carefully in front of her. I noticed that the lid had several triangular holes punched in the top, obviously the work of a beer can opener. Scotch tape around the lid’s circumference held the lid on tightly.

“I heard that since you teach biology you might have use for this,” she began.

“What is it?” I asked hesitantly.

“Oh, it’s just a tarantula,” she responded casually. “I found it in my yard last night. If you can’t use him, kill him. I don’t care. I just didn’t want him around my house.” Then she turned and left with a last comment over her shoulder, “I think they eat lizards.”

My first period class was starting in a few minutes so I carefully placed the cookie tin on my desk out of the way of traffic and taught class until my prep period which was just before noon that day. Lurking in the back of my mind while I was teaching was the problem of how I was going to transfer the spider from the cookie tin to a quart canning jar … the largest transparent container I could find in my room. By my prep period I had concluded that I could make a funnel out of paper the same size as the mouth of the cookie tin and then tape the narrow end to the quart jar. All I could see in my mind was the newspaper headlines “Biology teacher at Christian School Dies of Spider Bite.” At this point I hadn’t had time to surf the Internet to find out that in the Dominican Republic the bite of a tarantula (also called “cacatas”) is rarely fatal.

With no one in the room I attached the funnel and attempted the transfer. I turned the tin upside down … and nothing came out. Wondering if this may have been some elaborate practical joke, I lifted the tin up. Suddenly the spider dropped out, missed the funnel, and landed on the table about a foot in front of me.

This is the first time I had ever seen a real tarantula. I had heard that they could jump several feet to attack and that their bite was fatal. Although I learned later that this isn’t true, my heart reacted as though it were true. This spider with its legs was as big as my right hand with my fingers spread out. It was covered with brown hair that made it look fuzzy, but not a comfortable teddy bear kind of fuzzy, if you know what I mean. This was a truly menacing sight … you know, the stuff nightmares are made of.

With the reflexes of a panicked man I threw the tin over the spider before he could get his bearings. With my heart still racing I dragged the tin to the side of the table until he dropped into the paper funnel and into the jar. With a sigh of relief I perched the jar on the table in front of the room to provide a teachable moment for the afternoon classes.

By the reactions of my students one would think they had never seen a tarantula either. And I suppose that most of them had never been around one so up-close and personal. Besides the normal questions of, “Ew, what is that?” or “Wher’d you get that?” the first thing each period wanted to know is what I had I named him. Without a second thought I affectionately dubbed him Harry, and announced that he was part of my new plan for classroom discipline.

Eventually my colleague in the next room who teaches the advanced biology class loaned me a small vacated terrarium with a lid, so for the next couple of weeks Harry had a fairly comfortable home. However, at my age I was not about to crawl around outside on my hands and knees looking for lizards to feed him, so I announced the dilemma to my classes. With many promises and several stories about encounters with lizards and spiders I was quickly assured that Harry would be well fed.

After a week with no food I told my classes I would have to let Harry loose if I didn’t get some food. One girl said she saw a lizard but by the time she went inside to tell her maid to catch it, it was gone. (Evidently household maids do more than clean the house and cook meals in this country.)

A freshman boy excitedly brought me two baby geckos in an empty pop bottle which we promptly dumped in front of Harry. Although one of the geckos was gone the next morning, it didn’t produce the observable feeding frenzy that they hoped to see. Added to that, I wouldn’t give in to their demands to give extra credit for spider victims, so I knew I would have to give up Harry.

My colleague who teaches physical science agreed to adopt him, so my room is now void of poisonous insects. It will be a while before I forget this first encounter with a “Harry” tarantula.

Thanksgiving in the DR

2008-11-29T12:17:00.000-08:00

The campus of Santiago Christian School has been quiet for the last few days. Although the Dominican Republic does not recognize Thanksgiving as a national holiday, our school does celebrate it, and we released early on Wednesday for a Thanksgiving break similar to the States.

For some reason I found it tragically amusing as I read about the school in Claremont, California who would not allow their kindergarten students to dress up like Indians and pilgrims to re-enact the history of this special holiday … because it is being racist!? It is evidently not a problem here. On Wednesday as I waited with the rest of the faculty for a special lunch served by our school cafeteria, I observed the bustling activity of the school yard around me as the grade school children were being picked up by their chauffeurs and parents.

Dozens of “pilgrims” and “Indians” paraded past as they hustled to find their ride home. The elementary school teachers used this holiday to talk about the faith of the pilgrims, their journey in the Mayflower, their history of hardships, and their attitude toward God for His providential care and protection … and ended with a re-enactment of that first Thanksgiving feast. Food was bought in, the kids dressed up in costumes, they ate, played games … it made me wish for one wild, reckless moment that I taught elementary school children instead of high school math. They were so cute!

But the amusing tragedy is that it seems a person has to come to another country now days to find Thanksgiving celebrated in the schools in an historical way because America is turning its back on its spiritual roots.

Carol needed some ingredients for a dish that she was preparing for a Thanksgiving meal that we were invited to the next day, so that same afternoon we grabbed a taxi and went to a store that is a Dominican-style Super Wal-Mart. It had the food selection that we needed as well as a hardware section to keep me busy while she shopped.

Before we could enter the store we had to check in our plastic sack of materials we carried downtown with us … an umbrella in case it rained and a sweater for Carol. The temperature has been creeping down into the high 60’s and lower 70’s recently, and, believe it or not, we are feeling chilly. One of my students came to my desk peering at me from beneath a hooded sweatshirt like some Jedi Knight saying, “I don’t know what it’s called Mister, but when I got up this morning my teeth were bouncing against each other.” This is as cold as these people here ever experience in this country. Carol and I aren’t quite that acclimatized yet, but we do remember to bring a light sweater on a downtown excursion.

With our bag checked, we went our separate ways to accomplish individual objectives and reconvened an hour later to merge our two baskets of goods and to check out of the store. Remember, I am talking about two gringos in a crowded checkout line who speak virtually no Spanish. As I laid the items from the shopping basket onto the counter, the checkout lady began jabbering in Spanish. At the end of her sentence she looked at my blank stare and shrugged with a frown saying, “No entiende” which probably means something like, “He doesn’t get it, does he?”

The man bagging our goods was motioning me to do something, my debit card was not acceptable, I didn’t have the right amount of change …. and, at that very moment, Cherish (bless her heart) calls on Carol’s cell phone to sing to her happy birthday. To a man who can’t even walk and chew gum at the same time, this was a severe case of sensory overload.

Somehow we finished the phone conversation, made the payment, and were herded out of the store by a tip-hungry cart-pusher into a taxi. Half way home I realized that I had forgotten our bag that we had checked in. At this point I considered myself fortunate to be almost home in one piece and I had not the ability nor desire to correct the situation. A sense of anger and frustration formed around me like a poorly camouflaged black cloud which I found out later was not hidden from Carol.

This day before Thanksgiving was not a great one for Carol either. It was a day she turned a year older and here she was in another country trying to find ingredients for a traditional Thanksgiving dish she had never made for a group of people of whom many she had never met. It was the third day of trying to put one recipe together and at least that many trips to different stores, and it was still questionable whether it was even possible.

Upon retrospect neither Carol nor I had reason to feel overwhelmed or frustrated or worried. By God’s grace her green bean casserole with almond topping (couldn’t find the traditional fried onions) was a success (based on how much was leftover), and the fellowship with a group of Christians from various parts of the world was sweet. We heard an encouraging exhortation from a veteran missionary to have a grateful heart for all things in our life including trials because God has called us unto holiness through suffering.

It seemed amazingly clear later. Even though we could hardly call the source of our frustrations “suffering” it was clear that we had simply taken our eyes off Christ when things didn’t go our way. Today we spent some time talking about our attitudes and failings of the past week and renewed ourselves again to walking by faith instead of by sight. Why is it so easy to walk in the flesh? My recent reading in Romans had a perfect description of this scenario:

“For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit, do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live. For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God." Romans 8:13, 14 KJV

The message I understood from this brief moment of illumination in the Scriptures is as simple as the gospel itself … I need Jesus to daily put to death the deeds of the flesh and live in the power of His resurrected life. This is a simple description of what Christians do.

So even though I am in a strange land, the battle is the same where ever I live … if I want to be led by the Spirit of God. Praise God for the life of Christ in us. Ultimately this is all we have … and it is what I am thankful for this Thanksgiving in the DR.

“ … the same Lord over all is rich unto all that call upon Him.” Romans 10:12 KJV

Meat in Due Season

2008-11-05T13:12:00.000-08:00

The day was measured in millimeters. Every minute had been planned and used to its maximum with the goal of being able to ride the school bus home with no home work to do … and therefore no back pack. I knew that it would take a day’s worth of effort and planning in order to make this happen. Up to this point I’ve had to bring work home every night and spend two to three hours along with the help of my wife just to be ready for the next day. So I knew that to be “back-packless” for an evening would take a monumental effort and impeccable timing.

It all started a week ago when we decided that we wanted a bank statement so we could know how much money we have in our Dominican bank account. We soon discovered that banks don’t send out bank statements here unless individually requested each month so we settled on the option of setting up an on-line account so we could check our own balance on the Internet. Of course, this simple goal was complicated by the fact that we could not read or speak Spanish very well so I asked one of the office workers at my school to help me fill out the on-line application. A half hour later she gave up and told me I had to go to the bank in person so they could fix some kind of problem that evidently existed with my account.

Carol and I planned it well. She was to get on my school bus where I was normally let off at the end of the day and then the driver would let us both off at the mall where the bank was located. After we took care of the problem, we could then walk home since the mall was only about a half hour away from our apartment. We have been told numerous times that when gringos go walking they should never carry a back pack. It is evidently an invitation for unscrupulous vultures on motorcycles who scour the city looking for victims to rob.

Not more than four blocks away from where we live a lady in our church stepped out of her car with a purse around her shoulder when a motorcycle came out of nowhere and did a snatch-and-grab. So I worked hard all day to make sure I could leave my back pack at school and go downtown to accomplish some banking business before they closed. I was successful and it went pretty well except some knot-head on the bus made the comment, “Hey, didn’t you forget something?” I’m not sure most of my co-workers have ever seen me without my white Tilley hat on my head and my Targus back pack around my shoulder.

When we entered the small branch office of Popular Bank, we were simply amazed. In front of us were no less than 25 people in a barely recognizable line feeding into what looked like two “cajas” (bank teller windows) in the far distance at the other end of the narrow room. Off to one side another six to ten people were sitting in chairs, others working on guest computers, chatting on cell phones, nervously clutching money to be deposited. Off to the other side behind glass windows resembling a huge fish bowl were women sitting behind metallic modular desks uniformly dressed in blue feminine business suits. Maybe this is normal in this country but to this poor American all I could see ahead of me was about an hour of waiting only to find out I had been in the wrong line. So after five minutes I decided to try another approach.

Two of the bank ladies were not in a fish bowl and therefore fairly accessible, so I left Carol in line, took a deep breath, and walked over to one of the ladies when the man she was helping left. My explanation of our problem was short and very clear. She looked at me blankly, and with a raise of her right hand said, “Un momento,“ whereupon she left her seat and disappeared into a neighboring fish bowl. A few minutes later she emerged with another young lady in tow dressed in the same blue uniform with six silver bracelets on her left wrist. This lady knew just enough English to know I had a problem but it took literally a half hour for us to come no closer to a solution. Upon retrospect I firmly believe she never did understand what I was saying.

Eventually, I was connected to a man on the phone who spoke understandable English (albeit with a heavy accent) who informed me that the person who could help me went home at 4:00 and I needed to come back later. It took a miracle and a day measured in millimeters for us to get there by 4:30 so I knew this had been another wasted effort like so many attempts at efficiency here in the Dominican Republic.

Having spent a year in Venezuela, and almost three months here in the Dominican Republic so far, we have come to expect this kind of scenario and to simply be patient. If we don’t give up, it will happen eventually. So Carol and I left the bank and looked for a way to use the free time that this unexpected turn of events gave us. Locating a Burger King in the food mall we ordered a Whopper and a “Coca Cola Grande” and sat down to eat something familiar and talk.

We have been married for over 35 years now and some of the most enjoyable times that linger in my memory are those when my wife and I have uninterrupted and undistracted time to share our thoughts. This was one of those moments.

The time here in this country teaching at Santiago Christian School has been difficult for me. Not only is the workload the most demanding of my teaching career but the discipline of the students has been unexpectedly challenging. So I have recently been tempted in the area of discouragement. My thoughts intermittently have gone something like this: “What have I gotten myself into? At a time in my life when I should be taking it easy or doing things that I’ve wanted to do more of but didn’t have the time, I am working harder than ever, and I am stuck for two more years. I don’t need this … and I am so tired!”

Then a couple of days ago when I was reading in the book of Luke, the Spirit of God convicted me quite uncomfortably about my unholy attitude:

And he spake a parable unto them, saying, The ground of a certain rich man brought forth plentifully: And he thought within himself, saying, What shall I do because I have no room where to bestow my fruits? And he said, This will I do: I will pull down my barns, and build greater; and there will I bestow all my fruits and my goods. And I will say to my soul, Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry. But God said unto him, Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee: then whose shall those things be, which thou hast provided? So is he that layeth up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God. Luke 12:16-21

The parallel between this man who had many goods laid up, and my situation with retirement where I have worked for a lifetime to store up retirement provisions was unmistakable. And I truly believe that I was mirroring this man’s attitude which Jesus was condemning quite strongly.

Later, Peter asked if Christ was addressing his remarks to everyone or just to his closest followers. In his customary way Jesus answered his question with another question:

And the Lord said, Who then is that faithful and wise steward, whom his lord shall make ruler over his household, to give them their portion of meat in due season? Blessed is that servant, whom his lord when he cometh shall find so doing.
Luke 12:42, 43

As I look around, even here in this small Christian school, it is glaringly obvious that God has granted to others more talents and gifts than I possess. I am a small fish in a small pond. I’ve known this about myself for many years now so this is not a shock. But what I need to remind myself is that even though I am an ordinary man with few talents, I can use them for the Kingdom. All that is required is that I am a faithful and wise steward who gives out a portion of meat in due season.

Recently I have been meditating on three verses that answer the question, “What does God require of me anyway?” This is worthy of another blog entry someday, but I am noticing nothing in the requirements about possessing great abilities. All He really wants is my willing obedience in whatever place he has put me, my whole heart of love for him, and to be faithful in my work. This experience has not been easy for either of us and sometimes we are tempted to take our ease and eat, drink, and be merry. So we needed this mutual encouragement and fellowship as we dined out at Burger King on this unexpected date. There is a short time to labor in God’s kingdom before I face eternity. So my prayer more recently has been, “Lord, please show me each day how to give them their portion of meat in due season.”

The Nehemiah Process

2008-10-08T16:25:00.000-07:00

It is amazing how vivid the Scriptures seem to become when I am going through trials … or at least when I am faced with unfamiliar surroundings. When struggling to find my bearings in a school I’ve never taught in before, with kids I’ve never seen before, in a country I’ve never lived in before, and immersed in a language I don’t know, I can’t rest upon past experience or on routine responses to answer my problems. Many reactions I have seem to come out of nowhere and are so ugly that I am forced to the feet of Jesus to look at the compass of the Word … so to speak.

This is the way it is supposed to work anyway. Nehemiah recorded this process in chapter 9 in the prayer that the Levites offered when they sought the Lord during a time of trouble. A remnant of Jews had come to a city in a land where most of them had never lived … to Jerusalem in the land of their fathers. Nehemiah came to supervise the building of the wall at Jerusalem … something he had never done since his “real” job was a cupbearer to the king of the Persian Empire. Now he was trying to find his bearings as he dealt with an unfamiliar job in an unfamiliar country. Without trying to be presumptuous I believe that Nehemiah faced the same things I am facing … at least in principle. The recorded words of that public prayer seemed much more relevant when I read it this year. It clearly outlined the responses I should have in my heart everyday as I try to make sense of my surroundings here in the Dominican Republic.

1. Trust in the absolute goodness and sovereignty of God’s character

Stand up and bless the Lord your God forever and ever: and blessed be thy glorious name, which is exalted above all blessing and praise. Thou, even thou, art Lord alone; thou hast made heaven, the heaven of heavens, with all their hosts, the earth, and all things that are therein, the seas, and all that is therein, and thou preservest them all; and the host of heaven worshippeth thee ….. But thou art a God ready to pardon, gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness … Nehemiah 9:5,6,17

2. Recognize and confess my tendency to rebel against God and turn from His Word when things don’t go my way.

Nevertheless they were disobedient and rebelled against thee, and cast thy law behind their backs and slew thy prophets which testified against them to turn them to thee, and they wrought great provocations. Nehemiah 9:26

3. Turn to the Word during times of trouble which God allows in order to purify us.

Therefore thou deliveredst them into the hand of their enemies, who vexed them; and in the time of their trouble; when they cried unto thee, thou heardest them from heaven …. And testified against them, that thou mightest bring them again unto thy law … Nehemiah 9:29

4. Trust that God is just in all that He allows in our lives.

… for thou art a gracious and merciful God. Now therefore, our God, the great, the mighty and the terrible God, who keepest covenant and mercy, let not all the trouble seem little before thee, that hath come upon us … … Howbeit, thou art just in all that is brought upon us; for thou hast done right, but we have done wickedly. Nehemiah 9:31, 32, 33

This fourfold process begins and ends with our eyes on God, and I believe it is occurring in our lives no matter where we are. It is called the process of sanctification which God has promised to accomplish in the lives of all believers. However, I believe that sometimes this process takes place more quickly than at other times. Allow me to illustrate.

In the biology class that I’ve been teaching to a group of excitable ninth graders we recently finished chapter two which dealt with chemical reactions in organisms. (By the way, since I have never taught this class, it is on my “time of trouble” list.) According to the book, the rate of a chemical reaction can be speeded up by temperature. So, according to this illustration, if I want the sanctification process to occur faster, simply put the vessel over a fire. At least it feels like this is what is happening to me right now … more troubles mean more recognition of how black my heart is, mean more time in the Word begging for deliverance, mean more gazing upon the face and character of God and praising Him for His goodness, grace, and gift of Christ as He reveals His life in me. How precious the following passage has become since I read it two weeks ago:

I love the LORD, because he hath heard my voice and my supplications.
Because he hath inclined his ear unto me, therefore will I call upon him as long as I live.
The sorrows of death compassed me, and the pains of hell gat hold upon me: I found trouble and sorrow.
Then called I upon the name of the LORD; O LORD, I beseech thee, deliver my soul.
Gracious is the LORD, and righteous; yea, our God is merciful.
The LORD preserveth the simple: I was brought low, and he helped me.
Return unto thy rest, O my soul; for the Lord hath dealt bountifully with thee.
For thou hast delivered my soul from death, mine eyes from tears, and my feet from falling.
I will walk before the LORD in the land of the living. Psalms 116:1-9

With the indulgence of my readers I will list a few of these “times of trouble” that have been raising the temperature during the last two weeks. Because of a teacher in-service day this past week on Friday I was able to catch up a bit more on my work so I dedicated those couple of free hours that afternoon to this blog. I can’t’ believe it has been this long since I’ve written.

Trouble #1 – Teaching eight classes with six different subjects has been a tremendous pressure on me, I have to admit. Four of these six subjects I’ve never taught before and, as a math person by training, two of those four I am not “qualified” to teach (health and biology). By faith I know that this situation is not an accident and God is just. He allowed it for a purpose. Based on some of the ungodly ways that I’ve reacted, I have needed this and from an eternal perspective it has been good for me.

However, as of this week, the health class has been given to another teacher. When the administration realized that I was the only teacher in the school with this kind of work load, they arranged for a little relief. Starting next week I will have one less class to teach and consequently an extra hour of preparation time twice a week. When I heard the news I felt like weeping for joy.

Trouble #2 – The new classroom environment is a huge adjustment. The contrast between my closed, undistracted room in the small Idaho town where I was teaching, and my open, noisy room here in the Dominican Republic is almost humorous. One day at a particularly poignant part of my lecture I realized that the kids couldn’t hear me. The outside noise had literally drowned me out, and those that know me realize that this isn’t easy to do. I had to stop, and during that moment of hesitation I simply smiled, shrugged my shoulders, and for a few seconds listened to the screams of the elementary school children as they played on the small grassy area during recess outside my room, and let the roar of the helicopter and a motorcycle subside as they passed by simultaneously.

This is a noisy country. I will have to adjust to the thunderous drum of the occasional tropical storm, the music of Louis Miguel played at rock-concert level from a car while it was being washed at twilight across the street from where I live, the screams of a spoiled four-year-old boy every day and every night, the incessant barking of the neighbor’s dog every day and every night, the crowing of several roosters every morning, the blaring of the neighbor’s TV every night, and the unmistakable, disturbing sounds of a consistently unhappy and angry family. Because of the climate, the construction of the apartments gives you the feeling of living in a cement tent. The louvered windows make the house always “open” so there is no way to shut out the noise and dust. And because of the cement construction and bars on all doors and windows, the clanging of closing metal bars and echo of voices make it sound like we are in a federal penitentiary, or in a marble hall of justice in Washington DC.

The one exception to all this pandemonium is during the early hours of the morning when an uncharacteristic sense of peace seems to settle on the whole neighborhood. Since this is a culture that does everything late … eat late, party late, arrive late … it means that most people in the city are horizontal and quiet at 5:30 AM. So I am finding some relief from the hectic hubbub of the day by arising early. I’m even learning to sleep through the noise in the evening when I go to bed early.

Trouble #3 – Carol had to apply for her residency. This was an unexpected shock to us both financially and circumstantially. Chock this up to plain ole’ miscommunication from another language! When I went down to the capital with the rest of the teachers to apply for my residency I was asked if my wife wanted to come also. When I asked if she was required to become a resident they said, “No, it is optional since she is not a teacher.” The school paid for my residency papers but since Carol is not hired by the school it would cost $700 out of our own money. So we decided not to have her go. The consequences, I understood, was that she could not get a driver’s license and would have to pay an extra entrance fee of $10 should she leave the country ... which I was willing to bear.

Then a couple of weeks later I found out that this was all true … except she would be illegal! Evidently “everyone does it” so it was looked upon as a viable option. Ethically speaking I knew it was no option for us so we made arrangements for her to go through the application procedure. Unfortunately this required Carol to ride in a taxi to the bus station, travel to the capital, be escorted to the various places by a lawyer who knew no English, then return to Santiago on the bus … all by herself. This was a huge concern which we prayed about and approached with a fair amount of fear and trepidation.

We saw God’s hand of protection and mercy in a special way. Not only was the trip without incident, but the Lord put an older Dominican pastor next to her on the way down on the bus. Believe it or not, with the help of a dictionary and some patience they both shared conversation and encouragement in the Word … all in Spanish! Carol said that it wore them both out The pastor ended up napping for the last half hour of the trip.

Trouble #4 – In the land of “Maintenance ... what's that?” we have inherited an apartment where many things are broken. I don’t mean broken so badly that we can’t live here, but just sort of broken down … if you know what I mean. The big things were taken care of by the school that has its name on the lease. (We simply pay the rent and the utilities each month.) When the water began leaking out of the overhead ceiling lights or we couldn’t turn off the kitchen faucet, or the laundry room electrical outlet didn’t work so we couldn’t wash our clothes, the school maintenance man come over and repaired those right away.

Since then, however, I have made a list of 24 “sort of broken” things that simply need to be maintained and it drives me nuts when I don’t have time to take care of them … doors that creak whenever you open them, electrical sockets hanging out of the walls, screens that let in mosquitoes, faucets that leak, door buzzers that don’t buzz, toilet paper holders that don’t hold, gas stove spark plugs that don’t spark … anybody who is a homeowner probably feels my pain.

In addition to this we are still trying to put our house together. We are like a newly married couple trying to find cooking pans, night stands, lamps, dishes, silverware, study table, and mattress protector pads. It is pretty bare around here. The only wall decorations we have right now are a map of Santiago and Idaho, a picture of our home church given to us before we left, and a Thomas Kinkaid calendar. Coupled with the constant time pressure and the difficulty of finding and getting to any place to buy anything, it has become a very slow process.

God has granted some relief in this area just within the last week. One of the new employees who was hired with me, the elementary principal, has a husband who has worked for people who own yachts to make sure that the yacht arrives at its destination. He is handy at not only sailing the craft, but repairing anything that can break on a million dollar boat. He has recently come to join his wife with a lot of time on his hands. Being an older man and “semi-retired” he asked if he could help on my “sort-of-broken” list of items. He has already fixed several and is not finished yet. I praise God for this provision.

We also met two older single missionary ladies who have been here for something like 26 years. Since they have a car, they volunteered to take us downtown to look for the bigger items. They also introduced us to their neighbor, a Dominican carpenter, who needs a leg operation soon. He is desirous to get as many jobs as he can so he has the money for the operation. He has done work for these ladies over the years and has a reputation of being a respectable craftsman. So we are asking him to build a table for our phone (which is on the floor right now), a bookcase for all the books that I have to have in order for Carol and I to do our preparation for school here at home, a stand for the five-gallon drinking water dispenser, and some shelving for the pantry. He is beginning these projects this coming week.

Writing this blog entry has been good for me. Simply by tracing back through the last two weeks I’ve been able to isolate four specific “times of trouble” which have raised the temperature in my sanctification process. Many times in the last six weeks these four problems have brought me back “again unto thy law”. But in each case I also have seen that God is “a gracious and merciful God” who has not let “all the trouble seem little before thee”. He has provided for some needs and given relief and answered prayer.

Also, in each of these situations, I have had to face attitudes of impatience, ingratitude, anger, tight-fistedness, and grumpiness. And each time I did, it seems, I was reviewing the verses again that I’m trying to memorize recently:

This I say then, walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would. But if ye be led of the Spirit, ye are not under the law. Galatians 5:16-18

Then I realize that I need to repent and turn back to the Word and trust in God’s character. This is the way it is supposed to work … this process of sanctification. Even in these four recent and simple tests I have seen God’s faithfulness as I have experienced the Nehemiah process in a small way.

Traffic and Faith

2008-09-23T15:46:00.000-07:00

Many things are different when a person decides to move from a small town in Idaho to teach school in a large city in the Dominican Republic. People everywhere speak in an unintelligible language making it virtually impossible to do even the simplest tasks without a translator with you. A wiry, lanky black man with a basket of green fruit on his head walks down the street in the morning crying out “aguacate”(ah-gwah-cah-tay) in a tone that carries into the deepest part of every apartment within a two block radius. (By the way, Carol says this man sings out the “A” note on the first three syllables and “A-sharp” on the last one.) One cannot put toilet paper in the toilet. You never have to use Chap Stick. Carol’s hair has turned wavy. The storm drains run above ground in cement ditches along the side of the road. Water cannot be drunk out of the faucet so we have to order a five gallon jug of drinking water every few days from a local “Colmado” which are located every few blocks all around the city.

But the greatest difference that I encounter every day is the traffic. At first I just figured the differences I see are attributed to “city” traffic verses “Idaho” traffic, but then I talk with people who have lived and drive in cities like New York and they claim that there is a fundamental philosophical difference between the way the people drive here and the way we drive in the United States.

On Friday I asked for a personal day off from my teaching so that Carol and I could take a bus from here in Santiago to the capital in Santa Domingo. The trip is only an hour and a half but it takes an additional half hour to negotiate the traffic once we hit the city which has almost three million people in it. Our daughter is near the capital right now and we are trying to make arrangements for her to come up to Santiago to live in a few months, so we went down to see her.

Sitting in the relative security of the top level of the Greyhound-style bus I could purvey the tangled array of cars, trucks, motor cycles, and pedestrians to the side and ahead of me. The highway resembles a four lane freeway like we would see entering into any larger city, but as soon as it gets near the city the two lanes going our way suddenly becomes four … maybe five … lanes, if you want to call it “lanes”. There are no markings so cars navigate into any space that is wide enough to fit a vehicle into.

At every stop light several people wind their way between the cars like ants searching for food with an array of merchandize to tempt the drivers … newspapers, cell phone chargers, steering wheel covers, cell phone calling cards, fruit, bottled water, fruit … anything that can be exchanged for money in less than 60 seconds. Motorcycles thread their way through the fabric of traffic between the cars to save a few seconds of time. And cars from side roads push their way into traffic with the unwritten rule that whoever has his nose in first wins. So cars are at all angles to each other in this mass of traffic.

We notice that the same “feel” of traffic is here in Santiago as I have described in our trip to the capital. Since it is dangerous to be out on the streets after dark we called a taxi in order to go back home a few nights ago after having supper with some new friends that we met at the school. The taxi we called couldn’t find the apartment where we were (another difference in this country is an entire city with no discernable pattern in addresses) so we had to walk down to the main street and hail a passing taxi. After squealing to a stop a young man in a tired looking car with a taxi light on the top motioned us over. After giving him our broken-Spanish directions he roared off as if someone had dropped a checkered flag. The man appeared to be late for something and the next few minutes we were seriously wondering if we would survive the less-than-a-mile home without some kind of accident. We had already tried to find the seat belts without any luck. In the headlights I saw roosters, dogs, and people scurry out of the way as they heard the roar of his approaching engine and the splash of the puddles as he hit the numerous potholes on this rainy night.

Up to this point, when the conversation turns to the traffic with some of my fellow sojourners, I have often detected the attitude that the way people drive here is not good or bad, just simply different, and you have to learn to drive just like them. There is even a sense of humor as you point out the ludicrous as it passes by … a pickup truck whizzing by with 7 or 8 people sitting in the back, motorcycles with two, sometimes four, people on it wearing no helmets and having only flip flops on for shoes, small children ... even babies ... squeezed between two or three adults on a motor cycle as if it were simply a very small car, a motorcyclist pushing with one foot a man on a bicycle as he moved along a busy street at 25 miles per hour during rush hour………

But I am losing my sense of humor lately when I see this kind of driving. If it makes no difference how you drive except what country you are in, then why have laws at all. Let the law of the jungle prevail! But are the driving habits of some countries better? I believe they are, and when one ignores that fact and justifies it on the basis of “it is just the culture”, there can be serious ramifications.

On the way home from school one afternoon this past week I was looking out the window of the school bus at nothing particular trying to wind down after a hectic day on the 15 minutes ride home. Right in front of me as if I were watching some violent cop show on wide screen HD television I watched a car crash into a man on a motorcycle as he tried to cut in front of him at an intersection. The motorcyclist was hurled into the air as he was thrown over the car onto the pavement and against the curb as his motorcycle went careening into traffic. He had no shoes, no helmet. On the return trip of my bus a few minutes later we passed by the same intersection and I saw him leaning against his mangled bike on his feet, so by God’s grace this man was still alive. In another event recently a man with only one leg was begging at a stop light while one of my friends was waiting. He had time to ask how he lost his leg. It was a recent motor cycle accident.

On the way to the capital on Friday a man named Rene picked us up at 5:30 in the morning. He is a school bus driver for our school and a very dependable Christian man that we wanted to help us to make sure we found the right bus on time. Rene is now dead. We received a phone call from our school telephone tree that he was killed in an auto accident a day after he dropped us off. He was buried on the same day with a memorial scheduled each day at his house for nine days afterwards in the Dominican custom. In a poor tropical country very few are embalmed and they have to be buried within 24 hours.

In just the few weeks that I’ve lived here my life has been tragically touched on several levels because of the way people drive and the disregard for safety. This is one reason that we will probably not be getting a car anytime soon. The crazy way that people drive in this country is a reality that I have to cope with, and I am not going to change an entire country’s driving habits because I complain about it, but I don’t have to excuse it.

Before coming here in August the Lord gave me a verse of Scripture that I decided to commit to memory because I had a hunch that it had some truth that I would be needing to rely on many times:
The eternal God is thy refuge,
And underneath are the everlasting arms. Deut 33:27a

Traffic has become simply one more area that I've added to the list of things I have to trust the Lord for on a more urgent and daily basis than I did in the States.

If You're Stressed and You Know It ...

2008-09-13T17:58:00.001-07:00

A teacher’s worst nightmare is when the class finishes their homework five minutes before the end of the day … on a Friday. After 38 years of teaching experience it doesn’t seem probable that I would allow that to happen, but it did. The only excuse I can offer is that I have never taught a health class before, and I have never taught in a Christian school in the Dominican Republic before. So here I am facing 20 ninth graders with five minutes left of unstructured time.

Ironically the subject of the day was how to manage stress. The secular health book that we are using gave the normal information about how there could be good stress and bad stress and how a person reacts to stress. Being a bit uncomfortable with how it treated the subject I told them to add a new section to their notes called “Stress … a Biblical Perspective.” I told them the story of Jeremiah in the Old Testament and read the New Testament verses in James about how we should count it all joy when we encounter various trials. It seemed to be a new thought to most of them that stress can be a good thing and that attitude is what makes it good or bad.

Ninth graders love a story so I told them the story of how God used stress in my life before I became a Christian. When I was roughly their age I fell off a truck and damaged my back in such a way that I had to be in a back brace for two years. As a result I couldn’t play my beloved sports and felt that my life would certainly come to an end. This was the time when I began to re-think the things that are important in life. I joined a Bible study and eventually heard the gospel and gave my life to the Lord. If God had not allowed that two-year-long stressful event in my life I may not have considered my eternal destiny as early as I did. Then I summarized by saying that God allows stress in our lives for a purpose … to point us to Him … whether or not we are Christians.

They heard me and understood quite clearly. I know this because during those last five minutes of class they broke into singing “If you’re happy and you know it, clap your hands.” The second verse was even more creative, “If you’re stressed and you know it, stomp your feet.” The funny thing about this is I couldn’t pinpoint what rule they were breaking so I let them sing until the bell rang. I only wonder what the rest of the school was thinking as they heard the lyrical pandemonium emanating from my room. This culture is a lively one … that’s for sure.

At least one student stayed afterwards to talk. His problem is that he is 14 and he can’t get a certain girl out of his mind. She is pretty and doesn’t know he exists. How do you answer a question like, “How do you get a girl like that out of your mind, Mister?” (By the way, all students refer to their male teachers as “Mister” here at this school. I have been used to being referred to as “Mr. Dale” but never as simply “Mister”. One teacher who is starting his third year teaching at this school tried to change this when he first came to teach, but after a year he had given up and submitted to this cultural oddity.) With my whole heart I wanted to help this boy but I mostly listened. Because of his personality his particular need surfaced to my attention but I know that similar thoughts and problems are lurking just below the surface of many of my students.

These mostly Dominican children have their unique cultural differences but they are still kids. My biggest challenge in this school remains the same as it was when I taught in the public schools for 38 years … discipline. Foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child and until they are trained to pay attention when I speak, be ready with their homework when I am ready to start class, and remain seated as they focus on their work, education is going to be interrupted. I’ve learned from experience that it usually takes about three months for them to be “trained” in proper classroom behavior. So I am in that difficult transition right now and it is never easy.

The work load is still quite demanding. With eight classes to teach and six different subjects it seems like my only life is preparing for the next day’s classes. This was a particularly rough week for various reasons … such as getting a cold. My sincere goal is to practice what I preached to my class today … to let these hardships turn me to the Lord to receive strength when I don’t feel like it. The Lord gave me some comfort as I read in Ezekiel this week … a similar comfort that the Lord was graciously giving to Israel during the time that He was disciplining them:

“For, behold, I am for you, and I will turn unto you, and ye shall be
tilled and sown …” Eze 36:9

I certainly feel like I’ve been “tilled and sown” and I sincerely and practically want to remember that God adds, “I am for you.” So I am diligently plodding away each night hoping that endurance will eventually free up a little bit more of my time. Praise God for a faithful wife who has become by necessity a teacher’s aide to me for the first time in our married life.

Our apartment remains still relatively empty of furniture and normal household belongings so it echoes when we talk. Consequently when we sing a duet out of the hymn book after supper each evening it sounds like we are singing in the shower. How we love to hear ourselves sing! Tonight we tried a hymn we have never heard of … “I Want a Principle Within” by Charles Wesley. The first verse says:

I want a principle within of watchful, godly fear,
A sensibility of sin, a pain to feel it near.
Help me the first approach to feel of pride or wrong desire,
To catch the wand’ring of my will and quench the kindling fire.

As the students reminded me today during an awkward teaching moment, “when you are stressed and you know it, say Amen”, I truly want to say “Amen” to God as I endure his tilling and sowing of my life these next few months. Pray with me that God would give me a principle within to be faithful to walk in the Spirit during this time.

The Heart of a Missionary

2008-09-02T18:22:00.000-07:00

Do I have the heart of a missionary? I have pondered that question a number of times in the three weeks that I have been here in the Dominican Republic teaching in a small Christian school. When I was hired a few months ago one of the questions the interview committee asked me was, “What does your family think of your decision to be a missionary?” I guess I had not thought of this move to Santiago to teach as becoming a missionary. I am simply teaching the same kind of things I would do as if I were still in public education like I was for 38 years before I retired last summer. So am I truly a missionary?

During an evening spent with one of my colleagues who invited my wife and me to supper one evening last week he showed us a DVD that was made about a mission called T.E.A.R.S. (To Evangelize Always Requires Sacrifice). A man who attended a large church in Portland, Oregon felt convicted to share the gospel with people less fortunate than he. So he quit his job and without knowing Spanish moved to the Dominican Republic with his young family into one of the poorest ghettoes of the country near Santiago … not far from where I am teaching. It is now several years later and one of his sons is now in high school in a couple of the classes that I am teaching.

This man lives with the poor and shares the gospel. A church has started there and he has been able to help the people learn to purify the water system and teach the children who are barred from public schools because they don’t have a Catholic certificate of baptism. Most of them are born at home and have no certificate. This, in my estimation, is what a true missionary is, and although I have a huge admiration for people whom God has gifted in that area, I feel embarrassed to be classified in the same category. Do you know what I mean?

So in the mean time, until I can sort this all out, I am simply referring to myself as a teacher in a Christian school. However, this is truly an opportunity to share my faith in a way I have never had a chance to do when I was teaching in the public schools. Let me try to explain.
Santiago Christian School was founded back in the 60’s by a Free Methodist missionary who was interested in helping missionary families give a good quality American education to their children as they served the Lord in a foreign country. A few years later, as the city’s wealthy class noticed the quality of education given by this school, they petitioned the school if their children could attend so they could be better prepared to attend American universities. The board prayed about this and decided it would be a tremendous opportunity to evangelize an influential segment of the island’s mostly Roman Catholic population if they continued to teach as a Christian school. So in 1973 they allowed people to apply and charged a fee similar to a private school.

The teachers that are hired come on a minimum of a two-year contract at first, and then are encouraged to stay. All of them are screened before they are hired to make sure they have a clear Christian testimony and a desire to share the gospel. As near as I can tell most of the teachers are recruited from Christian Reform colleges located mostly in the mid-West and on the East coast. However, the only requirement that the school has is that we agree to the school’s statement of faith. This explains why they would allow a denominational maverick like I am to teach.

The school has 520 students right now and is growing each year. Children as young as two years old come so I guess you could also say that it is a day care center. My responsibilities are in the high school wing. Since it is a small school the teachers are spread pretty thin as they use whatever skills they have in the best way possible. I am teaching biology, health, SAT preparation, calculus, Algebra 1, and Algebra 2… the first four of these I have never taught before. This is the hardest I have ever worked. I realize that it is physically impossible to do well what they have asked me to do, so I am learning to do the best I can and be contented with imperfection.

The high school has around 200 students. Around 80% of them are not Christian, although they would not admit to that since they are from Catholic homes and backgrounds. About 20% are from missionary families or children of the staff who work here. If you are paying attention to all these facts, you may be wondering if there may be a caste system developing since we have many very wealthy families here side by side with so-called poorer families. And, of course, that is true. We have to be very aware of the problems that occur when kids pick on others simply because they aren’t allowed to be in the “right” group when they are playing, etc. We live in a very cruel world as most of us can remember as we went through school.

These demographics give some opportunities that I have only dreamed about as a teacher in the last 38 years. Here is one example. In the biology book it started out right away with the statement, “Earth has a very long history … over four billion years.” Although we require a Bible class for every student each semester and we have chapel every Friday, the books they have purchased for the school are the normal books that any public school in the States would have. I’m not sure of the actual reason for this but I am assuming it has something to do with accreditation.

Anyway, I stopped the class right there and gave them the warning about statements like this that they are going to encounter as they study most of the sciences. We had a great discussion about how anyone could actually tell how old the earth really is, how we know, what evidence there is, where God is in the picture. Then I showed a tape which presented the young earth theory. At the end was a very clear presentation of the gospel that no one could miss.

In a health class we were talking about being healthy in three important areas … physical, mental, and social … which we call the health triangle. Then I explained that since it is a secular book it left out a very important aspect of health called spiritual health. So tomorrow I am having them write a paper on how they would describe their personal spiritual health after I read the verse in Matthew about how dumb it would be to gain the whole world and then lose your soul. After they write the paper, in which they will invariably list all the good things they do, we will have a discussion on how we are truly accepted by God. You didn’t think that faith could have an effect on your health, did you?

The freedom I have to incorporate God’s truth into anything I teach is a little intoxicating right now, if you know what I mean, so I truly need direction on how to be effective and to reach these young students on a personal level.

The biggest problems I am facing right now is the same as I have always had … classroom control. The kids in this country don’t seem to have the generation gap syndrome that seems so prevalent in the States. When they enter class they will shake your hand, give you a hearty eye-contact greeting, and enjoy the banter of each other’s company until class starts. In fact, this is the rub. It seems that the general propensity in this culture is social fun rather than hard work. I suppose it is not in principle any different in any school in the states. It comes with the territory when you are involved with less than mature students. However, it just seems more pronounced here. Maybe it is the open louvered-windows or the cement construction that gives everything an echoing sound. Whatever it is, I discovered right away that these kids need structure. So I have developed a routine.

Since our school does not have bells ring to begin or dismiss class (can you imagine such a thing) every class has to be released according to the teacher and then I have to start my class by my clock. So I stand by the door with the grade book at the beginning of each class period. At the right time I close the door and then stand ready to write down the tardies and deal with the barrage of excuses. Then I walk to the front of the room and spend a couple of minutes taking roll and getting my materials ready. When I am ready, I stand in the front with my book open and say, “I am ready.” They have been prompted to know that when I say that, it means that they are supposed to be ready also. After saying this every day for two weeks they know that when I am ready, they are ready … which means:

1. Homework out 2. Book open 3. Mouth shut.

If they are not, then I deal out the consequences … AGAIN!

Just when I thought that training these kids would be about as possible as herding cats, I started a class last Thursday with the routine warning, “I’m ready.” To my surprise the class responded in a mechanical chant, “We are ready.” So they can be trained if I am consistent. I hear from other teachers who have my same students in other classes that they can’t quite understand a teacher like myself who appears so unbending and disciplined. But we are learning to tolerate each other and in the process education will take place.

Apart from the culture shock which I am hoping will be fairly temporary, this is a small thing to move to a tropical country and teach some kids math and science when you compare it with the giants of missionary faith. But it is something that my wife and I feel that God wants us to do in order to contribute to the Kingdom in a small way.

Recently in my reading in Jeremiah I noticed a rhetorical question that God asked the false prophets of the Israelites when he declared that He would have to judge them for their disobedience:

For who hath stood in the counsel of the Lord, and hath perceived and heard his
word? Who hath marked his word, and heard it? Jer 23:18

My heart responded to that question. I asked the Lord to help the answer to that question be, “James, my servant, did while he was in Santiago.” Although I am not worthy to be classified in the company of real missionaries, my sincere desire is to demonstrate the heart of a missionary as I am ministering to these spiritually needy students.

Keep Your Head Down

2008-09-01T14:28:00.000-07:00

My father served in World War II and the experience salted his homespun wisdom which he shared with his sons at various times in our lives. When my brother followed his example and joined the military, my father had some advice for him as he was ready to cross the big water on one of his assignments: “Son, keep your head down.” Dad was a man of few words so David had to fill in the blanks, but the message seemed plain enough: I love you and I want you to be careful. Now that I am in a foreign country and engaged in a war of my own, those words are a warning to me also.

Teaching in a Christian school here in Santiago in the Dominican Republic I am finding that my wife and I have to be careful. For example, we need to watch out for people who think that all Americanos are rich and can be robbed. My wife met with many of the ladies from the school a few nights ago and the topic was how to be safe in the DR. By the time Carol heard of all the stories and warnings during the evening she was convinced that she would not make it home without some motorcycle purse snatcher accosting her. But she made it just fine and we discussed some ways to “keep our heads down” while we are living here for the next two years.

Living in an apartment on the ground floor doesn’t help our anxiety level much even though it takes four keys to enter the front door and there are bars on all the windows. In fact, an iron door swings shut on the front door so we don’t know if we are keeping the robbers out or living in a self imposed prison. Our living room is surrounded with tall glass windows on two of the walls so it gives the distinct feeling that we are in a “fishbowl”. When we moved in, the school graciously loaned us a wicker couch and two chairs and a glass-topped metal kitchen table and four chairs, but in a three-bedroom tile-and-cement apartment it doesn’t go very far. So we decided that it is a priority to buy some curtains. Since the entrance to the apartment building is next to our front door, every Tom(Carlos), Dick(Ricardo), and Harry (Jose)in the neighborhood who walks by our windows and can see right into our fishbowl. Forget about privacy! Although we have met some interesting people this way we really do need to get some curtains so we can provide a bit of security and privacy.

Another area we need to keep our heads down is the traffic. Only a person who has experienced the traffic here in the DR could truly understand how chaotic and dangerous it is. We knew from our experience in Venezuela ten years ago that we did not want to own a car while we are here. The probability of getting into an accident here is very high. And then how do you deal with corrupt police, the insurance, and the language barrier? I asked several people who have been here awhile what they are going to do when they get into the inevitable accident. Instead of a clear answer I received a blank stare. Not one of them had an answer. I believe they are simply driving with the hope that it doesn’t happen to them, and just deal with it when it comes.

Our director of the school, for example, comes from California and was involved in an accident a few days ago. Although it was not his fault, the young man on the motorcycle was taken to the hospital and it shook up our director quite sufficiently. Think about this … even a California driver finds this traffic hard to cope with. Wow! In fact, our school has made it plain that it will cancel all medical insurance for any person who owns or drives a motorcycle in this country. And, before we came, I bought some life insurance for my wife. Although they accepted her application, the company raised her premiums when they found out that she was coming to the DR. So, the bottom line is that it is just plain more dangerous to live here and we should not be naïve.

Without a car we have to rely on the generosity of others who own a car, or upon the public transportation, or upon our own two feet … and we do all three in order to survive. We wanted to see our daughter who lives near the capital about two hours away so we spent the bigger part of two days trying to put together a plan to get us there safely. First, we hired a Christian man who drives a van/bus for our school to pick us up at 5:30 in the morning and drive us down to the bus station which is downtown. He stayed long enough to make sure we could buy a ticket and stand in the right line.

After the two hour trip on a very fancy Greyhound-type air-conditioned bus we arrived at Sano Domingo where we were met by two ladies with a car who drove us another half hour to where our daughter lives. Then after our visit they drove us back and made sure we had another ticket and was on the right bus back to Santiago. Then by God’s grace we found a taxi driver who was an out-spoken Christian who delivered us to our door. Although we couldn’t understand the words on the radio program he was listening to as we drove, we could tell it was a sermon. When I noticed the fish symbols on his key chain lanyard I asked if he was “Christiano” he bellowed, “Amen! Amen!”

The other kinds of public transportation here besides the large busses and the taxis are something called “Los Conchos.” These are small cars like a Nissan who have a route number taped on the door. Although they should only fit four people, they are allowed by law to cram up to 6 people in these cars with the 7th being the driver and deposit them anywhere along the specified route for a flat rate of 15 pesos (around 50 cents). A taxi does the same job for more comfort but the cost would be 120 pesos for the same trip (Close to $3.50). So Los Conchos is transportation that is inexpensive and plenteous, but we aren’t quite ready for this kind of up-close-and-personal transportation experience yet.

Then, of course, there is the walking, which we are trying to do regularly. Lately I have been catching the early school bus which gets me home around 4:30. Then Carol and I start out on a walking adventure. One time we decided to try to find the local panaderia, which is a good bakery in the neighborhood. Walking in this country during broad daylight is not necessarily a dangerous activity, any more than in a big city in the States, but it certainly demands our full attention.

For example, I have been trying to get back into the routine of reviewing my Bible verses which I have not been consistent in since coming to this country. When I announced a new plan of getting off the bus early and then reviewing each evening as I walked home, Carol scolded me… and she was right. What was I thinking?! If I wasn’t paying attention I could easily fall into a manhole on the sidewalk because the cover is missing, for example. So we have to be as alert walking as if we were crossing a mine field.

We found the panaderia, by the way, and several other places as we have walked around the neighborhood. This is dangerous on another level because now we know where to get a Dominican style doughnut any time we want. The grocery store is less than a mile away so we can walk to the store and even carry our goods home with us if we do frequent shopping trips.
The other mode of transportation that is available occasionally is friends that have their own car. These precious and generous people have taken pity on us several times in the time since we have been here to take us to church and to help us pick up items that we are still buying in order to set up our apartment.

On Friday night Steve took us to a Costco-type store so we could buy a study table for me. I am finding out that I can’t do any work at school. Since there is a bus that takes me home and picks me up, the only time I have to prepare for eight classes (and six of them are different subjects) is my preparation period … which is one hour on one day and 85 minutes on the other day. This time is usually taken up with chasing down people I need to see. Since we don’t have an intercom system in the school, or even email that is working, or phones, everything has to be done by walking around asking if you’ve seen so-and-so.

As a result I’ve decided to set up my work station at home where I do my lesson planning and grading. The work table I purchased is perfect but I had to rely on Steve with his very used-but-reliable Jeep to get me there and back. Then yesterday Pam, my math colleague, gave Carol and me a ride to another Walmart-type store to pick up some letter trays so I can get my school papers organized at school. This seemingly simple errand took over four hours.

Everything takes a long time to do the smallest errand in this country, which is another story.
By the time we arrived home in her 20-year-old car which has enough character to deserve the name “Sammy”, it had stalled several times, been in probably four close collisions (at least appeared that way to me), had been accosted by beggars who washed windows and Haitians selling avocadoes at every stop light. Since gas is almost $7 per gallon I gave her some money for this favor but I felt like it was a miracle that we were alive and safe … and this was a simple trip to the Walmart want-to-be! Carol told me later that as she was in the back seat watching helplessly at the oncoming dangers, she learned a new meaning to Dad’s advice. In order to survive without a panic attack she simply and literally puts her head down and prays.

We need God’s grace to live in this country. True, we need to be careful as we learn the ropes, but even I can realize that most of this is going to depend on God. So much is out of our control. So, Dad, I will do my best to keep my head down, but I am realizing more and more on a very practical level that my safety comes from God more than what I can do.

“O Lord, I know that the way of man is not in himself: it is not in man
that walketh to direct his steps.” Jer 10:23

Playa de Cabarete

2008-08-18T16:12:00.000-07:00

David Blossom, the principal at the Christian school where I am planning to teach for the next two years in the Dominican Republic, has been here for only the last eight months. So in some respects he is new to this in the same way that I am. Since he has been a teacher and administrator in the public schools for many years as well as a pastor for a few years, I believe he sincerely wants to see the new teachers succeed. Some young teachers come here fresh out of college with a heart for missions and end up becoming disillusioned after two years and go back home discouraged. No statistics are before me so I am only recording my impressions.

A lot of time has been spent trying to get us accustomed to the culture. We are facing a different language, trying to set up a home in a place where nothing seems to work, or at least takes a long time to get it to work, unfamiliar geography, and a host of circumstances presenting themselves quite rapidly that we have no experience in handling. One small experience may serve as an example.

After spending a week trying to do laundry by hand we realized that we either had to hire a maid (a common practice in this country) or purchase a washing machine. We decided on the latter but had no clue where to go, how much was a fair price to charge a “gringo” (the prices are sometimes different), and how to communicate once we got to where we were going. A young teacher who has been here a couple of years volunteered to guide us through this maze of hurdles along with her Dominican boy friend. It took a whole evening after school but by bedtime we had purchased a small Dominican-style washing machine which was promised to be delivered two days later.

On the night it was supposed to arrive, my wife and I rode home on the bus for teachers and waited at our apartment. Soon a poorly dressed man appeared at our livingroom window. Since we live on the first floor and as yet have no curtains, he was able to get our attention by tapping on the window. For the next 15 minutes we tried our best to understand what he was trying to say with no success. He finally left in frustration. A few minutes later he showed up again with an attractive well-dressed Dominican lady who lives in the next apartment. She could speak only a few words of English because she has an American boyfriend and is trying to learn, but it was enough to figure out what was going on.

Evidently the appliance truck had shown up a few minutes before we got home and decided to make another delivery until we got home, and then come back in an hour. They left a message with this poor young man to give to us. The language barrier is definitely a major problem and a reason that most of us new teachers are feeling quite a culture shock.

Our principal knew this would happen and so he wants very much to lessen the impact. As a result he scheduled a week of orientation and classes in the States for all the new teachers, another week of orientation with the entire staff this past week, and then this weekend he took us to a very beautiful beach about two hours away. It takes a bit of an effort on less than perfect roads to find a beach which is only 45 miles from Santiago. The beach that he took us to is called Playa de Cabarete. With a little Googling I’m sure that you can come up with more interesting information about this place than I have time to share, but it appears to be a playground for a certain circle of jet-setters and also well-to-do Dominicans.

From the windows of the bus we had chartered we could see mansions on the top of small hills and drove past many entrances leading to breathtakingly beautiful resorts. All of us teachers stayed at a modest hotel directly on the beach called the Sans Souchi. The temperature must have been 99 degrees with a humidity close to that. Since I am not acclimated to the climate yet I’m sure I am exaggerating at this point. We were surprised at the good weather because the night before and the morning of our departure to the beach we experienced the tropical storm Fay which you may have seen on the news. It wasn’t a hurricane but we certainly had our share of wind and rain.

Our room led directly to the beach where a person could swim or simply sit under a native gazebo-type structure with a thatched roof. Carol and I aren’t too much into sun worshipping so we tended to stay in the shade most of the time. At supper time we followed the group to a beachside restaurant and had chicken wings and pizza sitting at a table under a coconut tree while a band played so loud that our chest was vibrating and conversation was impossible. Have I mentioned that this is a very loud country?

After a time of group devotions and some structured individual prayer back at the hotel we went to bed while the young people stayed up late to continue singing. On Sunday morning we attended a church service at an English speaking church out in the country. It was on the missionary compound of an organization that has an extensive ministry in the DR and also in Haiti with feeding and educating the poor. The name of the organization is New Missions and its founder, Pastor George DeTellis, died a few weeks ago.

After the service where this man’s wife preached a sermon using the Message translation we bounced to the next town on the back of an open bus that looked like it came from a jungle safari. We ate a delicious meal of pollo (chicken) and beans and rice at a small restaurant that opened on Sunday only as a favor to feed the whole group of us. The owner is a friend of the late Pastor DeTellis. On the way back to the beach we did a little sightseeing to get an idea of places that people could stay if they visited us. We saw a hotel overlooking the sea that had to have been hundreds of dollars a night … right off a picture postcard. The other was a small bungalow called "The Secret Garden" close to the beach for only $44 per night. After another hour on the beach for a last dip while dozens of kite-surfers and wind-surfers dotted the water behind us we boarded the bus and made the two hour journey back home. I recorded these few thoughts while the apartment next door played loud latin music and a car driving by with music so loud that it set off car alarms in the parking lot. I stayed up a little later than normal to wait for our washing machine to finish its very first cycle of its mechanical life. The weather is so muggy that we have to shower just before bed and also when we get up … and get this, I use cold water only because it is so refreshing.

Does this make you feel out of breath to read this? If it doesn’t then I haven’t described my feelings very well. With six classes to teach for the first time this week, I needed more time preparing than vacationing. I struggled a bit with my attitude about having to go to a beach when I have so much work to do, but I realize that the principal has a good and generous heart and underneath my fleshly reactions I truly appreciated this trip. Right now it was an activity overload, but someday I will go to this same beach on my own terms and most likely record my experiences with a very different attitude. Right now I have only calculus and biology on my mind and tomorrow is my first day of school. This year will be something that will be possible only by faith on a day-to-day basis … even when one of our activities is a pleasure trip to Playa de Cabarete.

Leave It There

2008-08-14T16:03:00.000-07:00

This morning as I was stumbling around the mess in my school room wondering how in the world I was going to be ready to teach school by next Tuesday, I found myself humming the hymn "Take Your Burden To The Lord and Leave It There". As I thought about what has happened over the last couple of weeks I must have subconciously known that I needed the message that was in that old hymn of the faith.

After the week of orientation in Marion, Indiana all of us new teachers boarded an airplane like some migrating herd of hyenas. By this time we had spent 12 hours a day studying and eating and praying together, so we were at the loud stage of being able to share with each other. The prospect of traveling to a small school in Santiago, Dominican Republic to use our teaching skills to share the gospel to the children of the island's wealthy population as well as give a good Christian education to the children of missionaries was exciting enough to generate quite a bit of chatter. This was the new director's idea to travel over to the DR as a group so we could feel together and face potential problems together. As the rest of the day unfolded I definitely appreciated his wisdom on this matter.

Arriving in the Santiago Airport all at once, each of us went to claim two suitcases, one carry-on, and one personal item all packed to within a few ounces of the maximum weight. It is an amazing process to pack a limited amount when you know it is for two years, and each of us had gone through that process with each of our suitcases and felt that each item was important ... very important.

So our first problem we had to take to the Lord and leave it there was the missing luggage. Of the 22 gringos who went to collect their luggage so they could go through customs, 10 of us had missing luggage. Then it took about an hour to stand in line to give a report to an agent about the missing luggage. One of the first lessons a gringo has to learn in this country is patience. Things get done only when they want to get it done, and if it doesn't interfere with some social or personal relationship, or when they finally finish using some random, inefficient method.

For example, the next day after we had been shown to our respective apartments late at night, we were picked up in a broken down looking grey-hound style bus and transported to Santiago Christian School. Some did not have clean clothes or sheets to sleep in or water to take a shower, and none of us had a shower curtain, but we made it for a day of orientation to the new school. One of the first jobs was to sign up for the school insurance. We started this process after some devotions and a brief tour of the school at about 9:00 am. We finally finished around noon when we ate a lunch that some of the Dominican staff brought for us.

This was a delightful introduction to the Dominican support staff but for the life of me I could not figure out why it was taking nearly three hours for us new teachers to sign two sheets of paper. There was no apparent sign of structure except for a few introductions occurring sporadically during the time. We were introduced and paired up with a Dominican staff member "host" who sat with us during lunch and invited us for church and dinner the next day.

Over the next few days I've had to realize that things don't happen on my time schedule, even if I try really hard. When I was interviewed a few months ago I remember one of the questions was, "How flexible are you?" Now I see why. The important stuff gets done but it just takes longer and in a more random manner than I am accustomed to. In the meantime I work at being flexible. By the way, all the baggage came and was delivered to all of us within the next two days although at this writing some still do not have internet or water.

The church that we attended on Sunday with our delightful host and her family was called Grace Baptist Church (I can't pronounce the Spanish way of saying this yet). Our host, Bielka, is in charge of human resources at the school and has a husband named Carlos and two children. Since she works at the school and her children attend the school, they could understand us and translate when we conversed with the father. What a gracious and delightful family! We ate a simple lunch of chicken, beans and rice with flan for dessert in their small home while they tried to tell us many secrets of surviving in the DR. It must give them satisfaction to help out a couple of "potato farmers" from Idaho. By the way, when anyone hears that we are from Idaho, we get one of two responses. Either they think of potatoes, or they think we are from Ohio.

After the lunch we talked around the table for about an hour (people seem to be very fond of talking a lot around here). When they took us home they wanted to come in and see our apartment. This was a welcome gesture because we had a number of questions about the different items we found in the house. For example, in the maid's quarters we found a white box attached to a series of eight car batteries. Through translation we learned that this was called an inverter ... or in our culture we would probably refer to this as a generator ... a type of electrical battery backup. In this country the electricity goes out a lot. This is not because of storms or any logically predictable phenomenon. Rather it appears to be a type of rationing. When they want to save electricity, they simple turn it off at various parts of the city at different times for a half hour or hour at a time. There is no warning or schedule for this so quite a few of the homes and businesses have these electrical backup systems. We were fortunate enough to have one in our apartment. During the frequent power outages this inverter runs the lights and refrigerator.

Another odd feature we discovered in the linen closet was another car battery. Puzzled, Carlos decided to figure it out on his own when I showed it to him. Within seconds all of us had to put our hands over our ears to protect our hearing from a very loud security alarm. He had inadvertently tampered with an alarm system that our apartment is equipped with and this was a miniature inverter in case of power outages. Of course, it doesn't do us any good because we have to sign up for the service from a company which we are probably not going to do.

In one sense we felt a bit embarrassed about showing our apartment to this family. Although they appear to be better off than many Dominicans that we see around us, their house was smaller than our apartment. So Carol and I almost feel unworthy to have this apartment. I think the school was trying very hard to make us feel comfortable and to have enough room when our daughter comes to live with us in a few months. (Lord willing!)

We understood at first that we would have nothing in the apartment when we arrived except a stove, a refrigerator, an inverter, and a bed. We discovered to our surprise that they also had a used wicker set of living room furniture and a kitchen table and chairs. They are loaned to us until October at which time we have the option to purchase them. In the refrigerator also was a few day's supply of food, and on the counter a five gallon jug of purified water. I also noticed that they had purchsed a 2-liter bottle of Coke and a pint of peanut butter .... nice touch! We were very grateful for these small considerate acts of kindness.

The church that we attended, by the way, was called Grace Baptist, but it in reality is a 5-point Calvinist Reform doctrine congregation. Our faculty and staff appear to be predominantly from this background. Many of the colleges that this school recruits from are of the reform doctrine and many of them come from the mid-west. The only reason that the word "Baptist" appears in the name, I was told, is because this particular church does not believe in infant baptism.

From the first time that I interviewed with this school until this week I have been asking a pretty basic question ... what are you hiring me to teach? Doesn't that sound reasonable? If I am striving to be an excellent instructor and do the job that I am hired to do it would be nice if I at least knew what I was going to teach. For reasons I still don't understand they could not tell me. So at first I was told that I would be having 4, maybe up to 5 preps, and that they would be math classes. Since one of the classes was going to be calculus I took a calculus course from one of my colleagues at the high school during my prep period this last year. A decent calculus thought had not crossed my mind in over 38 years so I knew I had to do this in order to be prepared. Then in the spring just before the year was over I learned that instead of calculus it would be biology. So I quit calculus and quickly picked the brains of several of my cohorts at my high school who taught biology.

Attempts during the summer, and then later at the orientation in Indiana at finding out my schedule were met with a quizzical look and the expression, "Remember ... embrace ambiquity!" This was too difficult of a concept for my brain to understand so I continued to hum "Leave it There". I could at least understand the idea of trusting God when things are out of my control ... which seemed to be a lot lately.

The master schedule finally arrived this week, scarcely six days before my first class. To my amusement I learned that I would be teaching not 5 but 6 subjects, and three of them had not been mentioned as a possibility until that moment. Algebra I, Algebra 2, and Biology were expected, but to my amazement in front of me on the schedule under my name were calculus, SAT Prep, and health. The words that I chose to describe this moment (ie - amusement and amazment) were not by accident. At first I thought it was a mistake and it was sort of funny. Only seconds later I realized nobody was snickering and I was truly amazed that this is simply the way it works in a small Christian school that happened to have a 40% turn-over of their staff this year. So I stumbled up to my room in a type of daze and tried to think of a plan to survive.

Trying to find the correct room and then the the correct keys is a half a day story in itself. But when I finally entered my school room (which was the biology room from last year) and saw the thick dust and disarray in front of me I knew then I was going to have to memorize all three stanzas of that hymn. When I explained the situation to my wife she immediately committed every minute to helping me. For the last three days we have spent every available minute washing and cleaning and dusting and organizing and carrying and tossing every thing from sheep eyes in formaldehyde to water damaged teacher manuals. Carol continued to work even when I had to go to other meetings such as a psychologically-based orientation session about how to adapt to the Dominican culture ... a four-hour marathon!

At this point I realize I am in a bit of a pressured mood so my writing is a bit skewed. Lord willing, when I post again I can mention some of the wonderful things that we've discovered here and the love that people have shown us. But right now it is late and I have to hum myself to sleep as I prepare for another day.

"Oh, Well"

2008-08-05T17:53:00.000-07:00

Over the past few weeks as the conversation with various people turned to what I will be doing in retirement, a certain expression seemed to be a pattern in response. As I explain that I have decided to teach math in a Christian school for two years in the Dominican Republic, the person will usually pause for a second while a look of amazement forms on his or her face, and then I hear, “Oh, what an adventure!” As I thought about this I have to agree. This Santiago Target, as I’ve affectionately referred to it over the past year as it slowly turned from a dream to reality, is at the very least an adventure. But I am wondering if I am really up to an adventure at this time in my life.

Adventure is well and good if one is adventuresome … and maybe a little younger. But when we are empty-nesters with more experience than we have energy, I am wondering if this is a wise move on our part. So, true to any major decision, I am having my moments of doubt. One time when I was in college I wanted to go to a Christian training camp in Washington DC. Having little money I decided to travel across the country in a tiny excuse for a car called a TR-10. Over my parents attempt at questioning the wisdom of this “adventure” I took off with the sign “WASHINGTON DC OR BUST” on the trunk. Before the trip was over I “busted” and in the process learned that not all adventures turn out well, if you know what I mean. It was a miracle that I made it to the camp and I had to admit that I made a foolish decision.

So, is this Santiago Target truly an adventure? Or is it another foolish decision? This brings up a lot to discuss, I’m sure, about how a person knows God’s leading, and how he can teach us growing-up lessons even when we make bad choices, but needless to say, I am pondering the ramifications of my Santiago adventure.

At any rate, it is a little late to change my mind. Right now I am on a train heading to Indianapolis to make the connection for a flight to the Dominican Republic. And I must say that whatever category this decision falls under, God has been very faithful to my wife and me as we have prepared for this trip this summer. We are not particularly “adventuresome” people, so this is quite an undertaking for us. The biggest lesson we’ve learned so far is what we have called the “Oh, well” lesson.

Both of us fall under the category of “Monkish”. If you have seen the television series Monk you will know what I mean. He is a character with many neuroses such as wanting things to come out evenly and wanting to have control of his environment and being very organized. When two people like us make a decision which registers amazement on people’s faces and falls under the category of “an adventure”, you can predict the consequences … worry, frustration, panic, overwhelmness, etc. We knew this would happen, so early on we committed ourselves to approaching this experience as a chance to learn faith in God in the small areas. So rather than looking at this as an adventure to accomplish, we wanted to see it as a opportunity to “do it right” along the way. Therefore, we had to learn the phrase “Oh, well” and have had to use it liberally.

When my wife discovered that she forgot the clothes that she set aside specifically for the train trip, we said, “Oh, well”. When they told us we were too late to have the last meal we would have for the next 12 hours on the train, we said, “Oh, well.” In other words, when things threaten to be a disappointment, we are holding each other accountable to have a lighter attitude and spend more time trusting God even when it is our own fault.

This summer was used to get ready to go to the DR. Everyday has been a blur of accomplishing projects from a check-off list with plentiful opportunities to learn the lesson of faith called “Oh, well”. It is similar to a wedding, we figured. Whether or not we are perfectly ready, it will happen. So our goal was to be as ready as we could by the date of departure … August 1st. We were admittedly pressured as any couple would have been but we learned two things during this time:

1) Most of the problems and pressure we faced had to do with our possessions, particularly our home which we own. Our prayer, of course, was that God would have it rented early so we would breathe a sigh of relief and know how to plan. But, as is sometimes typical of a God who cares more about our sanctification and growth in faith than whether our house rented, He waited until the last minute. But the couple who rented from us has excellent references and seems to be exactly what we need.

2) We need the body of Christ. A friend of ours has parents who live at Sandpoint … the embarkation point of the train that we were supposed to take. And, true to God’s grace, this friend and her family were leaving for Sandpoint for a family vacation this same weekend. So she simply rode up with us a day earlier than her family was to show up and then was able to drive us to the train station at 2:30 in the morning. And, yes, she stayed up with us and waited the whole time until we boarded the train. She is a true friend indeed. She will then drive our car back toward Moscow in a couple of days when her vacation is over and drop it off at Potlatch and ride the rest of the way to Moscow with her family. Our car sprung a leak in the manifold in the last few weeks and my pastor, who is also a mechanic, will fix it and then store the car for the next two years. Another friend agreed to be our property manager so he will be taking care of our house while we are gone. Two days before we left, some families came over a couple of times to move furniture and clean the house. And then my men’s Bible study group along with their wives invaded our empty living room with some ice cream one night and spent part of an evening helping us to move some more furniture. As we look back on this we realized that we are truly blessed by the friends we have and honestly couldn’t have done this without their help. And I suppose this is a strand that will be woven throughout the fabric of these next two years.

Right now we are on the last leg of a very long but enjoyable Amtrak train trip. The train that we rode from Sandpoint, Idaho to Chicago was called the Empire Builder. It must have had 20 cars on it. Some of them, like the one we were on, were called “sleepers” and then there were the coach cars which resemble a bus or maybe a roomy airplane. Once the train was moving we had access to every car if we wanted which also included the dining car and an observatory car which they called a lounge. It had windows in the ceiling also and so as a result you could get quite a panoramic view of the sights which in some cases was spectacular.

Since we had a sleeper we were able to eat at the dining car any time we wanted and have anything we wanted as part of the fare (except alcohol which suited us just fine). The interesting thing about this is we didn’t realize until the end of the first day that we could eat for free. We had brought a bag of food which Paula, another generous friend, had given us to carry on the train packed with a variety of delectable goodies to keep us fed and happy, but while we were waiting at Donna’s parents’ guest house in Sandpoint for the train to come, we decided to repack so we wouldn’t have so much weight to lug around. So we gave about half the food to Donna for her family who was coming up the next day. Now that we were on the train we began to wonder how we were going to survive for 36 hours on this small amount of food. The menu on the train was wonderful but it cost $21 for a steak, for instance, and we knew we couldn’t eat very much at those prices. When we discovered that we could have as much as we wanted we felt pretty stupid. So the rest of the trip we ate like kings and queens and still had our friend’s food for snacks and our 6 hour trip from Chicago to Indianapolis.

To tell the truth, this has been very enjoyable and we would like to do it again someday now that we know how it works. It takes a long time … sort of like driving … but we can stand and walk around and the seats are very roomy. The sleeper room was small but adequate. The two seats were facing each other and situated next to a large window. We could read or talk in privacy whenever we wanted. Then at night the two seats collapsed flat toward each other and created a camper-sized twin bed, another bed dropped down from the ceiling creating another bed and, bingo, we were set up for the night. One bathroom was shared by our car of a half dozen people plus a shower. In fact, I couldn’t go very long before I would think of the Alfred Hitchcock movie “North by Northwest”. Remember that movie with Cary Grant on the train and his adventure at Mount Rushmore?

In Chicago we changed trains. These words are being “penned” while we are on a different Amtrak train on our way to Indianapolis. We are on “coach class” now which isn’t as fancy but the trip is only about 6 hours.

The schedule for the beginning of this Santiago adventure was emailed a couple of days ago and I know that once I get off the train in another hour or so, I won’t be able to turn around without squeaking because of the tight schedule. One week will be spent in a town near Indianapolis called Marion while they orient us new teachers to the new culture we are going to, and then another week in meetings once we arrive at the school in Santiago plus setting up our almost empty apartment. Then school starts on Aug 19th. So the next post in this blog may be a few weeks in coming.

When we arrived at the Chicago Union Train station, a pretty overwhelming place for a couple of country hicks, we stood on the dark, narrow train platform next to the train wondering what we were going to do with two backpacks, a bag of food, and four huge suitcases. A jovial, older black man with a red cap whisked by driving a small train-type vehicle and stopped to ask if we needed help. We did and he took over from there. For the next hour he showed us where to go, took care of our luggage, and waited to make sure we were on the right train when it didn’t come in on time. His name was Lavelle and I think he was an angel in disguise. I’m not sure how we could have figured this all our without him.

While I was in my sleeper room yesterday God spoke to me with the truth from a couple of verses from my daily reading.

For thus saith the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy; I dwell in the high and holy place, with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble and to revive the heart of the contrite ones. Isa 57:15

Behold, the Lord’s hand is not shortened, that it cannot save; neither his ear heavy, that it cannot hear: But your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you, that he will not hear. Isa 59:1,2

God wants to revive us and give us the peace and joy of knowing and trusting him in all situations, but He can only do that with a humble heart. It is not God’s fault that we are separated from his holiness. What gets in the way is our sin and pride and ignorance and fear. It was like our situation with food on the train. Here we were worrying about how we were going to be fed with the smaller amount that we chose to bring with us, and all the while there was an infinite supply of gourmet food available simply because we were on the right train with the right ticket. I wonder if we don’t do that a lot in our walk with God.

This was meaningful to me as I thought about this “adventure” that we are beginning right now. I honestly want to walk with God and trust Him these next two years and not let it simply be an excuse to accomplish some personal goals. I want to work for the Kingdom while I am able in a physical way. And, to tell you the truth, I don’t feel very adequate right now as I am bumping along the last few miles on this train. I hope this is not just one of these wild and foolish decisions I’ve been known to make in my youth. I want this to be truly an adventure and to simply say “Oh, well” when things don’t turn out the way I think they should, and look to God to supply my needs in His way.