The Thing Was Done Suddenly

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.

I Spent Christmas Eve in Prison

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.