DR Trip Day 4

Teacher and Student

I sat down to journal this morning, and found myself trying put into words all that was going on in my heart and mind. Our physical circumstances had been trying to this point: Day 4 with no electricity and Day 3 without running water. My teammates have had the most awesome attitudes, but I know that going to retrieve water from the cistern about 20 times a day is getting old.

Then things took a good turn today around 11 AM. That’s when Camilo stopped by the LIFE House.

From my front porch chair, I put down my pen, closed my journal and went to the front gate to meet him.

“Hola!” I said. “Como estas?”

“Muy bien – muy bien,” he responded.

Standing there in the last bit of a light rain, I asked him how I could help him. I noticed he had a small plastic trash bag in his hand with something in it. I couldn’t quite make it out.

“Si, yo tengo una preguntas acerca de este,” he told me.

Oh, he had some questions. He opened the bag to show me some sheets of paper on which he had written some things.

OK, I thought. This should be interesting. I’m not sure how much help I can be since my Spanish is not that good. I asked him to sit with me on the porch.

When he sat down, he opened his small trash bag and pulled out all of his Bible study worksheets and a New Testament – both given to him by the missionary Carlos on his follow-up visit with Camilo.

I quickly scanned the sheets and noticed that all the fill-in-the-blanks had answers in them except for one section. Quickly, I figured out that this was a good sign. Only one week after he had accepted Christ, he had taken the initiative to complete a Bible study on his own without anyone else’s help.

He turned to a page where there were still some blanks and asked what the section was all about. It was part of a section about what the Bible is and that there is an Old Testament and a New Testament.

As I started explaining it to him in my feeble Spanish, I asked him if he had a Bible. He showed me the New Testament and said that was all he had. To show him the difference, I went and got the one complete Spanish Bible I had bought before this trip.

I opened it to Genesis and said (in Spanish), “See, this is the beginning of the Bible. ‘In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.’ That’s where it all starts – with creation.”

He was nodding his head like he understood, so I continued. I quickly showed him some subtitles in Chapter 2 and Chapter 3. I stopped for a moment to show him the story of the Fall of Man and the first prophecy of Christ in Gen. 3:15. He nodded again. I told him that’s where the first sin occurred, and that sin that separated Adam from God is the same thing that separates us from God – our sin.

Pulling away from his position where he was leaning over the Bible, he sat back and began to talk.

“I realize this now,” he began. “Up until just recently, there was nothing else in my life except baseball and drinking. There was nothing else. Inside, I knew something was wrong,” he told me with a far away look in his eye.

“But a few weeks ago, when Pastor Jake and Roberto came,” he continued, referring to our baseball clinic, “I could tell that there was something different about these guys. All of them. They all seemed so happy and so full,” he said as he took all of the fingertips on his right hand and touched them against his heart. “That really got my attention.”

“One night, after a baseball clinic, I went home and tried to read some Scripture. But I felt something was telling me to pray. I just felt like I was supposed to pray. But I didn’t know exactly what to do.” He paused for a moment and moistened his lips with his tongue.

“The next day – that was the day that I talked to Jake. He told me that it was the Holy Spirit that was trying to get my attention, and that He wanted me to respond to God. When Jake talked to me, I knew that was what I needed. After he talked to me, I prayed right then.”

I couldn’t tell if there were tears in his eyes, but I definitely had them in mine by now. I never tire of hearing people tell their stories of their encounters with God.

“Now, my heart feels different. I don’t even want to live like I was before. I want to do what’s right.”

“Well, that’s because you are a different person now,” I told him. “Just like you saw that Jake and Roberto had a peace and a fullness, you now have that in here,” I said, touching my heart just like he had touched his just moments before.

“That’s true, that’s true,” Camilo responded, nodding his head.

“Now you can begin learning about God’s Word and what He wants for your life so that you can share with others,” I explained.

“You know,” Camilo started. “I am the oldest of seven kids, and I always felt the burden to care for them and to look out for them. Even now, for all these guys that I’m coaching, I feel like I should look out for them,” he said.

“I want to share this with them – all these things that you are sharing with me,” he told me. “But I don’t know as much as you do.”

At that moment, I drew a blank. Now what?

Then God gave me an idea.

“You are a good baseball player, right?” I said to him. “I played baseball in high school and I played softball for my church, but I’m not as good as you, right?”

He smiled and nodded. He knew it was true -- and I knew it, too.

“But did you get good in one day? No, it took lots of practice. Every day you practice hitting and catching and throwing. Every day – little by little, right?”

“Si, si,” he nodded while looking at me.

“It’s the same way with the Christian life. Every day, you read from God’s Word. Every day you spend time in it. Just this morning, I spent about 20 minutes reading from it.”

I could tell this was connecting with him.

“I accepted Christ when I was just a boy, and I’ve spent over 30 years now learning from God’s Word. I know a lot, but there are still things that I don’t know. Just like there are a lot of things about baseball that you know that I don’t know. Does that make sense?”

“Si, si…I understand,” he said.

“What you have to do is to make it a part of your everyday life to read the Word and to learn it. That way you understand it and help others,” I concluded.

“Muy bueno,” he told me. “I will keep reading and studying. Carlos is coming this afternoon to talk with us?”

“Yes,” I said. “He will be here at 4 PM.”

“Good,” he said. “I will be there. I am looking forward to it. And I will have some other guys there as well,” he committed to me.

I shook his strong hand and looked into his soft eyes. They seemed so hungry and so humble at the same time.

He picked up his things and his new Bible that I gave him, and he got onto his motorbike and drove away.

This is what it means to make disciples, I thought. One person at a time. Just being available and being here to answer questions. I didn’t even have to hunt him down or beg him to meet with me. He made an effort to come to my house and to ask me questions.

Then I thought back to what I was doing when he came. Just moments before Camilo showed up at my gate, I was wondering what God was doing with me here. I doubted that I could accomplish anything for God here in this place.

All at once, I found myself in an unusual position. As I sat teaching Camilo, I found I had been sitting at the feet of the Master as He taught me.


“Go into all the world and make disciples…and remember that I am with you always.” The Great Commission

DR Trip Day 1

The journey was long but we’re finally here. After a couple of flights, a quick shopping trip and fumbling around to find our own way out of the bustling city of Santo Domingo (our first major obstacle), we were able to arrive at the LIFE House on Saturday night around 9 pm.

At the house, we were met by Darlin, a high school guy that was befriended by people from Life Community on the last two trips we’ve taken to the DR. I took the keys for the house out of my backpack and Darlin offered to open up the house for us. We got past the sidewalk gate just fine. But we couldn’t find a key that worked for either of the porch gates – our second obstacle. I called Carlos the missionary in Santo Domingo and he spoke with Darlin. When he hung up the phone, Darlin took off to his house just down the street and came back with a hacksaw that he used to cut through the chain on the porch gate. Finally, we were in the house.

I reached over and flicked a light switch. But nothing happened. “Uh oh. This isn’t good,” I thought. Darlin and I checked every breaker and every switch we could find, but still nothing. By this time, it was almost 10 pm. Time to make a decision. We would spend tonight in the hotel.

In the morning, we were awakened by torrential downpours. Hurricane Ike was passing just to the north of the DR, and we were getting some serious rain. In 10-minute bursts, it would rain so hard you could hardly see one block up the street. We had a break in the weather around 9am, so we packed up and headed back to the house.

Things looked more promising in the daylight – even if it was overcast and rainy. But we still had no luck in figuring out how to get the lights on. And we didn’t have running water either. The house has storage tanks, but they require electrical pumps to get the water into the house. So we set about dipping our water out of the cistern and cleaning the house.

Amanda and Sarah worked hard to mop and clean the house and the kitchen. We worked to put away the supplies that we had bought and to tidy up the house. We were finally starting to feel settled in.

Later that evening, we went out to find some candles and batteries for our electric lantern. We came across a little store that was open – unusual around here for a Sunday. They had what we needed except for oil for our hurricane lamps. The store’s co-owner said that he could send someone around the corner to buy it for us, so I gave him some money. He told us to sit down and wait for her to return.

There on the side of the street, we sat in a makeshift circle with him, his daughter, his grandson and a friend of theirs. I struck up a conversation with them about our situation at the house. They were so hospitable. They were asking what else we needed and what we were here for. I told them that we were working with a church back in the States to start a new church in our neighborhood. They said that was good. In a few minutes, we said good-bye and headed back to the house. With lamp oil and batteries, at least we would have light tonight.

Which reminds me of why we came here in the first place. So that this place might have light. Not the house. But this town. We have come here to spread the Light in a place that has so much darkness.

With God’s help, we will do our best to share Christ with these people. We will start sharing the Bible and the light of God’s truth with these people. They are living in darkness, and we have the Light. Pray that God will use us – those of us here in the DR and all of us who are part of Life Community Church – to reach the people of Monte Plata.

by Micah Ray