Being married to a long-suffering Arizona Cardinal fan, I have become aware of the phrase uttered by the Cardinal coach in 2006, after losing to the Chicago Bears, “They are who we thought they were.” Cardinal foes and fans have since created many variations on this theme, culminating in “We are who nobody thought we were!” after the Cardinals won the NFC championship this year.
I have my own variation on this theme which has absolutely nothing to do with football, but everything to do with ministry here in Santiago. Here it is: “We are where God thought we should be.” You see, we have a joyful sense of being in the right place at the right time, ministering alongside the Dominican believers of the First Christian Bible Church of Santiago (a.k.a. Central, due to its location). We have always enjoyed the fellowship and the worship times at Central. Yet, over the past 4½ years we would sometimes ask ourselves if we were where we should be.
When we arrived in the Dominican Republic, the Central church was the least “needy” of the churches that our CrossWorld team was working with in Santiago. There are two godly Dominican co-pastors leading the church. But we needed this loving community as we learned the language and culture. Integrating into the life of the body in many small ways, we became part of the family. As the church grew, Bob became a small group leader, and I participated in a weekly prayer group and the women’s ministry. This was the “Dominican” side of ministry, while we were also discipling Haitian university students across town.
Currently, God is blessing Central with growth that has the leaders scrambling to buy more chairs and seeking God’s wisdom for what to do next. In these uncertain times, people are responding to their neighbor’s invitation to come and hear what God says in His Word. As a result, there are many new believers needing coaching in this new life in Christ, and older believers with a renewed hunger to study the Bible. The “small” groups don’t fit in anybody’s living room anymore. They are ready to divide as soon as more leaders step up to the task.
Benefiting from the relationships of trust that we built during the years of wondering if we were where we should be; we are now being asked to teach, mentor, and train others to do so. We work with two small groups each week, one with mostly new believers, whose questions are both a delight and a challenge as we sit around snacking on cornbread and cheese. More than half of the group members are young men, struggling to find employment and living in strife-filled neighborhoods. Please pray for Antony, Sandy, Miguel, Juan, and Michel.
Pray as well for the next line of small group leaders, a group of 8-12 men who are studying the Bible with Bob on Saturday evenings. We love it when people ask us to study the Word with them! Alberto, a university student, enthusiastically leads the youth group at Central, and is studying 1 Peter with Bob two to three mornings a week, after they play basketball for an hour. They don’t seem to mind studying while dripping with sweat—must be a guy thing!
There’s other good stuff going on as well, but I think you get the picture that God is at work in and through this church; and we’re glad to be here at this time in their history. Thank you for making it possible. Pray that we, together with the church body, will be the salt and light that God intends for us to be.
Looking forward to being what God knows we are,
Bob and Judy
Friday, February 6, 2009
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