Questions

“How do you witness to your friends back home?” I was working at the dentistry site with my leader, Vanessa, bent over a patient helping her insert a filling where a cavity had been removed from a tooth when she asked me and my partner Zach Shepard this question. I wondered “have I been witnessing to my friends back home?” I decided that overall I had, by living a life that shows the values of our Christian walk; by shining Jesus’ love on those around me and by choosing not to walk in sin. Vanessa considered my answer and agreed that it was truly a good way to witness but had another question to ask me. “What about the spoken power of the gospel then?” It was true, I was living the gospel well but I wasn’t always actually speaking his truth. With a few simple questions she had taught me about what it means to be living as witnesses of Christ.

Our site leaders have been asking all of us questions as we work with the people here. Questions about what we have learned and about our lives back in the United States. The questions we are asked show the love of those we work with as they learn more about us and as they help us grow in our Christian walk.

“Is this community poor?” Desiree Istrati and Zivana Mihalik, LIFT students working with Daisy in social work at the small rural village of El Callejon were challenged with this question while walking through the streets. The answer to the question seemed obvious. To our American standards the community was clearly poor. They didn’t have cars like we did, their houses were small and brick or random boards nailed together. It seemed that they lacked so much, but fruit trees adorned the yards of the houses. Children ran through smiling and laughing. They didn’t have the same amount of material goods that we have in the states, but they had food to eat, shelter to sleep in, and family and friends who care for them. They have everything they need to survive. As Daisy put it, what the missionaries were called to was not to give them more material goods, but to feed them the bread of life. She later said “I don’t give them advice, I give them The Word.” What they needed was the gospel, to be told that God loves them and that Jesus came to earth to die for their sins.

On this same walk the LIFTers were talking to the locals they passed by, asking them about their life, trying to learn more about the community. As they talked to different young couples an interesting question kept coming up that Zivana asked Desiree, who was translating, “Desi, are they really married?” The answer was no. They said they were married but really, they had simply left their family to live together. Many young women in the Dominican Republic decide against their parents’ wishes to get married to a young man they know. They call it escaping from the window. In the middle of the night they leave their homes, and run away, to live with their suitor. It is the tragic opening to many broken families. The girls have children at a very young age and end up trapped in these relationships. They cannot return to their homes, either because their parents have rejected them after they ran away or because they are trapped by their own shame.

Amanda Eyler and Rachael Hupal, working with social work in the community of Mata Gorda had been working with a seventeen year old girl, Lucy.  She was living with her “husband’ who she has been with for several years. She had come to a sewing day bringing along her two year old child and had worked on making a purse with Amanda. When it was time to leave she said she would be back the next day to finish her project but never showed came.  “Where is she?” Amanda and Rachael asked their site leader why. The answer is the story of so many of these people. Her boyfriend, who was referred to as her husband, was abusive. She had been beaten that night and was unable to come anymore.

This unfortunately is the story of so many women in the Dominican Republic. They live in broken and abusive relationships, with men who are unfaithful to them. Our work here is not only to help the people with the injuries and hurts that they have, but also to try to change their mindsets. We, through Students International, are trying to transform their hearts; to bring them to Christ and share his love. The only way we will help those who are hurting in Jarabacoa is to bring them the love of Christ, and to have them pass it on to those that they know.

Please pray for us in this endeavor; that we will touch the hearts and lives of the people here. We need prayer that the love of God will flow through us, into those we interact with, and through them to this island nation. Thank you so much for your continued prayers.

Blessings of Peace,

Ronald P. Duttweiler Jr.

LIFT 34