Spring Teams 2015

 

Throughout the month of March we had several groups come and serve alongside us here at the Young Mens Social Work Site. My first Spring team was Students International's first local team from right here in the Dominican Republic. Joel and Xavier are two amazing men of God who are studying in the Academia in Santiago in the area of Theology. They are both interested in doing ministry where God calls them. They were such a HUGE blessing and spoke many words of TRUTH into the lives of the guys in the streets of Jarabacoa.

The Second week was a group of three guys: Scott, Ian, and Ethan who came with a lot of willingness to be used by God with their very distinct gifts. God brought this very unique team together: a student, a pastor, and a geologist and with all of the differing life experiences, God did some AWESOME work through this group. I was impressed with the ways that these guys connected with the young men despite the language barrier.

The third week was the largest group I have ever had. José (Alfred), Scott, Roberto, Dan, and Tyler came from a Christian school in California called Heritage Christian School. God had a very special plan with this group as well. The Holy Spirit totally was at work this week both in the team and as well as the young men they came into contact with. I admire them so much for their willingness to come and be learners, and through that sometimes humbling experience, allow God to use them in ways they probably never thought they could be used. Many of them were impacted by the faith of a new brother in the faith. It was so cool to see God take the two worlds, cultures, languages and unite them in a way that is One. Only JESUS can do a work as such. They challenged each other to seek God out with all of their hearts and find true joy in Him.

God's body and love has no barriers. It is SO BIG! It goes well beyond culture, race, language, nationality and HE is working on a global level. It has been such a blessing this last month to see God combine these worlds and serve together as HIS church.  Thank you to all of you who came and came humble and willing to see God work. God Bless. 

How God uses Our Failures to Show His Glory

There have been quite a few battles these last couple of months. There was a terrible epidemic of Scabies going around in just about all of the guys in the park. It is highly contagious, and what started in just a few had passed on to just about all of the guys in the park and their families.  I have a doctor who is teaming up with me to do medical checkups for the guys at the site and she has been a huge blessing. We began meeting up with the guys, doing medical checkups and treating them for this very uncomfortable epidemic.  While we were meeting with the boys, we had to meet with each one individually in a private office because we had to do full body checkups. I had thought, “We don’t have any supervision, but hopefully everything will be fine.” Later on after the medical checkups I had a meeting with the barber who will be giving the barber shop class and I wanted to show him the things we had accumulated and put together and also see what else he needed for him to be able to begin working. When I went to open the box to show him the clippers, I discovered that they were stolen; and I knew that it had to be one of the guys that we had treated. Knowing each of them and having a pretty good idea of the character of each one, I had a pretty good idea of who it was, but without any proof, I didn’t want to accuse anyone without knowing for sure.

 So I went to the park to talk and confront the guys. I discovered that the person I had suspected had actually pawned it off for some money. The place where it was pawned was at a local bar at night, and so I went there immediately that night to see if the clippers that were pawned were the clippers from the site. When I got there, it felt very ironic because I literally walked into what was a bar at night and I ran into a few of the guys that I know from the park, and they were so shocked to see me there. I had told the guy at the bar that I was opening a Barber Shop and that I was looking for some clippers. He said that he had two but they were at his house; so he told me to come the next day. I took that night to think and pray about how I was going to confront the young man when I found out for sure that those were the clippers.

 The next morning I sought out some wise counsel at work from some Dominican friends to see how effective the way I was going to confront the young man would be. We prayed and I went to the park to then later meet with the man from the bar/pawn shop to confirm that they were the clippers. While I was at the park, I began talking with the boys in the park, like I normally do, and I was getting my shoes cleaned. As I was getting my shoes cleaned and talking with the guys in the park, the young man that I suspected had stolen the clippers arrived at the park with another guy. I greeted him like I always do and began asking him how he was feeling; if the medication that we had given him was working. He didn’t say too much and went off to shine shoes leaving the guy he came with talking with me. As we were talking, the young man called me over to him. 

As I was walking up to him he was shining the shoes of a client. He told me, “Jim, I need to talk to you, but not now; when I finish with this client.” So I sat down next to the client and started talking to him and began making comments about how well the young man shining his shoes was doing (which is something that I normally do to encourage the guys). However, as I was talking about his quality of work, I could see his head just get lower and lower, and he would make less eye contact with me. When he finished up with the client, the client left and the young man came and sat down next to me, but still unable to make eye contact with me. He looks up at me and he said, “Jim, I committed an error.” I wanted him to say and confess what had happened so I said, “What do you mean? What happened?” He told me, “Jim, I know you know. I saw you last night at the park and I watched you the entire time. I wanted to tell you last night. After I pawned it off I felt bad and I wanted to tell you, but then I saw you in the park last night and I saw you talking with the other guys, and I felt ashamed, and that is why I didn’t come out and talk to you last night.” So I asked him, “Just curious, how much did you pawn it off for?” He looked at me with a little confused look and he told me, “250 pesos.” I then asked him; why he pawned it off, if he was having some problems financially. He told me that he did, and that was the reason for why he pawned it off. I explained to him that I could understand why he would steal from me, but he interrupted me and said, “Yeah, but that is never an excuse to steal, especially from you.” I was so happy to hear that he understood that there is never a “good excuse” to steal, but it worried me that he was more concerned with stealing from me than stealing in it of itself. So I went onto explain, “Yes, but not just to steal from me but from anyone. I explained to him that the most precious thing that he could have is peoples’ trust, and if you lose that that is not a very good place to be, and if anyone puts the label on him as thief, he would lose that very precious thing no matter who that person be that he stole from. I also went on to say that I admire your courage to come to me and tell me the truth; you earn trust by doing the correct thing even though it is hard. I also told him, “I want you to know, you are more important to me than those clippers. However, I explained that yes it is frustrating and that indeed I am trying to set up this program for them, to help them. I tried to put things in his perspective. One thing that he does (other than shoe shine) is wash vehicles. So I asked him, “Let’s say you want to help a group of people and so you decide that you are going to help by teaching them to wash vehicles. You buy all the materials that you need to teach them and to help them, but when you go to teach them you find out that everything that you had invested into help teach them was stolen and by the same group of people that you wanted to help. How would you feel?” He told me, “I would feel bad; frustrated. Because they are literally stealing from themselves because the help is for them.” I said, “Exactly! I care more about you then the clippers” The young man just looked down and said, “Jim, there are not so many people like you.” I explained to him that “God has put this in me, and he has put a love in my heart for you guys especially.” The young man then looked at me and said, “Jim, I want to do the right thing, I am going to buy back the clippers and I will get them back to you.” I said, “Well you are not alone, I want to help you. Let’s do this together; let’s make a plan and together we will get through this.” I continued to tell him, “And I want to help you with this, but I need you to give me your trust and be transparent with me even when you mess up. Are you willing to give me that trust?” He said, “Yes.”  I told him, “Then let’s do this.” He then expressed a lot of interest in getting involved in the program. I am really excited to have him get involved. A few days later we ended up getting the clippers back, and I am very excited to see what God has in store for this young man.