Through It All He is Faithful

Faithfulness - Adhering firmly and devotedly, Worthy of trust or belief; reliable, Consistent with truth or actuality

These are the things of Christ. While I am an emotional roller-coaster, He stays the same. While I am unloving, and angry, He is always loving and consistently showing me His love. He is my rock while I am shifting sand.

Let me give you some examples of His faithfulness and my lack there of.

We began having weekly staff meetings as a coffee shop. I thought they were needed and found out that they were. But not exactly how I would have wanted them to go, I walk away from them every week and have to ask the question “Did that accomplish anything?”. Because sometimes actions speak louder words and we can all agree on one thing and the next day get back into the exact same routine as before. This week while walking into the meeting I didn’t even want to go. My type A personality was frustrated in thinking it would be pointless. I was in for a wake up call when the employees started thanking me for the weekly meetings, telling me how great and helpful they have been. Who would have known!

Or let me tell you of the boys/man/grampas that come in daily asking for these two American girls names, telling us we are beautiful and even being blunt enough to tell us they want to have babies with us or that we would make good wives. But let me tell you about Nova, a man who comes in everyday to read his paper. Who loves us, and a few days ago pulled aside a young man who was whistling at Gracie and started asking him questions such as “do you work?” “Do you love Jesus?” “You’re 14 stop trying to hit on this 18 year old” “And to have more respect for people”. Being respected by your regular customers is God being faithful, showing us we have people who love us and are there to protect us, this is just one example of how these people have embraced us with loving arms.

Let me tell you a story of God being faithful and calling His people to Himself. Luciano is one of our employees, every opportunity he gets to share Christ with someone he takes it. He humbles me. He has been talking to this one man for quite some time now and on Saturday night there was a fiesta in heaven because in little Hato Mayor, in Café del Rey, this man gave his life to Christ. This is God being faithful. This is the God I serve. And this is the God who is showing He works through faithful followers.

I can go on and on about the amount of faithfulness I have been blown away by. I just keep praying that I am faithful. Because its not about how many mochas we sell, or fretting about “Dominican time”, or worrying about money. What matters is to love the Lord God with all your heart, love you neighbor as yourself, and to spread the gospel. This is what we need to be about, because it is plain to see that this is what God is about. We are called to love people, young, old, rich, or poor.

It’s amazing to see the power of prayer. People here think “crazy” people should be cast out or frowned upon. It was amazing to watch our employees’ eyes as I began talking to this people. We have a man Noel come in almost everyday, sure everyday he asks me for five pesos (Noel that will not help anything) but I give him coffee for free and ask him how he is doing that day. He might be crazy, but we crazy love him right back because he is an image bearer of God just like me. We have a women who some believe is demon possessed come in at night, she will grab peoples drinks right out of their hand and drink them, she will blankly stare at you. My employees suggested we should just give her whatever she wants and get her out of there. I suggested let’s pray. She still comes in but has been disruptive. Sure she is crazy, but we are called to love people no matter how they act or what they look like. Thank goodness God does because if He didn’t I would never be going to heaven!

Yes we are called to work hard, and believe me we do down here, every night I crawl to my bed exhausted and just pray for enough strength to do it all again tomorrow. God shows His faithfulness through this as well.

And when He realizes it’s too much for us, He allows us to go to the beach, to baseball games, to have friends like Jessica, parties with Dominican music and friends, and go to bible studies. He understands we can’t exhaust ourselves of life because how could we be giving our best when we are on our last string. Again showing His Faithfulness.

Psalm 119:89-90

Forever, O Lord,

Your word is settled in heaven.

You faithfulness endures to all generations.

You established the earth, and it abides

He is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow. Thank God He never changes.

Updates from Cafe del Rey

After traveling around a little bit in my few years of life. I have realized people are people everywhere. Everywhere from China to Chile, from Germany to Guatemala, and from Denmark to the Dominican Republic people are people. We go to work, we have families, we have churches and stores, we have problems with our families, money, our churches. Everywhere people are just trying to get by and make it in this difficult, sin infested world.

And in Hato Mayor it is the same.

We are working hard, we are sharing the gospel, and going to church, and going to the grocery store. Girls go to hair solons and boys go to hardware stores. At Cafe del Rey we clean dishes, sweep floors and make food and coffee.

Instilling in a person who has no experience in the business world simple business skills is easier said than done. I didn't realize the amount of patience I need for my job. 

When they came to me and asked me if I could take over the financial side of the business because they aren't very good at it, I knew this was going to be more like a marathon than a sprint.

But slowly and surely we are learning, the human brain is an amazing thing. You are instilled your whole life that this is the sure way of doing something and than someone teaches you something different although your brain resists over time you can learn. Kind of like my spanish. Its honestly amazing.

I have gotten to teach them what controlling expenses looks like. And if we start off the day with 3000 pesos and end with 1500 pesos, just because we have pesos in the cash register does not mean we made money. Also if we are buying all the ingredients to make a pastelones for 61 pesos and selling them at 50 pesos we are actually losing money, no matter how many we sell that day. And the big work in progress right now is, if someone asks for a frappuccino, they want it to be the same as it was yesterday, consistency, consistency, consistency. 

And our money is slowly becoming consistent. We are learning how to cut costs, put money aside for savings, and also how to control our spending. Its an uphill battle, but over time I have faith.

As soon as you think they get it, they go back to their old ways. But thats where the patience comes in, they want to do whats comfortable and what they are use to, change is hard.

It is so parallel to how Our Father is with us. 

His patiences with us blows my mind. How often and quick I am to fall back into my old ways, my old sins and He patiently shows me the right way again. 

Although I love my job, I love being part of the business, I love doing cost analysis, spread sheets, and fixing problem after problem after problem everyday. What I love most is sharing the gospel. What I love most is showing people the way, the only way to get to heaven. So I started a bible study, although I'm not fluent in my spanish yet, it is beginning in english for our missionaries here and anyone else who wants to join. 

Please keep Cafe del Rey your prayers as we progress.