The Sovereignty of God

Dear Friends and Family,

            It would be hard for me to describe in words how blessed I have felt over the last year by your love and support.  There were times of real loneliness and frustration and knowing that you were praying for me and supporting my work meant the world to me.  Over the last few months it became evident to me that my time in the Dominican Republic was coming to an end.  When I took on this ministry, my objective was to take over the café ministry and bring order, establish vision, and achieve financial stability.  By God’s grace, your support and a wonderful staff of people I have sought that through to the end. The café is now being placed in the hands of Dominican woman, providing a livelihood and jobs for people in Hato Mayor.  My goal was to work myself out of the job and I’m thankful to God to report that’s what I did.  So what’s next?

In March of this year, while I was seeking God’s will, I met a man on a mission trip named Paul Harbison.  Paul works for an organization called Coalition for Christian Outreach. Check out their website http://www.ccojubilee.org/. The CCO is a ministry seeking to win college students to Christ and to disciple them as His followers.  He asked me to consider coming and working with him in that organization.  In May the CCO flew me to the US for an interview and by the end of May they had offered me a position.  My responsibility to the CCO will be three fold.

Firstly, I will be a campus minister at the Community College of Beaver County.  This will be a new position on this campus for the CCO.  I will be seeking to win unbelievers to Christ, establishing first time Bible studies and developing discipleship relationships and influences on the campus. I am excited to do this because I have attended a community campus for part of my own college career and I have a heart for such places. 

Secondly, I will be working with Aliquippa Impact.  It is an inner city ministry seeking to impact the community with the gospel.  In all of Pennsylvania, Aliquippa is ranked second in economic depression and educational distress.  I will be working with teenagers and seeking to disciple them.  Many of these young people come from a variety of broken backgrounds.  As AI seeks to bring community development to this town they use college interns throughout the summer, I will also be responsible to oversee this ministry (this will be very similar to my work with the Boston project in 2011). Please check out their website! http://www.aliquippaimpact.org/

Finally, I will be working with a specialized CCO department called Experimental Design (XD).  XD is a worldwide cross-cultural ministry that designs cultural immersion experiences for college students.  With the intent of giving these students a vision as global Christians, I will be working with the XD team designing and leading trips around the world. This is XD's website http://www.ccojubilee.org/cco-xd/

I am very excited about the new calling God has placed upon my life.  Once again I feel inadequate, scared, and can ask with the apostle Paul “who is sufficient for these things?” (2 Corinthians 2:16).  Once again I so value your prayerful support for me.  One of the biggest challenges I’m going to face in this new job is that I have to raise $2000 per month (which is twice what I raised for my work in the DR).  Please pray with me about this and consider financially supporting me as I follow God in this new ministry.  If you have any questions please feel free to contact me anytime.  Let me just say in closing, thank you once again for all of your support of my work in the DR. If God leads you to continue to support me I look forward to us “partnering together once again for the Gospel” (Philipians1:5). 

Blessings in Christ,

The Power of Pray

Dear Loved Ones,

I believe in the power of pray and now that I found out that people all over the world were praying for this child, I need to tell you guys the rest of the story.

We began with sitting down with Calvin and asking him what does he really want. He is a street boy and learned how to lie on the streets so its hard to get the truth out of him. He finally told us honestly that he doesn't want us to find his mom. He said if he goes back with his mom, she will make him go back to work for money. He told us she use to tell him "If you come back today without any food or money you will be sleeping outside". He said what he really wants from us is to send him to a orphanage. He said he wanted to get his mind erased from all of the terrible experiences and things that he has seen in his life and he wants to study and go to school to be a pilot.
We began the search to look for any family that he had, two americans, one Haitian, a dominican, and Ricky. On two scooters. We searched all the way in the middle of no where, we would find someone and they said "ask the house three houses down they might know something". We got this answer for four hours. Only to find out his grandma died and he has no uncles or aunts. We came back frustrated and Calvin was there again that night, hungry, and with no place to sleep. I kept paying for him to sleep in a hotel because we knew not a single soul that would allow him in their house.
The next day we found him in the park hanging out with the baddest group of boys we knew, Ricky told us that he has in a gang of young boys that moved drugs and this gang even got accused that day of raping a little girl.
He came with us immediately, he is very smart and he knows doesn't want to live this life anymore.
We took him to the cafe and began to think, asking around the whole town for a place to sleep because I was running out of money fast for hotels. Our last resort was my employee Luciano, I thought he was going to say no. He told us that its a coincidence that we asked him that night, his wife and baby girl were in the capital and Calvin could sleep there that night! Another night he was safe and off the streets! I slept good that night.

Only to wake up the next day with a child who got a fever higher than 103. Luciano could not keep him there because Luciano's dad is very sick and old and couldn't afford getting fever. Again I was out of luck on where to keep this child. We took him to the clinic hoping maybe he could spend a few nights there. But the whole town is getting this disease "La Chiqungunya" from the mosquitos and the clinic was full. I start crying because I have so much focus on the cafe I don't have much time for anything else especially a sick child. I went to a orphanage later that day just to find out that there are barely any orphanage that will take street kids. My hope was failing.

I went to Arturo, the director of MGM to see if he knew any resources, this was Saturday. He said we can get him into the children service system called CONANI and they will place him in a orphanage. But they won't be open until monday. All is well and good but what was I suppose to do with him that day, that hour, with a fever so high. Thank God my best friend here is a nurse and was able to provide the medicine for him. And people at MGM pitched in to pay for hotels for two nights. We nursed him back to health for two days. Monday I went to the police station to talk to CONANI. They said we can meet later that day and figure out what to do. In the mean time they had no where to put a sick child so we took a mattress and they laid him in the shade to rest.....by the prisoners. Perfect.

The fiscal who took our case showed grace on us and really helped us. But still no place in Hato Mayor where they take kids until CONANI can come and investigate the case. She planned to take him to the fire hall because the firemen spend the night there and can watch over him. The one place in town he got kicked out of for sleeping in their old fire truck. Perfect! As we took him there we knew they didn't want him and very upset about the situation. We told them we would take care of him and please show kindness on him and explain his situation. That was last night.

Today as we went to look for Calvin, they told us he went to go find food, but there was this man there, an optometrist who sells glasses and gives eye exams. The day he was giving them out of the fire situation to the people in that neighborhood. He began to explain to us how he knows Calvin and just last night heard his entire story. He told us that he wanted to adopt Calvin! He already talked to his wife and they agreed that they want to give this boy an opportunity to study and a good home to live! He also wants teach him optometry and allow him to learn the skill. CONANI will defiantly be involved in placing him there and making sure everything is safe for him.
I cried for an hour in  disbelief. A dominican showing compassion on another dominican. It was so beautiful. I kept apologizing for the tears and telling him they were tears of joy. As I hugged him he began to cry too realizing what he was doing.

I just wanted to share this miracle with you guys! Calvin is going to be safe and with people who love him. God truly answers pray, and in his timing to! God answered this pray in the last hour but His timing is perfect. Thank you Thank you Thank you for your prayers!

We serve a Faithful God!