Now that I’ve updated our “big news”, on to the “normal news”, though as we all know, normal is quite a relative term.
First of all, things are going really well here. Our move out of La Victoria was definitely sad in some ways, as we miss the daily life in community there (though we are still there 2-3 days a week), but overall we feel like it was the right move for us and our work here.
With the community center, since our move, Janel has taken more ownership and initiative as Director, making the center more independent of us. He is doing a great job with the ministerial aspect of the center, but will need to improve a little in the business management area (organization, promotion, management, etc.) in order to continue to move toward sustainability (we subsidize around $100 each month for the center to break even). So we are working on that part.
We recently had our first Board of Directors meeting, which we are really excited about. It is a great, diverse group of leaders who share a vision for the community and are also very good friends of ours. This will also help the process of independence to have them (especially David, who is the President of the Board) as an encouragement, counsel, and accountability to Janel instead of just myself. We’ve also clarified the roles and responsibilities of those involved with the center, which has been very helpful in the overall organization. We are also almost legally incorporated as a non-profit, at which point we will be able to pursue accreditation from INFOTEP, a renowned institute in the country. As always, there have been some delays, but we are almost there.
And finally (and most importantly), people in the community are being served and impacted by the center. It continues to be a place where people can come to receive training in English and information technology, use a computer for educational or business purposes, use the internet, attend seminars on different topics important to the local community, participate in various ministry activities, or just hang out. We’ve recently seen a few cool success stories of people who have taken classes and/or taught at the center, go on to get a good job using the skills they had acquired. We’ve also seen numerous people impacted by the ministry activities there. And the best part is it has very little to do with us at this point.
Mercy’s ministry in the “campo” is also going really well. A core of about 7 women have committed their lives to Christ and are becoming involved with Janel’s church. Many others continue to attend the weekly meetings. We have been encouraged by a deep thirst the women have shown to learn more about who Jesus is and the Bible.
On a quick tangent, Mercy and I recently read a book called “When Helping Hurts: How To Alleviate Poverty Without Hurting The Poor … Or Yourself”. I hope to do a more detailed blog about this book soon, as we were really impacted by it, especially as it applies to some of the work we do here. It is very engaging, convicting, motivating, practical, and most important, solidly biblical. I am convinced anyone involved in any way with work with the poor – from giving money to working on the “front-lines”, from short-term to long-term – should read it. I’m actually leading a group study on it with a group of about a dozen missionaries here in November.
Anyway, back to the work in the campo … After being inspired by the book, Mercy and the team spent one meeting doing an asset assessment, meaning instead of asking the women what they’re “needs” are, they asked them what they’re assets are – what skills, abilities, and resources they have. It was really cool to see how this changed their mentality from thinking about their poverty and what they may lack, to recognizing the gifts and skills and abilities they DO have. We’re now using this to see what they can come up with in order to use these assets to help them provide for their families and improve their communities. This is just one of many ways the book has been enlightening and helpful.
We’re also continuing to pursue an opportunity that could provide a more permanent location not only for the community center, but also for the work with the women in the campo. It would also help alleviate the significant cost of monthly rent. I think I mentioned this before, but a few months ago some representatives from the office of the Dominican First Lady, who is involved in a number of great works in the poorer communities here, including 2 programs that are very similar in vision to the community center and the ministry in the campo, came to one of the activities after being invited by the secretary of the mayor of La Victoria, who is a good friend of ours (whoa, that’s a little confusing). Anyway, after seeing the activity and hearing about the vision of both the activity and the community center, they expressed a willingness to collaborate with us by constructing a building sufficient in size, and in a location, that would work for both the community center as well as the activity. A place where the community center could continue to offer classes, internet, space for ministry and community, etc., as well as an area for the women to not only meet, but be trained in applicable skills. They basically said if we find/provide a piece of land that is sufficient in size, they would build it. So the land and building would still belong to “Centro Comunitario La Esperanza” (run by the Board of Directors), would be independent from the First Lady’s programs (ie: we are free to continue the ministerial aspects), yet we would have access to resources (software, equipment, programs, etc.) from the network of the First Lady. We have some leads on possible locations, but are trying to work out the details of what that will look like. We would love for some, if not most, of the funding for the land to come from local, in-country, sources, so we’ll see how that goes. Regardless, we are excited at the opportunities this could open up.
Also, in December, some friends of ours, Antonio and Lissa Fernandez, are coming down to receive a shipment of over a million dollars (!) in medical supplies (many of them from Project CURE) that Antonio raised through Rotary club, for the children’s hospital in Santo Domingo (also a program of the first lady) as well as MIMED, a medical missions ministry that I’m on the Board of here. We will possibly have the opportunity to speak with the First Lady directly about some of our work and how we, along with Antonio and his Rotary connections in Colorado, might be able to collaborate.
And finally, we have been pursuing a microfinance/banking co-op at the community center. About a month ago I was contacted by a friend of ours (who was actually on the first short-term trip I made here about 5 years ago), who happened to have a short trip planned here to get more information about another Christian microfinance organization called (interestingly enough) Esperanza International. We were able to hang out with him and a co-worker of his and show them the center and around La Victoria. He contacted me a few days after he returned and they are really interested in helping organize microfinance banking co-op in La Victoria. I have since spoken with the national director here and we are on our way to organizing it. I hope to post more details on this soon.
So that’s what’s going on here. As for our future, here’s the deal. We have run into a little hitch in the adoption process. We hope to be registered with CONANI by the end of this month and should have a child referral within 3-6 months, and 3-6 months after that we can take legal custody of the child. However, because we are doing an international adoption, our residence here is considered temporary and we can only be here until around December 10th (6 months after our immigration paperwork was approved on June 10th). If we stay beyond that, we could cause a significant delay (possibly over a year since we aren’t residents) in order to have a home study done and approved here, or even worse, have to start the process over as a national adoption, starting with getting residency. We obviously do not want that. So our plan is to return to the States in mid to late December and then come back here when we can take legal custody of the child, which will likely be between February and June. At that point (when we take legal custody of the child), there is a 2 month co-habitation period where we need to live here with the child while being observed by CONANI, and a couple weeks after that, it is approved by the court here. At that point, we need to return to Colorado to complete the immigration and adoption process there, at which point we are free to go where we’d like. As you can see, this is a complicated process that does not look or sound appealing, but we are convinced we should follow through on it.
So for us the 2 big questions are what we will “do” during this back-and-forth, and then what our plans are beyond that. We will likely use the first few months as a time of furlough – resting, connecting and speaking with those who have supported the ministry here (our church, friends, and family), getting annual medical and dental check-ups, and making a decision about our longer-term plans.
As for where we see ourselves longer-term, we continue to pray for clarity. I miss teaching a lot. The break has been nice and it's been neat to do what we've had the opportunity to do here, but I really loved teaching. And while there are definitely some opportunities to do that here, there is no doubt that I connect with American youth in a way that I never will with Dominican youth. Again, not that I couldn't do it or it wouldn't be valuable or fulfilling, which I probably wouldn't know until I actually did it. Then of course there is the rest of the family (unfortunately it's not all about me J). Mercy loves what she is doing here - building community and bringing hope (in all it's broad meaning) with the really poor, mainly single-moms here. I'm sure she could do that to a certain extent in the States, but it would obviously be really different. And with the kids, we were doing a combination of a public school and homeschool last year, and now we are just doing homeschool. But I don't know that we are cut-out/committed to that, which weighs into our decision as well.
That's the nutshell. I guess the good thing is we are pretty open and flexible, realizing that God has done a work in and through us here, but that he could also work in and through us in another place like he did before we came. We recognize we aren't any "holier" or "spiritual" by serving him in a developing country than someone serving him in the developed world, so we really are okay with wherever this journey leads. One thing I’ve learned here is that His "will" for our lives is not as much where we live or what ministry we're in, but what kind of neighbor we are and that we serve faithfully. So the most important question is not “Where does God want me next?”, but “Do I love the Lord with all my heart, soul, strength, and mind, and do I love my neighbor as myself?” This has been somewhat of a paradigm shift from the way I thought before, and I'd say I'm still learning what all that means and looks like for us.
But as up in the air as our future appears, we are actually really at peace. We have been blessed with generous support from our church, our friends, and our family, which has given us the opportunity to serve here, and we continue to trust that we will be taken care of regardless of where this journey takes us.
Dios les bendiga,
Gregg, Mercy, Taryn, and James Tucker
