Feliz Navidad! - Merry Christmas!

We are thankful for you, our friends, family, co-workers and supporters who have given so generously your words of encouragement, prayers and financial gifts in support of our upcoming service project mission trip to the Dominican Republic. We are honored that you would bless and entrust us with these resources. Thank you. 

As we prepare for our departure, we are ever mindful of your generosity and the fact that we will be representing you and your gifts as we go to work with and encourage our amigos in Villa Hermosa. Please watch this space over the next few days for periodic updates (time and Internet connection permitting), live from the DR. It is but a small way that we hope to give back to you.

For those who celebrate Christmas and commemorate the birth of Jesus of Nazareth, I offer the following "revolutionary" Christmas editorial to reflect on, courtesy of Mike Erre and his book The Jesus of Suburbia:

We must constantly guard against the counterfeit Jesus who pervades our culture and churches. The real one is far bigger and more dangerous than we realize. We must consciously resist the temptation to tone him down or soften his teachings, or we may miss him altogether.

Nowhere does the Christian community succumb to the gift shop Jesus more than during the Christmas season. Sure, we tell the manger narrative and defend our rights to say 'Merry Christmas,' but on the whole, the story we tell is pretty toned down. It is so familiar that it has lost its power. We have heard it so much that the idea of God in a manger no longer inspires awe and humility. We don't talk much about Jesus being such a threat to King Herod that he slaughtered innocent children. We don't talk much about the scandal surrounding Jesus's birth because Mary and Joseph weren't married. We don't talk much about the threat the birth of Jesus posed to the political order of things. These are not part of the eggnog, mistletoe, Frosty-the-Snowman Christmas story we have come to know.

Jesus's birth was revolution. It changed everything. There is no better place to begin our war against the counterfeit Jesus of Suburbia than with the birth of the real one.

Thank you for your kindness. And may you consider and pursue and be blessed by this real Revolutionary who was -- and is. 

Feliz Navidad! Merry Christmas!

Tour of Hope

Earlier this week I had lunch with a young man who will be going to the Dominican Republic in late January to lead a group of American travelers on a tour of hope. If ecotourism is about building environmental and cultural awareness and respect, hope tourism engages its participants first-hand in the stories and lives of people and communities transformed by compassion and truth. As it turns out, both compassion and truth are critical elements in the transformation process.

When supporting the needs of developing countries, some organizations provide compassion -- humanitarian relief. This is good and yet is typically short-lived and often perpetuates dependency. Some organizations provide truth -- coaching and instruction on business, agriculture, economics, government, etc. This too can be good, teaching long-term self-sufficiency and yet may lack the jumpstart assistance needed to help the people who need it most urgently. Some realize that for change to be sustainable, for communities to improve measurably for the long term and for individuals to become free in every sense of the word, both compassion and truth are needed.

HOPE International offers both. Its mission is "to invest in the dreams of the poor in the world's underserved communities so that they might be released from physical and spiritual poverty." HOPE International provides small business microloans, business training and mentoring based upon the ancient wisdom and practical principles found in the Bible. (If only this month's big newsmakers in American politics and Wall Street finance would have heeded such wisdom!) 

HOPE's message and motivation isn't just about small business or money; the truth they point to and their motivating example of compassion for the poor and oppressed is found in the person of Jesus.  Built upon this foundation, HOPE has helped some 30,000 microloan "clients" through their Bank of Hope in the Dominican Republic alone, with operations in 13 other developing countries in Africa, Asia, the Caribbean and Eastern Europe.

We look forward to our trip and coming alongside to support Jose and Carmen Rodriguez who have brought compassion and truth that is likewise providing real hope to their neighbors in need.

Questions to ponder: What hope do you need most? What hope can you offer, to whom and when?

May we all discover Hope abounding and abiding.

Merry Christmas!

Loving on Dominican Kids

One of our supporters for this DR project shared a story about how she recently worked on a project that will benefit kids in the Dominican Republic. She worked a volunteer shift sorting items and packing boxes at an Operation Christmas Child processing center the night before hosting Thanksgiving. 

Through OCC and the project's volunteers and sponsors, each year many hundreds of thousands of children around the world in desperate situations receive a gift box filled with presents, both practical and fun. Our family has shopped for and filled some of these boxes over the years, designating either a boy or girl recipient. These gifts are tangible expressions of the love of God and enable kids to share in the celebration and joy of Christmas. OCC reports that since 1993, it has delivered more than 61 million shoe boxes around the globe, and 1,173,089 to the DR.

As it turns out, the warehouse where our supporter volunteered had prepared and inspected 65,000 boxes that day, and almost 100,000 the previous two days, all going to the Dominican Republic. She goes on to tell a heartwarming story of all the workers praying for the boxes and children who would receive them. 

It's inspiring to hear stories of how people give their time, talents and treasure and how those are being used to touch lives in many different ways around the world. We look forward to taking our turn to Love on Dominican kids and their families.

Tell us your stories of Love-in-action impacting the world!

When Kids Anticipate

Here's an interview with our kids, C (8) and E (10).

What do you think about our upcoming trip to the Dominican Republic?

C: I think it's going to be fun. We're going to get to go to a beach and it's going to be cool to build a school.

E: I'm excited about the trip because I think it's really cool that we're going to help some people who are really in need. I heard a story from someone in our VBS last year (who went to the DR on a service project last year) that they made a friend there and I think it would be really cool to make a friend in another country. I don't remember being to another country. So, I'm really excited to go out of the country. I'm also excited to go to the beach. I think overall, it's going to be a fun trip to go on, especially since we're going with people that we know from church. I'm excited to do the VBS (vacation Bible school) in case we get to do that.

What do you think it's going to be like there?

C: I think it's definitely going to be hot.

E: From the pictures I've seen, I don't think the buildings will be very nice or modern. I'm not expecting that people will be dressed in very fashionable clothes. I think the people are going to be kind of nice and really excited and have smiles on their faces because I don't think they get to see other people very often. And since we'll be helping them, I think they will like it.

C: It's going to be cool to talk Spanish to them. I think it's going to be cool to meet Jacob's friend because I've never met a Dominican Republic person.

E: I've always imagined it kind of bare and flat and kind of dry, besides the ocean and trees.

What do you think will be the most different from our culture?

C: They have to go fetch their water.

E: I don't know for sure, but I think they have to go get their food.

If you could do anything you want with the village kids, what would you do?

E: I would get to know them by just talking to them and getting to know what their culture and lifestyle is like. 

C: I would play with them and I would ask them what their favorite color is and favorite food and favorite school activity.

E: I would teach them some of our favorite games and if they didn't have the same games that we have in America, then I would teach them those games. I would definitely play with them and also if they really like to learn and didn't get to go to school, I would teach them some tricks for math facts and try to teach them to read.

Like what games?

E: Like tag, hide-and-seek, seaweed (a game on the trampoline, but you can do it without the tramp). I would maybe teach them volleyball because I think they would really enjoy it.

C: Like football or basketball or soccer, because they probably don't even have a tramp.

I would say "would you like to play 'futbol'?"

E: But they probably already know how to play soccer.

C: Beisbol. 

What do you think your favorite food will be there?

C: Probably nothing. I don't know what they have.

E: I think I will like the rice. I studied what kind of food they have in the Dominican Republic and from what I remember, I think that my favorite will be rice.

What do you know already about the Dominican Republic?

E: They celebrate a lot of the same holidays that we do and the Dominican Republic shares an island with Haiti.

C: They eat frog legs and crabs. Sammy Sosa used to play for the Cubs.

Is Sammy Sosa from the DR?

C: Umm, yeah.

What else would you like to share with our friends and family about our trip to the DR?

E: Joaquin from the Dominican Republic (who works for Missions Door in the U.S.) is going with us and is going to translate for us. 

Faces and Scenes of Villa Hermosa

Economics of Water

Do you take clean drinking water for granted? I do.

Yet 1.1 billion of our fellow human beings do not have access to an improved water supply, according to the 2006 United Nations Human Development Report.

Looking at our recent home utility bill, I see that we pay $3.08 per 1,000 gallons of water. As far as I know, it's generally good drinking water. Nevertheless, we drink even cleaner water via the filtered water dispenser on the refrigerator door. The grocery store one mile from our home sells 5-gallon bottles of drinking water for $6.99. A local distributor will deliver (presumably with a service contract and equipment rental) for $6.85 per 5-gallon bottle.

The median household income in my suburban county, after income taxes, is somewhere in the vicinity of $200 per day. So a 5-gallon bottle would cost my neighbors about 3.5% of a day's wage.

Outside the city limits of Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, a 5-gallon bottle of purified water on the regular market sells for the equivalent of US$1.25. More than half of the households of one of these poor communities live on less than US$2.00 per day, according to a Harvard study. For these people, a 5-gallon bottle of safe drinking water costs them the equivalent of more than 60% of a day's wage for the family, or effectively 17 times what it costs my neighbors.


Thanks to the contribution of a generous donor, the visionary collaboration of two non-profit organizations (Ministerios Benedicion in the D.R., and Missions Door in the U.S.), the work of a group of volunteers who have gone before us and the selfless leadership of local pastor Jose Rodriguez, clean drinking water now flows abundantly and more affordably in Villa Hermosa.


The mission of the Villa Hermosa water project, pictured here upon its completion earlier this year, is:

"To provide safe, clean and affordable drinking water to the underdeveloped community of Villa Hermosa through a self-sustained economic development project that will allow the local church to provide spiritual, physical and social healing."

May we be ever more thankful for the bounty we receive; may we increasingly and joyfully lavish our abundance on others; and may we steadily realize that ultimately, provision comes graciously from our Creator.

Grace and peace...

When Kids Pitch In

It's amazing to me to see our kids respond to the opportunity to go on our upcoming service project trip to the Dominican Republic. Earlier this week they each received a small amount of money in the mail as a special gift. They informed me that they were donating it to the DR service project whereupon they wanted to know the whereabouts of the "money box."

The money box (an orange shoebox) got its start on a sunny, late September Sunday afternoon, when they decided to have a lemonade, snack and candy sale in front of our cul-de-sac using the leftovers from a previous church rummage sale fundraising event for the trip. They even contributed some of their own toys to the merchandise inventory. Our kids are certainly no strangers to hosting mid-summer lemonade stands, but this one was unparalleled in its planning, execution and results. They created signs highlighting that the proceeds would go to the DR service project and I helped them rehearse their sales pitch. With ample amounts of sunscreen applied to their faces, they were excited to spend the afternoon selling their delicacies.

Their hourly per-person profit far exceeded my expectations. Total revenue was about $55! Oh me of little faith. Our gracious, big-tipper neighbors generated much excitement as the kids reported their sales to me and enlisted some of the other neighbor kids in the project. After cleaning up from the event, they each decided to donate some of their own money to the box.

In the overall financial scheme of this project, anyone who has responsibility for a checking account or mortgage can smile dismissively at these efforts as "cute" but would readily point out that they're just a "drop in the bucket." But I'm realizing that in the even bigger overall scheme of things, the kids' attitudes reflect heart-changes that are positively delightful. Their awareness of others' situations and of their own ability to make a positive impact in the lives of others is growing...along with mine.

Mission of Water

For further insight into the broader water-as-mission movement in the Dominican Republic and elsewhere and the entrepreneurial vision that was birthed in Colorado which has yielded more than 51 million gallons of clean drinking water for the world's poor, read today's front page article in The Denver Post featuring Healing Waters International, a Colorado-based non-profit organization that provides sustainable filtration technology.

Rediscovering Hispaniola

Today is an occasion for some in the United States to celebrate and learn more about the discovery of the Americas by Europeans, the Age of Exploration or Italian-American heritage. For others, Columbus Day symbolizes a legacy of imperial oppression and the many injustices it has fomented over the last half-millennium. Many more simply pass the day like any other, unless they happen to be employed by a retail financial institution, apathetic to its controversy and unlikely to ascribe anything more than an historical footnote to this date on the calendar.

For a brief moment, I'd like to borrow this day to "rediscover" an island, a country, a community, a people and to announce a project - a calling, of sorts - which I will describe here over the next three months. Christopher Columbus is credited with having landed on the Caribbean island of Hispaniola 516 years ago on his first voyage to the "New World," subsequently settling what is now its oldest city, Santo Domingo, on the south coast of today's Dominican Republic.

In 2005, Jose Rodriguez, a native of Santo Domingo, decided to bring hope to people who live amidst extreme poverty in one of the poorest districts of this old city. He was commissioned, not to discover a land, conquer a people, or export gold, but to live amongst these impoverished families and serve them. He and his wife Carmen have come alongside these people and have organized the building of a water purification system and well to help combat the sickness that runs rampant in the community. They have cleared land and collected relief funds from international partners to build and operate a school to teach kids so that the next generations can live better lives. In addition to helping meet the physical and economic needs of these people, they have served the spiritual needs of this community by planting a church to help people grow in this vital dimension, too. But the work is not finished. They also have plans to one day build and staff a medical clinic that will advocate for better health and to treat the various maladies of the community.

Our family has decided to accompany a group from our church - which has adopted the Rodriguezes and this community of Villa Hermosa - to assist in another service project that will expand the school to accommodate more children and create an additional classroom. We look forward to this one-week trip this winter to go as servants, not tourists; to support a committed, loving, indigenous servant-leader as he and his family bring hope to their fellow Dominicans.

I invite you to watch this space over the next three months to "Rediscover Hispaniola" and to catch a glimpse of the hope Jose and his family have brought to this community.