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!