Well here we are, friends. 

Many of you reading this have been following along with us since the beginning of our time serving with Mission of Hope in Haiti and now here in the DR. 

Some of you are new here! Thanks for reading our little updates, and supporting us. We pray you see not us, but God’s hand at work. 

Some of these blogs will be updates of what’s happening mixed in with personally what God is teaching us…hope you’re along for the wild ride 😉

This last month we were able to do our very first meal pack here in the Dominican Republic. Mission of Hope is able to partner with organizations like Convoy of Hope and FMSC to host meal packs in the states. 

It was a huge win for us to be able to host one right here in the DR, purchasing rice and beans locally, and partnering with a local church to be our distribution point to help us get these meals to the people that needed it most out in the East. 

Our team has been neck deep looking into where the areas of food insecurity are on the island as a whole, we’ve found there are varying levels of hunger across the island. There are areas here in the DR where people don’t know if they’ll get a meal tomorrow. For many of us, that concept is hard to grasp. There are many people in Haiti experiencing famine. 

That phrase “people don’t know where their next meal will come from” was hard to grasp before but now having our sweet Liam..this just hits harder. 

Just a couple weeks ago, we had a 17-year-old mom come to one of our medical clinics right here in the DR who hadn’t been able to feed her baby in almost 24 hours. 

These are hard stories to hold and hear. Often something we say as a staff “We choose to not look away”. We don’t look away from the hard stories. Because God sees them. He uses not governments to bring hope, rather, He uses His church. 

But a theme for Austin and I over the years has been that the urgency we feel in this is not for us to carry alone. 

God is writing His story to redeem His people. 

“Unless The Lord builds the house, 

Those who build it labor in vain. 

Unless The Lord watches over the city, 

The watchman stays awake in vain. 

It is vain that you rise up early 

And go late to rest, 

Eating the bread of anxious toil;

For He gives to His beloved sheep.”

Psalm 127:1-2

As we sit in these hard stories and harsh realities, we have to remember that our strength is not enough. Our own wisdom is not enough. 

We cannot allow urgency to move us to anxiety. 

I don’t want to wake up in 20 years and be nothing but bitter from the evil in the world, and live with a constant angst. 

I want to live with a hope that God doesn’t forget His people. Because I see Him moving. 

We keep these hard stories in front of us, but it’s the overflow of what’s in our heart that God uses.

There’s parts of my own heart that still desperately need more of Him and less of me. 

Often when I feel the weight of the brokenness we see, the words that my mind can fall back on are:

“Faster”

“Bigger”

“You’re not doing enough.”

While zeal to serve Him and to serve more people aren’t bad things, we are called only to faithfulness. 

Let me say that again, because if you’re like me you might gloss over that…

We are only to be faithful with what’s in front of us. 

There’s so much out of our control. I don’t want to do anything without Him.

I tend to measure myself by what I am or am not accomplishing in my service. Pair that with an urgency with the needs around me. That is just a recipe for an anxious, angry, and controlling disaster. 

Jesus calls us friends, and no longer thinks of us as servants. (John 15). Servants get assignments. Servants are given orders. But friends? Friends sit at the table. Servants serve the table at a distance. Friends enjoy conversation and do things with Jesus, not apart from Him. 

“O Lord, our Lord, 

How majestic is your name in all the earth, 

You have set your glory above the heavens, 

Out of the mouths of babies and infants, 

You have established strength because of your foes, 

To still the enemy and the avenger. 

Psalm 8:1-2

This is one of my favorite psalms. The picture here is that He uses the mouth of babies to still the voice of the enemy. 

In a world that tries to pull and tug at my identity I must fix my mind on these words instead..

“Faithful”

“God’s”

“Devoted”

“Commitment”.

“But God has chosen the foolish things of the world 

to put shame to the wise, 

and God has chosen the weak things of the world 

to shame the things that are mighty.”

1 Corinthians 1:27

The minute I think I need to muster up the strength to do something for The Lord I’ve denied the gospel and its power in me. He uses our character, our weakness and need for Him to do big and great things in the world. Nothing else. And I’ve actually put myself in the story. This isn’t about me. 

So when we come across these hard stories, I know that my Savior is Faithful.

He redeems what’s broken. I am called His friend. The people of Hispaniola are called His friends.