The Lord orchestrated our trip to the DR from the very beginning. He got us to the information weekend in Colorado where we found up about the trip, and He got us down to the Carribean island just last week.
In early October of this year, Kyla and I wanted to go to Colorado to explore the possibilities of working with Young Life overseas, but we didn't have the extra $800 it would take to get there. We talked about prayed about it a lot. At one point, we knelt down by our living room couch and asked God simply, "Would you provide the money by the end of this week?"(the registration deadline) We needed a miracle, and we weren't afraid to ask for one of our loving, all-powerful God. We committed to going to Colorado and filling out the registration even though we didn't know where we were going to get the money. In the middle of the week, the miracle came in the form of a late paycheck from summer work I had done. It was amazing: we asked, believed and God provided.
In Colorado we met some amazing people, one of whom was Hunter Lambeth. When we told him about our passions-the outdoors, Latin America, kids, mission trips-he convinced us that we had to go on a short term trip to the DR to check out a position that would soon be open, coordinating short term teams to work at Young Life's camp in that country called Pico Escondido (you can check it out at www.picoescondido.com). We knew that God got us to Colorado, so we were listening for His voice everywhere, and this seemed to be it. God hooked us up with Hunter and He also provided for us to get to the DR.
We sent out support letters at Christmas time and got a few responses back, but with a month left until our trip, we were still $2000 short. We were counseled to send out another round of letters (which seemed silly at the time because we had already asked the same people for support), but the Lord humbled us as we watched the funds flow into our mailbox daily-until, that is-we were fully funded. At that point, the funds virtually stopped comming. We were receiving at least one letter a day with a sizable check included for several weeks. And after we were fully funded, we recieved only two. What an awesome God we serve.
Once in the Dominican we saw the Lord prove faithful once again. We were asking Him to show us if this was where we were to spend the next chapter of our life, however long that may be (the minimum committment is three years). After the first few days, I wasn't so sure. I didn't hear any voice break throught the clouds and say, "Jake, pack up your family and move here!" But as the week progressed and I got the chance to have great conversations with the staff and other people there, I found myself thinking, "I could live here." It's not my dream destination. In fact, there are several things that I think would be tough about living in Jarabacoa, Dominican Republic (that's the closest town to the camp)- noise, crazy drivers, missing my friends and family. But I could see myself living there.
It is in the Lord's hands, as it has always been. We haven't been offered the position, so God could have something entirely different up His sleeve. I'm confident that He knows what He's doing. Throughout this adventure so far, I've realized that God will speak to us if we ask Him. His voice might come from other people, it might come from our full, then empty mailbox, and it might come from the silence in our situations. He knows what He's doing.
-Jake
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