Jose and I, too, are now taking our first steps as leaders of the church here, as the founding pastor has now transitioned to NYC.  We’ve had a few years to build relationships and better understand the culture and community, which I think will kind of be like the carpeting was for Isabel.  When we stumble in the attempt to move forward, as we’re sure to do, we pray that the love and understanding that has been built between us and our church family will be a cushion to keep anyone from getting too bent out of shape when things don’t go quite right.  : )

We thought we’d share some of our pictures from the holidays.  Isabel loved every minute of it!  She wants to be just like her bigger cousins.

We also just celebrated Isabel’s 1st birthday on the 22nd.  The evening before her birthday, we took her for a walk around the shopping complex that Jose and I walked a year earlier while I was in labor, counting down the minutes between contractions.  : )  Here’s a little video that we made of the celebrations that we had both in Wisconsin and in Santo Domingo:

We are part of a community where there are many starving both physically and spiritually, and we believe that we are called to meet people’s wholistic needs with whatever resources God provides us.   Right before the meal that was assembled with donations of food from our church congregation, Jose and the founding pastor Robert teamed up to share a message of hope based upon the story of Christ’s birth.   Jesus was not born in a palace, but in a stable.  He is able to relate to the poor, the outcast, and the ordinary.  He accepts us as we are, no matter where we’ve come from or what mess we’ve gotten ourselves into.

Then, as a large extended family, we shared a holiday meal together.  The poverty of family can be just as powerful as physical poverty.   Because of abuse, unhealthy life choices, mental illness, and many other reasons, so many of our brothers and sisters living on the street are no longer in contact with their families.   Many face a crisis of loneliness and depression during the holiday season when they feel like they don’t “belong” anywhere.   We all need a place to belong, and we pray that this time together during the Christmas dinner will remind us to always open our arms to each other in gratitude for how God opened His arms to us through the gift of Jesus Christ.

“For God so loved the world, that He gave His one and only Son…”  John 3:16

I had a few ladies help me with the preparation of some traditional hot chocolate (with ginger and cinnamon) and bread to serve.   “Chocolate con pan” is a big favorite here around Christmas time.   We noticed that the “ancianos” (elderly men and women) were starting to get ready for bed, so we told them not to go to sleep yet but to get ready for a party.   They were surprised, but thrilled!

Our music director Edel arrived and pulled out his guitar.  I went into the church and found a few percussion instruments to pass out to some of our singers to make a little Christmas band.  While we were serving the hot chocolate and bread, everyone began singing and playing their instruments.  I had never heard most of the Caribbean Christmas choruses that they sang, so it was a great experience for me…quite different than the carols I grew up with!

Then, Edel asked everyone to give their name and share their favorite part of Christmas.  It was so beautiful to hear what Christmas meant to every person in this very diverse group.  Many of our ancianos no longer have family in their lives to celebrate with or get to experience giving or receiving gifts.  They typically have no more than the clothes on their back and their cot in our parking lot.  But, I hope that last night they experienced the joy of celebrating as a family along with us and felt loved and accepted.  I know that they gave me a tremendous gift…my heart was overflowing as I watched them — the disabled, the blind, the aged, the weary, the forgotten — all singing and clapping and eating as much bread and chocolate as we could serve.   I’m so glad that I didn’t give up and cancel the party when I thought it was going to be a flop.  It turned out to be one of the most special evenings that I have had in a long time.

For those of you that want an update in to Isabel’s recent antics, here’s another brief video:

We have about 2 and 1/2 weeks before we head back to Chicago and Wisconsin to celebrate Isabel’s first Christmas with our families.  The time will fly because of the flurry of activity at the church.  Just this past weekend, we had a major youth outreach event and the church’s 16th anniversary celebration.  This week, Jose is preaching on Thursday and then giving the message at a wedding on Friday.  The following week, Jose is acting in the Christmas program put on by our Abriendo Camino School.  And right before we leave, we will host our biggest celebration of the year, the Cena Navideña with over 200 of our Hermanos de la Calle friends on the 15th, and our youth Christmas party on the 16th.  It will be great fun, but we’ll be ready for a vacation!  We’re so thankful for all that God has done in our lives and in the church this year.   We have no idea how things will go with this new leadership transition in 2012, but we are certain that God is in control and that He will direct our paths!

However, when we arrived a few hours before the service to get everything ready, we discovered that our generator, which we must use for every church service in order to have sufficient electricity and to ensure that we don’t experience blackouts if the electric company decides to randomly cut the power from the street, was not working.  A few critical belts had broken and could not be purchased until the next morning.  So, the musicians and sound technician began moving everything from our auditorium to the patio space that is typically used as our Abriendo Camino School’s playground.  To make things more challenging, the sky was cloudy, and we expected that it wouldn’t be long before it might rain.

But, we had to press on, and we prayed that God would hold back the rain until after the service.  And, He did!  We squeezed over 100 people into the patio, with most of our young people sitting behind the musicians on the stairs leading up to the 2nd floor of Abriendo Camino, and the rest in every remaining space.  Even though it was a bit stuffy and cramped, it was amazing to see our church family worshipping God together in such close quarters.  Sometimes extraordinary physical proximity forces us to get more “real” with each other, and thereby become more vulnerable and open to what God wants to do in our lives.   We believe that God doesn’t allow anything to happen by accident; and although we don’t always rejoice in the stress of quite so many last minute changes and perceived inconveniences, that is when we usually see Him do great things!

So, now we move on to think of what November has in store for us.  One of our co-workers will be getting married next week.  She has served at the church for many years, so everyone is very excited to celebrate her wedding with her and her “novio.”  The following week we will be having a leaders retreat with some long-time friends from Redeemer Community Church in Massachusetts.  There is still a lot of preparation and planning to do for this event, so that will definitely be one of our main focuses.

Besides church activities, everyone in our community is starting to get ready for Christmas!  Yes, the trees are decorated and set up in every store and Christmas carols (click here to listen to an example of one of the most popular Caribbean Christmas carols) are being played over the speakers while you shop.  Halloween is basically a non-event, and only Americans and their closest friends celebrate Thanksgiving.  But, we usually wait until after Thanksgiving to start decorating our house and breaking out the Christmas cds.

So, I’m not going to tell you alot of baloney in this post (as my explanation of the title might suggestion), but I’ll get you caught up on the chitter chatter of our lives from over the last few weeks.   We had a a few fun events with our teenagers on the weekends…a Bible trivia competition, a pizza party at our house and “Express Yourself” 2, the 2nd annual activity where we open up the floor to allow the kids to dance, sing, write, design, create, etc. with their God-given talents.   All of the activities went well, and now the teens are busy preparing for their 3rd special youth service of the year for their friends in the community.

Jose led our church in a special prayer meeting on Thursday, the 13th, which was very well-received.  Ever since we arrived here, we have dreamed about helping the church develop a strong culture of prayer, and we have wanted the congregation to experience what God can do when we make it a priority to call out to Him as a church.  So, we hope this is just the first step towards making that dream a reality.

I was able to attend a Dominican Employment Law workshop this past week with my co-worker who runs our church’s gym.  A few of you know just how excited I get about that kind of thing.  It was one of my specialty areas in my last job in Chicago, and I was excited to have the opportunity to learn more about how the “Codigo de Trabajo” (Work Code legislated by the DR government) functions here for employers and employees.   As our church and community ministries have grown, we have become an employer of a number of people, and we want to make sure that we are doing things correctly.

Isabel is now 9 months old, and her first two teeth have grown in.  She’s scooting around everywhere, and I don’t think it will be too long before she is standing by herself and taking a few steps.

We are preparing for the annual leadership conference that we host at our church every year.  It is scheduled for October 28th and 29th.  Jose is in charge of the building maintenance, and I am singing, as well as taking pictures and video when I can.   We usually have between 500-700 leaders attend from around the country.

So, I think that about does it!  I’ll try to be better about getting more posts up, but Isabel already has it figured out that she doesn’t like it when I go to the computer.  She is just fine playing by herself, but she wants our full attention and has determined to make it hard for Mommy to concentrate on getting some work done on the computer!

The first person led out into the warm, Caribbean waters was Don Miguel, a man of 80 years, suffering from Parkinson’s disease.  Don Miguel had been a proud military officer during the time of the infamous dictator Trujillo.  After years of his wife and son sharing with him from the Bible and encouraging him to come to church, he finally listened to the voice of the Holy Spirit and decided to turn his life over to God.   His son Eduard helped him out to where Jose and Robert were waiting.  This moment was the answer to years of prayer.  His wife Teresa and her two sons were beaming with joy!

The last individual to be baptized was 22 year old Victor, a personal trainer from our New Creation Gym.   While we were driving to the beach, Victor had told us that he was disappointed that no one from his family was able to come to be with him during this important moment in his life.  We told him not to worry about it, and assured him that he would be surrounded by his church family.   As Victor was heading back in to the beach after being baptized, a shout of celebration went out and a group of our teenage boys who regularly work out with him at the gym, began rushing towards him.   They literally pounced on Victor before he could get out of the water and gave him a massive group hug in the ocean, followed, of course, by tossing Victor back into the water and splashing everyone within reach.

You can click here to see our photo album of the event.  You’ll notice in some of the pictures that it looks like it is raining.   We did experience a few showers during some of the baptisms, but it cleared up by the end.  Then, after we celebrated communion together and began lunch, a 10 minute downpour came through and soaked us all (except baby Isabel…she stayed nice and dry inside her stroller with a towel over it).  So, everyone went home drenched, even if they didn’t get baptized!

Dear Members and Friends of ICC,

Greetings in brotherly love.  The following announcement is a summary of what was discussed more extensively in a special General Assembly Meeting held on Thursday, September 15^th, and is directed towards all members, visitors and friends of Iglesia Comunitaria Cristiana (ICC), including our Red del Camino colleagues.

During the Assembly, we communicated important leadership transitions that ICC is experiencing. Following what we understand to be a call from God, Robert Guerrero will end his long tenure as senior pastor of our community of faith effective January 1, 2012, and take what he believes is a step of obedience to the Lord by moving himself and his family back to his birthplace of New York City with the intention of participating in church planting work in the city.  ICC is committing to accompany Robert in this call, confident that it will result in advancing the vision that led us as a faith community to be a church of radical inclusion, highly committed to preaching and living the gospel holistically.  Although Robert and his family’s departure greatly saddens us, we are filled with excitement regarding the potential of influencing that great metropolis with the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Also during the Assembly, we presented Jose Figueroa, along with his wife Darcy, as the leader who will assume ICC’s main pastoral role as of January 2012. Unanimously and of the same mind, the entire ICC leadership team recognized the hand of God upon this family.  Jose has been serving in a central leadership role at ICC for some time now and has been a blessing to the whole congregation.  We thank God for sending Jose and Darcy for such an important time like this.

We also highlighted during the meeting that the different bodies of leadership (Elders, Board and Management Team) have been working hard on this important transition as of January of this year. We are committed to continue working together towards a positive transition for the entire family of ICC. We are counting on the prayer, support and commitment of all who consider ICC home.  God is with us. Christ is the Head and Captain of His church and His call and plan for ICC will continue forward with great momentum.

For all those who have questions or concerns that they would like to voice about this important transition, we are opening up times for prayer and discussion with the ICC elders on Monday, September 19^th, and September 26^th.  Questions may also be communicated by email to ancianos@icc.com.do, gerencia@icc.com.do  and/orjunta@icc.com.do.  We strongly encourage you to use these appropriate channels to voice any concerns or questions about this transition.  We are not ignorant of Satan’s devices, and we ask you not to be discouraged, nor used, by the enemy of the church.

In closing, we appreciate your prayers and are committed to extend the Kingdom of God in our city and nation.

In the love of Christ,

Body of Elders and Board of Directors of Iglesia Comunitaria Cristiana