Many of you have already heard the news, but I’m going to make it official now on our blog.  The Figueroa family is headed back to the Midwest at the end of this month.  Why?  Well, since the turn of the New Year, we believe the Lord has been prompting us to take the next step in applying all that we have learned during our 4 years here in Santo Domingo.  We would love to be able to take these experiences and utilize them to serve and bless a community in Puerto Rico, where Jose’s family is originally from.  However, it has been made abundantly clear to us during our time in the DR that we need to be prepared for limited employment opportunities and income streams when living on an island.  So, we believe we should go back to the US to work and build up our savings (requiring 2-3 years?) in order to make the move to PR.

By God’s grace, a respected Dominican pastor has been put in place at our church ICC, and that has been just one of many confirmations for the timing of our departure.  So, we are in the process of selling our belongings in Santo Domingo and wrapping up our responsibilities.

We can’t tell you how much we have appreciated your prayers, encouragement and support during our time here.  We have experienced God’s peace and guidance every step of the way.   Please keep us in prayer as we make the transition and endeavor to keep our eyes and hearts fixed on eternal priorities versus. the familiar “rat race” that can so easily distract us.

May God bless you!

Sincerely,

Jose, Darcy & Isabel Figueroa

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One of my favorite paintings is “The Gleaners” by Jean-François Millet.   I have a worn-out copy of this painting that I have always hung on the walls of the many apartments in which I’ve lived over the years.   It always makes me think of the Biblical story of Ruth and how she gleaned in the fields of Boaz.   I love reading about God’s social care structure for the poor that He put in place in the Israelite society during Old Testament times.  Leviticus 19:9-10 says, “When you reap the harvest of your land, do not reap to the very edges of your field or gather the gleanings of your harvest. Do not go over your vineyard a second time or pick up the grapes that have fallen. Leave them for the poor and the foreigner. I am the Lord your God.”   And Deuteronomy 24:19-22 says, “When you are harvesting in your field and you overlook a sheaf, do not go back to get it. Leave it for the foreigner, the fatherless and the widow, so that the Lord your God may bless you in all the work of your hands. When you beat the olives from your trees, do not go over the branches a second time. Leave what remains for the foreigner, the fatherless and the widow. When you harvest the grapes in your vineyard, do not go over the vines again. Leave what remains for the foreigner, the fatherless and the widow. Remember that you were slaves in Egypt. That is why I command you to do this.”

When harvesting their fields, the field owners were to leave the edges of their fields, as well as any of the crop that fell on the ground, untouched so that those in need could come and harvest the grain to eat.  Not only did this provide food, but also dignity, to those who were able to work to harvest for themselves versus receiving a hand-out without any personal contribution.

I bring all of this up because I spent time with a “gleaner” today.  Her name is Maria, and she is a single-mother of two boys.  One of the boys is a student in the school where I teach English.  So, I have had the chance to learn more about their lives this year.   I don’t have long conversations with Maria because she talks very quickly and not the most clearly to a person to whom Spanish is her second language, but I believe that she is someone whom people can take advantage of easily.   I believe she received a general education, but she comes across as a simple person and a bit naive, perhaps it could be described as a almost child-like innocence.

In order to provide for the needs of her boys, Maria looks for cleaning jobs and any other odd jobs she can find.  Some people pay her well, but some people don’t pay her at all.  She seems to take this all in stride, but I know that things can’t be easy for her.   Several of the families in our church have gotten to know her, and they look for creative ways for her to “glean” from what God has blessed them with.    It is such a beautiful thing that we can all be a part of God’s plan for providing, in a dignified way, for those who are overlooked, under-appreciated, or just facing hard times.

Santo Domingo continues to experience an incredibly dry spring.  By my unofficial observation, we have only had about 4 light rains or sprinkles that have lasted less than an hour since the month of December–that is 4 rainfalls in 4 months!  As a farmer’s daughter, this really freaks me out.  However, the larger plants and trees seem to be doing okay.  In the park areas where grass usually grows, everything is brown and dusty.  But, I know that once we get closer to the summer and fall months, the rain starts again and the parks become lush jungles of green vegetation.  It just feels like it has been a very long time since we’ve had a rainy day.  Now, I suppose that those of you in the northern parts of the world are wishing that I could send you some of this eternal sunshine to brighten up your cloudy, gloomy spring days–sorry!

So, what have we been up to lately?  We’ve had some fun, but all too brief, visits with US family and friends, which is always such a treat.  Jose is in the middle of a preaching series on the topic of Companionship/Fellowship for the month of April.  My students are learning animal songs and animal names in English – most of them have got the Butterfly Song down, and now we’ll be moving on to Arky Arky this next week.  The ladies’ study at church that I was heading up on the topic of “Life’s Healing Choices” had consistence attendance of over 40 women each week and was a real challenge and encouragement to us all.  Jose is almost finished taking a small group of men through the Authentic Manhood study once again, and the guys have been really challenged about becoming the leaders, husbands, fathers and friends that God intended for them to be.

Isabel is about 70% potty trained, and is teaching us the meaning of the “terrible twos.”   Good thing God makes preschoolers so cute–sometimes you can’t decide if you want to be upset or laugh at how ridiculous they can be.  She’s talking up a storm in both English and Spanish.  The other day, as we were walking home from school, Isabel asked me, “Y Daddy?” (which is how you ask in Spanish where someone is).  I told her in English, “Daddy is working.”  Isabel looked at me and said in perfect Spanish, “Daddy esta trabajando?”  (Daddy is working?).   So, it seems that she is not “lost in translation.”  It’s amazing the way those little brains can soak up so much and make sense of it all.

To read more about what God has been doing at our church and its outreaches and ministries, please check out our church blog ¿Qué Pasa @ ICC?

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A few weeks ago, we had a few friends from a church in Illinois come to visit us, and the ladies spent the morning with me in English class.  This gives the kids a great chance to practice what they are learning, and it allows visitors a chance to meet the kids and get to know what happens at Abriendo Camino School.  I don’t often take pictures when I am teaching, so I appreciated our friends passing along some of the pictures that they took so that you can see some of my students in action.

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There is an elderly day care center across the street from our apartment building.  One of the ladies from our church walks her 103 year old mother to the center during the week so that she can interact with friends—yes, you read correctly–little Doña Josefa walks about 1/3 of a mile each way every day.  She is quite a spunky little lady.

Just yesterday, we pulled up in front of our apartment building and noticed that there were tables filled with arts and crafts coming out of the elderly center.   We saw our friends and walked over to say hello.  I was overwhelmed with all of the lovely crafts – flowers, butterflies, baskets, teacups, quilts, rugs, etc…all made out of used materials like plastic water and soda bottles, used clothing and blankets, egg cartons, paper cups, styrofoam plates, etc.

Margarita, the woman who brings her mother to the center, is one of the most active “retired” people I have ever met.   She started taking classes for how to make these crafts and then convinced the teacher to come and teach the elderly at the center so that they can keep busy with their hands and minds throughout the day.  The tables filled with crafts were the fruits of their labor.

In the gutter of the street, I saw a few empty water and soda bottles, and I thought about how different the original item looked from the recycyled products on the tables.

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I admire Margarita and these ladies.  On two distinct levels, they have taken what is old and often cast off and made something beautiful and useful.  We already have enough plastic and styrofoam in our landfills to create another continent.  In the DR, the streets and urban beaches are filled with refuse.  So, the least we can do is clean it up and give it another use, since it won’t decompose for another 1000 years.

More importantly, Margarita and her friends valued the tangible contributions of these elderly men and women whom society has often cast off as too old to be any good to anyone.  What a tragedy to our communities to ignore the wisdom, intelligence, experience and skills of our older generations.

The spiritual analogy is obvious.  2 Corinthians 5:17 says, “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation;  the old has gone, the new has come!”   Every one of us can be cleaned up and repurposed by Christ if we allow Him to restore and fill us once we come to grips with the fact that we’ve allowed ourselves to be used up and tossed out by the world.  God can go beyond recycling–He offers us complete restoration, making us a new creation back in sync with our Creator and the original purpose He had in mind for us – to love and glorify Him.  Maybe I need to start remembering that more often when I see someone who I am tempted to judge and look down on for whatever choices they have made in their lives or situations that they find themselves in–God sees them totally differently and with incredible potential as “restoration” or “recycling” opportunities.

Last night, the eve of Three Kings Day, we decided to take a family walk after dinner.  As we strolled up the pedestrian shopping street called the Conde, we heard a banging drum and saw police lights.  As we got closer, we realized it was a parade for the Three Kings.  In many parts of Latin America, children receive presents on Three Kings Day, January 6th, rather than on Christmas to commemorate the gifts that the Biblical wise men or kings brought to the baby Jesus.

We didn’t know that the Colonial City had an annual parade to celebrate this holiday.  The local fire department puts on the event each year, with 125 costumed participants, most of them children and teens.  The kings ride on horses loaned from the police department.  There were hundreds of families with their children walking along with the kings and their entourages down the Conde.  It was quite a spectacle!

Santiago Rojas was a tall, thin man with a pleasant demeanor.  Jose and I came to know him as one of the gentlemen who slept in our church shelter.  He was always very polite, faithfully attended church services and loved to ask Isabel where the pigeons were so that she would point up in the sky and make all of the seniors in our parking lot chuckle.

This past Saturday afternoon, he did not feel well as he went to the senior center where he spent most of his days.  While we were in the middle of our Cena Navidena for all of the brothers and sisters from the street, the lady who runs the center stopped by to tell us that they had left him at the hospital just a few blocks away because he was complaining of stomach pain.  When Jose stopped by the hospital after the dinner was over, he was surprised to find that Santiago had passed away.  Everyone was shocked because Santiago had always been one of the healthier men who stayed with us.  Ultimately, it was determined that he had had a heart attack.

It was understood that Santiago had relatives, for example, a cousin who worked for a television station.  However, the family is very fractioned, and we were told by those for whom we had contact information that they didn’t want to have anything to do with “that side” of the family.  So, Jose and a few others from the church began working frantically to figure out how and where his body could be buried.

Today was the day of the funeral and burial.  After many, many calls and conversations, an available plot was finally found about 45 minutes away; but when the hospital delivered the body, Jose found Santiago’s body naked and damaged from the autopsy.   His clothes had been most likely thrown away.  So, Jose took off his t-shirt so that the upper half of Santiago’s body could be covered for the funeral.

While Jose was trying to navigate through all of the red tape for how to bury a penniless, family-less person in Santo Domingo, he was struck by how similar Jesus’ burial had been to this situation.  If no one had offered up their burial plot for Jesus, what would have happened to his body?  His clothes had been taken and given to others.  His body was horribly disfigured from the relentless beatings.  Few were willing to claim Him as their own because of the threats of the Jewish religious authorities and the Romans.  Jose was moved to tears thinking about how our Lord and Savior had such a humble beginning and ending (though ultimately not a final end) to His time on this earth.  We will never read the story of Jesus’ burial in the same way now that we have had a personal encounter with a similarly tragic situation.

At the funeral service, we learned more about this meek man we saw almost every day.  Santiago wrote poetry and would pass out his poems to friends and people who he would meet on the street as a way to invite them to come to church services.  He would frequently offer to assist people who looked lost, including one young woman who had just moved to the country and eventually became a part of our church.

Santiago will be missed by his church family, but we are certain that he is now rejoicing with his Savior.  And, although most would look at his life as a failure, we know differently.  Thank you, Lord, for all that you have shown us through Santiago’s life!

October flew by, and now we’re well into November.  We experienced quite a bit of rain in the month of October, but by God’s grace we were spared the worst of Hurricane Sandy, and now none of us know what to think about November.  It’s like there is a battle going on between summer and winter, with unseasonably warm weather mixed with days that have a notable coolness in the air that we haven’t felt in a long time.

At Abriendo Camino School, the Christmas tree is already up and decorated in the reception area, and I will begin rehearsing the Christmas song “Mary’s Boy Child” in English with my students next week in preparation for our Christmas program in December.

Last weekend, our church hosted the annual national Leadership Summit, and we saw about 450 people come through our doors.  Our terrific volunteers made it all look easy, but there was a lot of work that went into the event!

Now, we are looking towards a church leadership retreat in early December, along with all of our Christmas activities.  Please pray for unity and wisdom for our leaders.  The church is still very much in transition with the departure of the founding pastor earlier this year, and we need the Holy Spirit’s intervention to bring us all humbly to the same priorities and vision He has for this community of faith.

On a more personal note, Isabel is talking away in English, Spanish and toddler-ese.  It seems that she understands practically 100% in English, but prefers to respond about 70% of the time in Spanish.  She is constantly repeating things that she hears, so we praise God for a little girl who appears to be easily navigating a bilingual environment.  The little singer is already coming out in her too.  Some of her favorite songs in English are “Old MacDonald’s Farm”, “It’s Bubbling”, “Jesus Loves the Little Ones like Me” and “Holy, Holy, Holy”.   She just started singing a song about a frog (sapo) in Spanish.  I call it “Sapo, Sapo, Sapo”, and I still have to learn all of the words so that I can sing it with her.

The days seem to go by so fast.  Here’s an overview of what happens on “normal” weeks. On Sundays we have our main church service.  Mondays are filled with teaching English at Abriendo Camino School, church staff meeting, worship team meeting, and elders meeting.  Tuesdays are the days I have some of the teens/young adults over in the afternoon to practice English.  On Wednesdays, Jose leads a fellowship for men studying Biblical Authentic Manhood, as well as his daily mid-day reflection for the men and women who come to our soup kitchen. I’m teaching English until noon, and then Jose and I have a weekly premarital counseling meeting with a young couple in the afternoon while Isabel naps.  Thursday is the day of our mid-week church service.  Fridays and Saturdays usually include marriage ministry, teen/young adult activities and community events.  We continue to learn alot in every aspect of our lives.  Thanks for your continued prayer and encouragement.  We’ll miss not being with you for Thanksgiving!

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We received a brief note from our attorney last night: “Closing all done.  Newland is now out of your life.”  I was a bit taken aback when I read it.  After 3 and 1/2 years of being up for sale, our beloved 1819 Newland has finally been sold.

While it is an incredible relief that we no longer have to be concerned about the upkeep of this property, we will miss it.  We have wonderful memories of grilling out in the backyard with friends, hosting a Thanksgiving dinner for international students in the basement, remodeling the 2nd floor and discovering the charm of a house built in the 1930’s, setting off fireworks on 4th of July in the open school field in front of the house, our lovely Italian neighbors with the most beautiful Japonese peonies, evicting squirrels from the attic, watching our rose bed flourish each summer, enjoying having our dear friends the Frausto family share our home with us on the 1st floor, and roasting marshmellows over the fire pit with the teens on autumn nights.  We hope the new owner will enjoy this house and neighborhood just as much as we did.

Wow!  It’s been a while since the last post.  Sorry!  Life has been a bit of a whirlwind since coming back from our extended visit to Chicago and WI this past summer.  Since I last wrote, Isabel and I have been spending a lot of time at our church’s Abriendo Camino School, where I teach English to all of our students, and Isabel is part of the 2 year old class called Nido (“nest” in Spanish).

This is the first year that the school has offered English, and this is my first time teaching English in a formal classroom setting.   So, there is a lot of experimenting and learning as we go, which works fine for me.  The students are very enthusiastic…I think I’m almost at the point of knowing all 93 of their names.  : )  Next step will be getting to know the parents better.  It has been an incredible way for me to get to know our community better and feel like a part of things.  It comes very naturally for Jose with his extroverted personality to get to know people and jump into whatever is happening, but I need a clear purpose to help me connect and integrate.  Teaching English has opened those doors for me.

While Isabel and I have been at school, Jose has been onboarding/orienting our new co-pastor Jose Ramon Rodriguez.  Most of you probably read our email and the ICC Newsletter that announced this new addition to the team.  So far, things have been going very well with transitioning Jose Ramon into the day to day aspects of the job, and pretty soon Jose should be able to start focusing more energy into the ministries and community outreaches.

We are very happy to be in our new apartment back in the general neighborhood of the church and office/gym building.  Having the freedom of being able to walk to almost everything has made life a lot easier.  The only downside has been that the electric company is cutting off power between 3 to 8 hours every day now while they investigate just how many people are paying for their electricy versus stealing it in our neighborhood.  It’s been hard on the students at the school when the electricity has been cut during school hours because only two classrooms have external windows.  The heat and limited lighting are less than ideal for children trying to learn.  But, hopefully, we’ll see some positive changes soon.

So, I believe those are the important updates for now.   More to come as the time flies by….