Dear Friends,

You are always told to love the people and not the mission program when you are striving to work in mission. We fully agree with this statement. But we have developed a great deal of respect for the program because of the people it has brought together. By the program, we mean the program here in the Dominican Republic with the Dominican Evangelical Church (DEC) that promotes relationships between DEC churches and churches from the United States. The majority of these relationships are formed and maintained through visiting mission groups from the U.S. And as we all know, a great deal of care must be taken with these relationships in order to avoid negative things like dependency, paternalism, and lack of mutual respect. And even more care must be taken to develop good things like mutuality in mission and real transformation of situations and individuals. But let us not get too bogged down in the program. Remember, love the people.

Some of the people that have been brought together by the program are Christine and the brothers and sisters of the DEC of Santiago. Last year, Christine came with her church from the U.S. to be in mission with the church in Santiago. After her experience here—lots of interaction with the local church and people and digging foundation trenches—she went home examining her life. She did not just go home thinking lofty thoughts that left her soon after she made her mission trip presentation to her local church. She did a frightening thing. She really looked closely at her life and decided to make some changes. One change she made was her job. Christine had a very good job with a company that paid well and provided the kind of security that she and her husband would need when they applied for the loan for the house they wanted to buy. But Christine was not satisfied that her job was letting her "give back" or contribute to the world in the way she felt she was specifically being called to do.

So she started to search for options. Her friends and co-workers convinced her not to "freak out." They encouraged her to apply for other positions within the company if she were feeling restless and needed a change. So she did. She was never offered any of these other jobs even though she knew she was qualified and had a very good work history with the company. So one day she went home and told her husband that she wanted to quit her job and do something else. He was shocked. But he was even more shocked when he asked her what she wanted to do, and her response was that she did not know yet. She just knew that she was in the wrong place and needed to find somewhere that answered her call to mission on a daily basis. On faith, they both decided that it would be best for Christine to quit her job with the company.

After several weeks, she found temporary employment with a local housing agency doing clerical work. After a while, the agency was financially able to hire Christine full-time. And this past month before Christine returned to the Dominican Republic to work in mission again with her brothers and sisters in Santiago, she received news from her boss that they were going to be opening a new quality assessment department in the agency. They will probably want Christine to be in charge of this new department because it is exactly the same type of department she worked in at her previous job! God’s circle is full! God’s providence and preparation are perfect!

We thank God for the "program" that brought Christine to the Dominican Republic where she, her church, and the DEC in Santiago were able to love each other enough to give her the courage to really search. We thank God for blessing her searching and the blessing that her story is for each of us here. We thank God that Christine’s story is not the only one of its kind for either church. May God grant each of us what we need to be transformed so that we may truly be the people of God. Remember, love the people.

Peace,

Ben and Shannon Langley
Co-coordinators of mission groups

The 2002 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 240