Psalm 37:5- "Commit your way to the LORD; trust in him, and he will act."

I believe the Lord is asking me to share some insight into what He has been doing these past months in my own personal life. I am truly in awe of His sovereignty, and I pray that this blog post produces the fruit of love, joy, amazement, and trust in our Heavenly Father who is the Master Planner.  The glory alone belongs to Him, and everything good is His doing.

During my time at MGM and Whitefields, I sensed that my time there would be short. Not because I wanted it to be shorter, but because the tasks that they asked me to do would only take a couple months to fulfill. One of the ministry’s goals for this year was to effectively communicate to supporters through their website and newsletter all that God is doing in the Dominican Republic through the Whitefield’s ministry (which is a lot!). I had the awesome opportunity to spend time with the sugarcane pastors that Whitefields supports. I spent time gathering information on their ministries, the pastors themselves, their families, and the topics they discussed at their meetings. I had the privilege to get to know them and hear their hearts, which…wow, God truly crafts beautiful pots out of clay J. However, interviewing the pastors only took so long and during the months between March and May, the ministry is a lot less busy. Although I was involved in other things, I could not see the sense in coming down again during those months when there really was not much to do after the month of March. I was coming home March 8^th because I was in my friend’s wedding with the expectation to return on March 22^nd. With the facts that the ministry is less busy and that the government is now cracking down on the “90 day stay without a visa rule”, I decided I would not go back to the DR March 22^nd like I had planned and instead, stay home for a little bit to reevaluate things.

Now, I am going to back up a second. Before I even went to the Dominican Republic in January, I received a phone call from a girl by the name of Sarah who was going down to the DR to stay with a missionary by the name of Pastor Marcos in La Romana. She wanted to connect with me and see if I was interested in going with her. She received my name from a long list of connections. I had already committed to work with Whitefields, so we ended the conversation encouraging one another as we embarked on two separate journeys and hoped to run into each other while there.

Now, during my first month there, I constantly kept hearing the name Pastor Micah, who I confused with Pastor Marcos. For some reason, I had mixed up their names and thought they were referring to the man that Sarah was staying with in La Romana. So one day I contacted her and just asked to hear more about his ministry. After talking to her, I realized I had confused his name and realized it was not the same person. Needless to say, I didn’t think much about what she told me and moved on. Looking back now though, I can see how God used this to bring Marcos’ name back to my mind.

Sometime in February, Sarah emailed me and said that Marcos wanted to meet up with me. I remember thinking that was odd, since he probably only had heard my name mentioned possibly through Sarah. I figured Sarah had expressed a desire to meet up with me, and he consented to go. But I still thought that was very generous of him considering Hato Mayor is a good hour trip from La Romana. Around this time, I was really starting to realize that my stay at MGM would be short. It was extremely confusing because I had committed to the seven months and was expecting to be there that long. I was still confident that I had heard His call to come to the Dominican Republic correctly, but I was confused by the results. Why would He send me just for this to happen? Why did things go so differently than what I was expecting? I felt like Moses at the Red Sea. God had performed all these wonders to get Israel out of Egypt and then, they stop right in front of the Red Sea, completely trapped between the dangerous Sea and the Egyptian army. They must have been thinking, “Really, all of this to be here, Lord? You really brought us here so that we could fail?” But He didn’t let them fail. He was only setting them up so that His glory would be displayed. And, after God displayed His glory, it caused wonderful reactions in Israel and Moses. They feared the Lord, believed in Him and sang praises to Him. Exodus 15:2 “The LORD is my strength and my song, and he has become my salvation; this is my God, and I will praise him, my father’s God, and I will exalt him.” God directed me to passages like Psalm 37 and was asking me to trust Him. Despite all my many different emotions, He gave me His peace and rest.

He led me to start praying over my circumstance. I asked that He would clearly lead in all of this confusion. I prayed that if He wanted me to stay, He would provide another open door. I remember the morning before I met with Marcos and Sarah, I sensed a deep need to pray over our conversation that day. It must have been the Spirit bringing this thought to my mind that morning because I remember thinking…what if I could stay with Marcos! The thought had never occurred to me until that morning. I prayed that if God was opening that door and was leading me through it, He would have Marcos ask me to stay with him during our meeting. I wanted it to be led by God not something that I conjured up or tried to control, and I knew that if I asked Marcos to stay with him, it would be my desperate attempt to make something work so that all of this would make sense to me. Instead, I wanted to rest in the Lord and allow Him to make the decisions. I asked the Lord that if it was according to His will, Marcos would be the one to bring it up and make the offer. And guess what happened. Before I had said anything about what was going on with MGM, Marcos asked me if I wanted to stay with His family and work with his ministry after my time at MGM. I was deeply aware that the Lord was orchestrating in these details.

Although the Lord had clearly spoken in regards to staying with Marcos, my stubborn spirit grew discouraged and indecisive. The Enemy used a lot of things to discourage my going with Marcos.  Honestly, I just wanted to be home. I was frustrated. I came home just plain confused and unsure of my next step.

After the wedding in March, I got a job that I really enjoyed. Truly God was the one orchestrating in those details as well. I was really starting to get adjusted and used every excuse in the book not to go back even though there was a huge part of me that really wanted to return to the DR. For starters, I was not hearing back from the ministry I was at before to come back in June. I figured that I just should not go back since that door was closed. But the lingering thought of that offer made by Marcos continued to come back over and over again. There was an internal war inside of me… I came home and got a job that I really enjoyed . I developed a great friendship with a dear sister in Christ. I needed to continue to save up money for school. I would lose the job that I really enjoyed. These were the thoughts of my flesh that waged war against the Spirit. I wanted to do what made sense and what was most convenient, yet I knew my Heavenly Father was asking something else from me. And I hated it. Basically it boiled down to this question: Am I willing to put myself in a position where I completely and totally have to depend on Him in trust no matter how confusing, and quite honestly, counter-productive, and illogical (to the world), the situation may be? It wasn’t a question of whether or not I was willing to sacrifice my time, money, job, and comfort (But I have to say, parting with those things, to my dismay and shame, was not as easy for me as I wish to admit). The real question was: Do I love him and will I obey Him? Do I really trust God at His Word? Am I willing to set aside the gifts He has given me to know the gift giver better? He had to change my perspective to see that my job and my present circumstances were a GIFT from Him. They were given to me not for me to cling on to them, but to be thankful for them. Once He gave me this understanding, I could see that these earthly treasures were never mine to claim. They were given to me to be used for His glory not my comfort. We cannot serve two masters. I cannot explain the promptings of the Holy Spirit, but as His sheep, we know our Shepherd’s voice. I could not shake the Holy conviction and prompting to go back to the DR. The Spirit’s promptings are quite unexplainable, but they were ignited as I sat in Church meetings, spent time in prayer, read His Word, read missionary biographies, and sat in His presence. I needed to go back with Marcos. I tried to compromise with Him in my mind with some of the things He was asking me to do. I won’t go on in great detail about these other things, but He basically was asking me to do everything the hardest way possible for me. I kept trying to find ways out that fit more of my understanding, but there was no peace. Absolutely no peace. I knew the right decision, and I continued to fight it.

Then, one morning, my mom said, “I really believe this is the Lord wanting me to tell you that you have to go back in May.” And, I simply said-“ I know.” Despite all my stubbornness, He still went to the length of using my mom to speak to me.  What grace He has with one who has such a stubborn heart. There was this fire welling up inside of me, and I simply thought, okay, if I truly say I trust Him, I must obey Him in this. So I said, okay Lord, I surrender. I relinquish control over this part of my life because it is Yours anyways. I knew what He was asking, so I made a decision. I settled in my heart that I was going to obey Him in everything, told Marcos I was coming, and bought the plane ticket. 

When I arrived here, my jaw dropped at His goodness, His sovereignty, and His orchestrating all along. Despite all my doubts, failures, confusions, etc. He has been orchestrating my journey all along. The second day upon arriving (May 13), Marcos asked me how I came to the decision to stay with him. I explained basically what I just wrote here. He told me that the real reason he had come all the way to Hato Mayor to meet me was because the Lord had brought my name up to him a couple times in prayer. The Lord told him to meet up with the "girl in Hato Mayor" and make an offer for her to stay with him and his family (he told me later he fought God in this request because he did not have the gas to drive all the way over to Hato Mayor). I asked God that it would not be my plan, and He answered. He was orchestrating all these details all along. He did not have to give me confirmation but knowing that I’m a “words of affirmation” kind of girl, I think He allowed me to have insight into that one. So, I am without a shadow of a doubt in His will in being here. I’m not sure what the journey will look like or why or what the end result will be, but that is okay. I simply know that I am in His will having obeyed all that He has asked of me, and there is just no better place to dwell.