This is going to be quite a short post (I know, not my usual style!), but I just wanted to let everyone know that we've now been given the green light for the building project for the new Nazareth House!
I hadn't really discussed much of the technical side to our dream before, but basically, we had to wait for a board meeting of the Samartian Foundation (the charity we've been working with to build houses in the Dominican Republic) for them to discuss whether this was a project they could partner with Mission Direct to complete. After that meeting decided that it could, Mission Direct has now also agreed and have set this as the 2016 project for Dominican Republic trips! Which is GREAT NEWS! Now we just need to raise the money! ;-D
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Ok, so my dream probably isn't quite as big as the one Martin Luther King Jr. had, but it is a dream all the same!
I've been wanting to write this post for a while now (and alluded to it in the comments of my introductory post about Sister Mercedes, 'Completely Given to God'!), and finally feel as if it's all now collated enough to do so! So you'll remember that I've been writing a lot about Sister Mercedes and Nazareth House while I've been away, and this place has really come to be on my heart. One thing I don't think I've mentioned yet is that Sister Mercedes' home - where she lives with all her children - has been put up for sale by the owner. Thankfully, as of yet, no one has put in an offer, but they are living with the constant threat that if someone does, they will be out on the street with nowhere to go. This is joined by the fact that the price put on the house is way more than it is really worth and it was never purpose-built anyway. So our dream: To build Sister Mercedes a NEW house!
Fundraising for this project is something I'm going to be doing as much of as I possibly can this year. And I hope that you might all be able to join with me in this; in a small way or in a big way - for nothing is either too small or too big for God to use. If we can get enough money together to buy land and start the building process, next summer could see the first bricks being laid. Which would just be SO exciting!!!
One of my most recent fundraising ideas has stemmed out of the fact that for my birthday (my 21st < CAN'T BELIEVE I'M THAT OLD ALREADY!!!) in January, I am going to ask people to donate the money they would've spent on a gift to this cause. I was then talking to a friend who came out on one of the summer teams, and she is planning to do the same thing this year for Christmas. This started our brains turning and we've decided to kickstart a Christmas campaign called, "#EnoughStuff"! Basically, we've set up a JustGiving page (https://www.justgiving.com/enoughstuff/) for people to send their donations to - which can then claim GiftAid and goes straight to this project via Mission Direct. We are encouraging as many people as possible in as many different places as possible to take up this banner and say they have #EnoughStuff. Because really, for many of us, we DO have enough stuff. We don't need more things to clutter up the house this Christmas. So if you could help in this way - DO IT! Instead of asking your friends for gifts, ask them to GIVE; then give them the link to the JustGiving page and it REALLY is that easy! We're hoping also to put up some printable Christmas cards which people could then give to say they've donated in place of your present (because we know it is still nice to be able to physically give something at Christmas). Let's get back to the whole point of giving; and by doing this, perhaps we can not only make a real difference to this family and this need, but also show our friends and families that being a Christian is about loving those in need. And though society might be able to commercialise Christmas, it can never take that away from us.
I'm well into the final team of the year now - just one more week with Team 4 and then I have 4 days before I too am flying home to sunny England (or not, as I've heard!)! ;-P And as we go to some of the projects and do some of the things that I've been doing and going to all summer, I'm becoming increasingly aware that that was the last time. The last time I'll walk into that village and be greeted by small children with loud voices shouting, "Rebekah! REBEKAH!" The last time I'll sit around having beautiful conversations with friends I've made here and feel like I've known forever. The last time I'll dance and sing praises to God with the most joyful men who have come through so much. The last time I'll pick up that one little friend who is ALWAYS happy to see me and ALWAYS wants a hug! Even the last time I'll traipse around at the top of the mountain making sure the team are keeping up and not tripping over oddly arranged steps! I say 'last time' in the sense of it being, at least, the last time for the time being, but as the song I'm currently listening to on my Rend Collective Spotify playlist says; "[God's] not finished with me yet!", and I certainly am not claiming to know the future!
So for now, it is the last time. Yesterday I went to Nazareth House for the last time. We played and we danced - I cuddled and I laughed. And I saw again how incredible Sister Mercedes is. How perfectly humble she is and how beautifully understated. I've been working on a side project to raise awareness about the current situation for Nazareth House and so in my time between teams I went back and was taking photos and stuff, so that I could make some publicity material and then I could show that to her to get her permission to use it. As most parents are, she's very protective of her children and doesn't want their photos to end up just anywhere and so not many people have photos of the kids there; so if I can make some materials that she is happy with, other people can then use those to share the story and situation of the house! So anyway, I needed a photo of her and originally she was like, "Nooo, nooo" all embarrassedly, and then she dragged Claire in too, so it wasn't just her, and Claire finally managed to get her to have one on her own; and she is beautiful. But she NEVER wants it to be about her. To the degree that if we give her the comfortable chair, she'll drag it aside and find one of the kids toys (a MOST uncomfortable seat!) to sit on! Whenever she tells her story, she wants it completely to point to God - not to anything incredible that she might have done, but all the incredible things that God has done through her. Claire has previously called Sister Mercedes her 'hero of the faith', and I'd never really understood having a 'hero of the faith', but now I so do. I endeavour to follow her example - her humility, her obedience, her pure faith in God - she is a beautiful, strong daughter of the King. And after all this, she made it about me. She told me how she was sad to see me go and told me not to forget them. I told her I was going to stay in contact, I was going to write to find out how she is and how the children are - and she was overjoyed! And I said, 'no I won't forget. I'll be praying, and I'm going to go back and tell everyone about you and I'm going to raise some money to help...' And she interrupted me; 'the most important thing is that you pray. Pray for us. And remember us.' Such beautiful, wonderful faith. --------------- [1] Photo credit for the sunset: Tim Hendy.
So because we do pretty much the same things with each team, I've decided it would be fairly pointless to just go through what we've all been doing again; so I'm going to pick something (hopefully each week!) to talk about. The first of these HAS to be Casa Nazaret - 'Nazareth House', and Sister Mercedes!
I mentioned Nazareth House a couple of weeks back in this post when we went there with the 1st team and mentioned a little of how amazing this place is, but I could barely scratch the surface! So here goes: Nazareth House is the home of Sister Mercedes. The lady I'm working with out here, who lives here full time as a missionary, wrote a post on her a while back here, which is well worth checking out! But in "short"; Sister Mercedes is a nun, who says she ALWAYS wanted to be a Carmelite Sister, living in the monastery and serving God there. And then she was moving to a new place or something so ended up visiting a place in Puerto Plata (she used to live in the capital, Santo Domingo), and helped out a little at a children's home. She didn't mind doing it, but she also didn't particularly like doing it - she just did it in the safety and knowledge that she was going back to the monastery afterwards. But God had other ideas! And various people kept saying to her, "Why don't you open a home of your own?" "A home for abandoned children?" and so on and so on. And God kept tugging at her heart and mind. But she didn't want to. She wanted to be in the monastery, serving God there. And she told it once like this, 'But God kept telling me. And I cried and cried and cried. Because I didn't want to. But God did.' And so she did it. She started with 5 children, and over the years she's had around 25 children in total at various points, but some have passed away or been moved to other places, and there's currently 15 children living with her there. And the amazing thing is; this isn't a staff-run institution. This is a HOME, in a very literal sense of the word. This is Sister Mercedes' house, where she lives with her children. She's their mum, and she loves them and they love her. Yesterday I had the chance to sit with one of the little girls on my lap, cuddling and playing for a while. She's 7, though really quite small for a 7-year-old. She can't talk, and she doesn't seem to be able to respond at all some of the time - but other times she'll clap to the songs we're singing, or make kind of "talking noises". And when she smiles! Oh, when she smiles... you can see she's happy; you can see that's her response! I'm always just so amazed at how each of those children is loved and cherished. Each child is shown that their life is worth living. These children are mostly abandoned; and not through lack of love necessarily, but through lack of the families being able to care for them. Some abandoned at the hospital, some at Sister Mercedes' front door. Some she found wandering the streets, eating from the garbage. And Sister Mercedes took them, and made them her children - loved, cared for and part of a family. How on earth she does that for FIFTEEN children... it can only be through God's strength. And that's the other thing. This house has no consistent income - there's no benefit system to help her or these children. She relies completely on God. Money from donations and teams is what gets her through; what pays the rent, buys the food, pays the huge costs of all the medicine the kids need... And God has always provided for her, and she has faith strong enough to say he always will. She is an incredible woman. Absolutely incredible. “Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.” ~ Hebrews 11.1 Lord, thank you so much for the faith of Sister Mercedes. For her life, completely given to you. Please continue to provide for her needs, and the needs of her children. And help me, Lord, to have this faith too. Faith to be sure of what I hope for, and to be certain of what I do not yet see. For you are above all things, and in you all hope is found. Amen. |
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AuthorI'm a recent Cambridge Theology graduate now studying for a Masters in Biblical Studies and blogging about all sorts of things! I'm interested in faith, Church, theology, social action, the great outdoors and being creative, and all of those things - along with many more - come through in my posts!
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