by Tom and Dee Yaccino

Those of us awakened to the reality of the plight of millions of people suffering from injustice often get plagued by one question, “What difference can I really make in this broken and hurting world?” We may say it out loud or in our minds, but the truth is we feel guilty when we sigh at disturbing news reports, ignore heart-wrenching images of crying babies, or hurry by the beggar on the street. And maybe when we look at the world with our eyes riveted on the problems, it is a rational and logical thing to ask.

But, everything changes when we begin to see through Kingdom lenses—even our complacency and doubt.

In a message entitled “The Power of Ten”, RdC DR network leader and pastor, Robert Guerrero, challenged listeners to consider what God meant when He said He would spare an entire city from catastrophic consequences for the sake of ten “just” people.

The teaching has special significance for the small, often marginalized communities of faith represented in the RdC networks that struggle against the tide to make a transformative difference in their neighborhoods, but it has powerful implications for all of us who are stumbling towards Jesus along His Way.

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The Biblical text for the message comes from Genesis 18:23-32 where Abraham barters with God over the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah.

Then he said, “May the Lord not be angry, but let me speak just once more. What if only ten can be found there?” 
He answered, “For the sake of ten, I will not destroy it.”

Abraham was most likely looking out for his own interests (his nephew Lot and his family) and not necessarily the well being of a corrupt and unjust city.  But what may have been a selfish inquiry by a concerned uncle is a useful object lesson for us all.  The presence of only ten just Kingdom citizens in a city can make all the difference in the world.

Kingdom math takes a linear equation into the realm of infinite possibilities.  For God, 2+ 1 ”the One” = ∞ “infinity”.

While we often get caught up in quantities, (how many volunteers are there, how much money have we raised, or how many people were baptized this month?) God seems more concerned that those of us who follow Him make His presence known by being truly “present” in alternative Kingdom ways in our towns, cities, and neighborhoods.

God continually reminds us that the mission is His. Our “Kingdom business” is to be about renewing and redeeming everything we can possibly influence.

Our constant struggle as a community of faith is that God’s measurements for triumph, success, power, and influence are usually co-opted by the world’s measurements so that, most of the time, we are scrambling in vain to accomplish plans and purposes that are not part of His mission to restore and transform.

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by Dee Yaccino

“Hey Wendy, how are you?” I ask when I see her in the lobby after the church service.

“Fine.”  She tells me, but I know better.

She looks surprisingly well and typically beautiful.  No one would ever know that a few days earlier she had been forced out of her “home” 7 months pregnant.  She watched from a distance as her makeshift closet with everything she owned was burned down by police.  And later, she found out that their dogs were killed by bullets that were meant for her and her little community — a community that had struggled to help one another survive.

But what some meant for evil, God has used for good.

Let me tell you Wendy’s story.

She and a little band of about 14 others live in caves located on a rocky beach strewn with garbage a couple of blocks from the colonial city of Santo Domingo.  She is there because, like many young people, she was having some serious problems with her parents (especially her dad) for unruly behavior and thought it might be better for everyone if she left.

She doesn’t give much detail about her home life but tells of how she is not welcome anymore (admittedly because of her own bad behavior).  She had heard of the caves and went down one day to see if it could be a place for her to live, since she knew she could not go home. The group there received her with open arms, fed her what they could, gave her a place to sleep, and above all this showed her acceptance.

Her parents do not know she is pregnant.  They have her other three children.

She tries to get money day by day doing odd jobs, cleaning hamburger stands, and asking people for money.  Sometimes she is even lucky enough to sell jars of freshly collected sea glass that she scavenges every day from the beach dump.

The man who is the father of her baby (Chino) does the same.  When they have enough, they can sleep in a one-room pension for a time.  But when the money runs out, they go to the caves.  When the baby comes, they are not sure what they are going to do.

“I want to serve God because I like what I have seen in this church.”

Wendy and Chino came to know of ICC (where I was first introduced to her) through the soup kitchen.

The church is located only a few blocks from the caves and when the couple heard that there was a place to get a meal for the day, they started going.  Now they both regularly serve there as well.  She often says, “I want to serve God because I like what I have seen in this church.”

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By Dee Yaccino

I recently had the privilege of spending 5 days in Fraijanes, Costa Rica with a group of 10 other pastors and church leaders from RdC networks throughout Latin America.  We had originally convened the gathering for RdC / DCC connectors for the end of January to celebrate all the wonderful things God did in 2008 through the networks of churches that we each represent and to look forward to what 2009 might bring.

But, our agenda was altered when we received a call on January 8 from our friend, Roy Soto, who is pastor of Shalom Community Church in Fraijanes asking us to pray because a half hour earlier they suffered a devastating  earthquake that measured about 6.2 on the Richter scale.  He told us that it quake felt as if someone was picking up the ground around them and violently pounding and shaking off the dirt.

And that is what it looked like when I saw it a couple weeks after it happened.  Roads had been cleared and rubble and glass in homes had been swept up, but brokenness could still be seen and felt everywhere we went.

As we entered several houses to pray for the families of Comunidad Cristiana Shalom (CCS), whom we’ve come to know through the relationships built over the years as network family members, we listened to their stories.  They shared with us where they were when the earthquake happened, what they did to try to escape injury, and what they were thinking as they were being knocked off their feet for 22 seconds.

I held it together emotionally most of the time, but certain moments in their stories made me enter into their pain and joy in ways I had not expected.

Graciella is the soft-spoken wife of one of the leaders of CCS.  She is pregnant with their first child.  At the time the earthquake hit (around noon), she was out in the back of her house and heard her mother screaming from the kitchen.  When they could finally get to each other, everything on the walls and cupboards and shelves had been knocked to the floor and broken into bits.  They just held each other and began to cry and wonder what else happened… to their loved ones, their homes, the community…

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By Dee Yaccino

The birth of any child is an amazing thing. I remember the events surrounding all four of my children. And I know that if you ask any mother to recount the story of the birth of her children, she will usually be willing and able to tell you all about it–in great detail. I love hearing those stories. I love telling my stories.

You can also ask any mother who is in the last month of pregnancy how she is and she will probably say, “I am ready to have this baby!” I remember when I was in the last month of pregnancy all I could think about was the birth. I would wake up asking myself, is today the day? And I would go to bed thinking maybe tonight is the night…there was such an expectancy. I felt like I was waiting forever. And everybody knows it is hard to wait for anything. It is especially hard to wait for something that you want to happen so badly…like the birth of a new little life.

That waiting—that expectancy is what I want to talk about this Christmas season because we are focused on the birth of Jesus. And if there was ever a birth that was highly anticipated it was His.
Prophets of the people of Israel had been predicting it for centuries. All of the people of Israel had been waiting for the birth of the “Messiah” or King who would deliver them for a long, long time. It was the birth announcement people were waiting for that was as popular in that time as it is to wait for the birth announcement of Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt’s babies today.

The difference is that as excited as we become at the birth of famous babies (or really any baby for that matter), the Messiah’s birth was not the mere announcement of the arrival of a new life into this world. That is, even though wise men and astronomers had been predicting the time and place of the birth of this “King” from the line of David which was to be accompanied by strange signs and wonders and the appearance of a huge star in the sky, and even though the events surrounding the birth of the Messiah were amazing—even miraculous–that is not what made it important.

Jesus’ birth was important because of who He is.
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Eunice  By Sheila Alexander

How did I feel?
I felt all throwed away
Like an old shoe in the rain
Or a chicken heart in a butcher’s hand.
Was how I felt
And blue as a week of Mondays.

“I felt” she said,
“Shades blacker than my skin,
Like there wasn’t no place low enough
To hide my feelings in

“It wasn’t” she said
“The jail I was in
But the world I was out of
Made me cry.
Not that I was so wrong
But nobody else was right.
Is why.”

“You don’t know
What a bad time is
Girl, you living child’s play
Til they sweep you under the rug
And you feel all throwed away.”

Have you ever felt like garbage—all used up, swept under a rug or thrown out and left on a pile to rot? Have you ever treated someone else like garbage? I think I have run the gamut of human emotion trying to come to terms with my own self-worth or lack of it. I also think I have done more than my fair share making others feel worthless or unworthy. What does that say about me? What does that make you think about me?

This was a theme shared over a year ago by friends from a church serving in the Dominican Republic. Little did any of us know how God would continue using “garbage” to help us see the beauty of His message to make all things new.

May this season be the reminder you need that, no matter what you have done, no matter how you have been treated, no matter how badly you have treated others, no matter what anyone says about you, no matter how often you have failed, or how small, forgotten or unworthy you have felt, you are not now nor will you ever be “garbage.”

This past month has been one of connecting.  We’ve been privileged to see what happens when churches from North America purposefully gather with churches from the RDC network in Latin America.  We’ve also been witness to God opening some powerful possibilities as churches from the RDC network in Dominican Republic connected with leaders from the RDC Costa Rica and churches from RDC Guatemala. 

With so many rich experiences, it would take pages and pages to write all of the amazing stories to be able to tell you what God did in the midst of those gatherings.  For now, may it be enough to hear about just a few of those moments.

Mark 14:3-9 

While he was in Bethany, reclining at the table in the home of a man known as Simon the Leper, a woman came with an alabaster jar of very expensive perfume, made of pure nard.  She broke the jar and poured the perfume on his head.  Some of those present were saying indignantly to one another, “Why this waste of perfume? It could have been sold for more than a year’s wages and the money given to the poor.” And they rebuked her harshly. “Leave her alone,” said Jesus. “Why are you bothering her? She has done a beautiful thing to me. The poor you will always have with you, and you can help them any time you want. But you will not always have me. She did what she could. She poured perfume on my body beforehand to prepare for my burial. I tell you the truth, wherever the gospel is preached throughout the world, what she has done will also be told, in memory of her.”

Christ Church of Oakbrook and Redeemer Community Church in Boston joined forces from September 30 to October 7 with Iglesia Comunitaria Cristiana in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic to retreat, reflect, and relax.  After a few days of preparation and team time in the Colonial City, the group of 8 from the North took time away with a group of 19 from the church in the Dominican Republic for 3 days in a beautiful camp in Comatillo.  On the first evening, we began a process of unpacking (literally and figuratively) that would prove to be a gift to all of us.  

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The term synergy or synergistic conjures up images of business world headlines announcing corporate mergers and partnerships. The Merriam Webster online dictionary even defines it in business terms as “a mutually advantageous conjunction or compatibility of distinct business participants or elements (as resources or efforts)”.

The church, which so often borrows ideas and practices from the business world to demonstrate its ability to be relevant and modern, has been using “synergy” and even “partnership” to reshape Christian thinking for local and world missionary endeavors.

But if we trace synergy back to its origins, we will find that the word we thought we had been importing into the church from the corporate world actually started among the radical group of disciples connected to the early Christian community—with a much more profound meaning!

Paul used the word in his letters to the newly forming churches to illustrate how we are called as followers of Jesus to work together in a cosmic partnership with God for the reconciliation of all things. The word originates from the Greek synergia “joint work, assistance, help,” which comes from synergos “working together,” and is related to synergein “work together, help another in work,” from syn- “together” + ergon “work”.

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I’m praying not only for them, but also for those who will believe in me because of them and their witness about me. The goal is for all of them to become one heart and mind— just as you, Father, are in me and I in you, so they might be one heart and mind with us. Then the world might believe that you, in fact, sent me. The same glory you gave me, I gave them, so they’ll be as unified and together as we are— I in them and you in me. Then they’ll be mature in this oneness, and give the godless world evidence that you’ve sent me and loved them in the same way you’ve loved me.

Jesus’ last prayer for His disciples in John 17 (v.20-23, The Message)

As the world crisis deepens and the cries of creation and the suffering among us rise to unprecedented levels, we find ourselves compelled to respond. The problem is that our need to do something is coupled with our super power values of efficiency and independence so that we inadvertently end up contributing to the very thing we desire to eliminate.  We get something done; build a building, bind a wound, develop a program — but oftentimes we do so in selfish rather than selfless ways, unconnected rather than connected ways, and as a result fail to communicate God’s love, beauty, and truth in ways that truly reveal His Kingdom.

What if we were to change our “worldy” ways for the Kingdom Way? What if we began to be of one heart and mind and unify our common compassion for this hurting and broken world? What if we were truly bound together in our love for God, one another and those we serve in such amazing ways that those who witness the Kingdom community at work could not but wonder and believe that another world is possible?

Our prayer is to walk together with others as we respond to the hurts and hopes of the suffering among us in such a way that we are fully aware of the implications of our actions. May we continually remind ourselves of Jesus prayer and intentionally enter into a process of connecting deeply in community that will allow our light to shine brighter and provoke all to glorify God as they witness His love in real, lasting, and tangible ways.