It's pretty warm down here in the DR, but I gather it will be hot when I get back to New York this evening too. This has been a very fulfilling, albeit brief visit with Rob and Kelli Nelson. In less than five years, Island Impact Ministries is well established and has a significant presence on the north shore of this beautiful Caribbean Island.
Since the Nelsons are from our church, we have endeavored to support them all we can and it has been very humbling for me as their pastor to know that we have been able to play some part in the things I saw yesterday.
1. At their main clinic where scores of people received medical, optical and dental care while I was there, the biggest hug I got was from a lady named Carmen. One month ago she was blind with serious issues in one eye and a cataract on the other one, but when a team of eye surgeons from Washington DC came in to work with Island Impact for a week recently, Carmen's cataract was removed. Returning for a post-op examination yesterday she could hardly contain herself, excitedly pointing all around and declaring, "I can see that! I can see that! I can see that!"
Carmen's life has been changed. Rob and Kelli's faithfulness here made that happen and ours is one of the church's supporting them in this great work. I'm proud that Rob and Kelli are from our church and I'm proud of our church too.
2. Rob and I took a brief break from the clinic to drive a few miles to a shanty town near the airport, just 400 yards up a dirt track off the main road. Hundreds of people live there in small shacks made out of second-hand pieces of wood, with corrugated tin or asbestos roofs. The police don't go in there and the murder rate has soared lately in drug related gang wars.
We visited a simple school standing in the middle of this deprivation and devastation, funded through Island Impact's child sponsorship program. If there's any future for these kids, education is the key, so it was good to see so many in the cinder block classrooms.
As I looked at the faces of these innocents living in hell, I remembered that for many of them their education is made possible because folks from our church are sponsoring them. I'm proud that Rob and Kelli are from our church and I'm proud of our church too.
3. In the school I finally got to meet a young man I had heard a lot about - Benji. Benji is around ten years old - maybe 11, I forget! Orphaned, a couple of years ago he spent his life wandering around the shacks that make up the village, sleeping on one porch or another, with no one to take care of him.
When Rob and Kelli became aware of his plight, there were some folks from our church down here too. One of our team members went home and talked to his wife about Benji and they seriously looked into adopting him. That was not going to be possible because of DR government restrictions, so they did the next best thing. Rob and Kelli found him a foster home and our friends fund the family caring for him.
Yesterday Benji was clean, smiling, in school and about to return home to a caring family. A young life rescued! In case I haven't said it before, I'm proud that Rob and Kelli are from our church and I'm proud of our church too!
I leave for the airport soon - a very happy man!
