Mercy League

Over the last 6-7 weeks, as we have return from the D.R. and have continued to pray about life and ministry there, we have done some research about potential areas of need that we feel our gifts could help. As we look at our gifts, both Jenni and I realize that there are certain areas where we feel we can help...

• Youth focused ministry: this is probably no surprise to anyone that we would be interested primarily with ministry that supports youth, since both Jenni and I have a rich background with working with youth of all ages.
• Orphaned & Abandoned Children: with our adoption experiences and a little praying, our hearts have been touched to continue to reach out to those kids w/o out a consistent and stable home life, especially with the absence of any parent figure.
• Engaging mission trips: this is probably my area where I feel I can be of great use. Knowing that Christians (church and youth groups, camp outreach etc.) from all over t he world are looking to help serve those in need, and many have turned their attention to the D.R. and to Haiti, we feel there is a continuing need for someone to help groups connect with possible ministry projects in the D.R., and even more importantly try to establish a relationship with Dominicans and Haitians that would cultivate into deeper relationships (hopefully) with Jesus. With my experience leading youth programs at the Y for many years I feel that I could help truly help to build a great bridge between visiting Christian groups and the residents who live in northern D.R.

So as we have been praying and meditating on these things, we have continued to do research and try to connect with others who are already doing similar things. Well, in this process we were able to connect with a ministry called Mercy League, who started doing work in Haiti and have begun reaching out to the Dominicans and Haitians living on the north coast of the D.R. And once we browsed through their website, we discovered that they shared a very similar vision that we have for the people on Hispaniola (the island shared by both Haiti and the D.R.).

We discovered that Mercy League's big desire is to help local Dominicans and Haitians discover Christ by first reaching the orphaned children. Their approach...creating a self sustaining and Dominican facilitated children's home for orphaned children, where they would receive a consistent relationship with long serving house-parents. This was definitely a vision we shared. Not only was it a program that helped abandoned children, but it did it in a way that involved local Dominicans and Haitians, so it gives the locals ownership over their own ministry. So needless to say we contacted their director, and not 12 hours went by and we got a reply from him. Two weeks later, we were able to talk on the phone, and we discovered that we not only shared the same vision for the people of Hispaniola, but we also shared similar backgrounds.

Shane Mattenley and his wife are from Oregon, and after hearing about the tough situation for children in Haiti, they decided to make a trip down together. And once there, they felt God stirring to make a difference. They ended up serving in ministry in Haiti for a few years and eventually adopting two Haitian girls. Shane has a background in Christian children's camps and served as a youth pastor (very similar to my background, minus the youth pastor part). His wife was a school teacher (Jenni is a school teacher). We have two adopted children from Haiti too. It was crazy how much we shared in both background and vision.

Well since our phone conversation we have kept in continual contact, as Shane and I truly feel that God purposefully connected us. So together we are praying about our potential role in helping him maintain and support his sustainable children's home and church planting projects on the north coast of the Dominican Republic.

My prayer, my friends, is that you join me in continuing to pray that God reveals our next steps in serving Him. And that if the Mercy League projects are what He wants us to do for Him, that we are able to clearly understand our possible role and act on it.

We shall see... we shall see.

Mercy League International's Blog: http://mercyleague.blogspot.com/