David Kitani chronicles God’s faithfulness in their eight-year partnership with a church in the Dominican Republic
David Kitani, Servant Partners Lincoln Heights site leader, chronicles God’s faithfulness in their eight-year partnership with a church in the Dominican Republic.
God honors our small, faithful acts of love over long periods of time. Our Lincoln Heights church’s discipleship schools have had the privilege to witness God’s work in communities in Santiago, Dominican Republic, over a long period of time.
When we first came to the Pontezuela community seven years ago, Pastor Stanley Philippe and the Iglesia Comunidad Multicultural (ICM) would meet at a storefront church to love and serve the local community. Pastor Stanley showed us a rough plot of land in front of a little shack in the Haitian immigrant slum, and shared with us dreams of a community center there.
The year after, we prayed in the rain over a cement foundation that was built there.
The following year, we served food to the community children over the first floor—a dirt floor.
Last year, our team saw the building complete. We had classes on the second floor for community children that didn’t have the resources and papers to go to traditional schools in the Dominican Republic, and we enjoyed the Sunday service on the first floor.
This year, we came just in time to see some of the kindergarten students graduate!
Even the atmosphere and the openness of the people in the community seem to have changed. People know of the love of the church in the neighborhood. Another immigrant Haitian community that ICM is in partnership with is Secara. We encountered a lot of spiritual warfare there, due to voodoo being practiced in the community. This year, we were led by one of the local pastors to an alleyway in the neighborhood where people gathered. We offered to pray for folks, and then suddenly a lot of folks got up and walked away. We prayed for two gentlemen that stayed.
Then, a shop owner opened his window and asked for prayer. The people who left suddenly came back with others, asking for prayer. One person poked his head into the cramped shop, where we were praying for the shop owner; I thought he was trying to buy something, but to our surprise, this man—Pedro—said he wanted prayer. Pedro remembered that other believers in the past had come to pray for his stomach, and he had been healed. He pulled up the back of his shirt and said that he was now here for prayer for his back!
Now imagine what it would be like if we believers continued to faithfully plant seeds of God’s love over a long period of time? What if we continued to do the small acts of watering with kind and encouraging words, and shining sunlight by praying into people the healing of Jesus? There would be such Kingdom growth and transformation that it would bring shelter to whole communities!
The witness of small acts of love over time brings transformation!
In Luke 13:18-19, Jesus shares, “What is the kingdom of God like? What shall I compare it to? It is like a mustard seed, which a man took and planted in his garden. It grew and became a tree, and the birds perched in its branches.”
Now imagine what it would be like if we believers continued to faithfully plant seeds of God’s love over a long period of time? What if we continued to do the small acts of watering with kind and encouraging words, and shining sunlight by praying into people the healing of Jesus? There would be such Kingdom growth and transformation that it would bring shelter to whole communities!
Do not despise or look down on small acts of God's love and goodness that you share. Even if it is not received right away, trust that these small faithful acts matter and God will use them to grow His Kingdom over time, to bring the change that we need so much in this world! God's mission is for each person who is willing to love someone, as Jesus has loved you, even with the smallest act of love.