Chapter 1: Destroying Apathy Before It Starts

This is the narrative of how statistics took the form of real people before my eyes. It's a story with no easy answers. A story of a vague burden becoming a consuming cry for justice. I'm writing this story, not because I feel I have so much to teach, but because I learned so much from the story. I'm still learning. I learn as I write. I hope someone will dare to read it, and the Holy Spirit will invade their heart and touch it in some way as He has touched mine, in spite of my imperfect way of conveying YHWH's everyday miracles. 

On January 6th, 2013, I arrived in the Dominican Republic, where I would live that entire year.

On my third weekend there, my American friend and co-worker, Rachel, and our Dominican neighbor and friend, Omar, toured the colonial zone. When I got home, I wrote the following journal entry:

Tonight, on the way back from a walk around the Colonial Zone with Omar and Rachel, Rachel asked Omar about all the white men with Dominican women.

“They’re paying for them,” he said.

“Well, some of them could be actual couples, right?” Rachel asked.

“80 to 90 percent are paying for it.”

“That’s sad.”

Just ahead of us, a tall, skinny hipster guy in his twenties, wearing a v-neck, salmon-colored shorts and Keds shoes, stopped in front of a pasta shop. He exchanged some brief parting words with a dark-skinned, curvy Dominican woman in bleached jeggings and a bright yellow shirt. Then, he turned left to continue his consumption—this time with pizza instead of human flesh.

The woman continued straight, her pace quickening with each step. I saw the light of a cigarette hit the ground in a sudden, angry movement. She was clutching her purse.

Rachel was asking Omar about Duarte and Trujillo, the forefathers of the Dominican Republic. But my own eyes followed the figure in yellow until she left the pedestrian street of the colonial zone, and turned right.

“Cruzamos.” Omar signaled for us to cross the street to the Parque de Independencia.

On the other side, we paused in front of the historical exhibitions for another Dominican history lesson. But my eyes wandered across the street, and settled on a public car driver, supporting himself with one foot against a wall. A woman wrapped her arms around his neck, and his hands rested on her backside. It was the same yellow shirt. She pulled away, dragging him by his hand for a few feet.

I looked back at the park and the exhibitions, but my mind couldn’t settle on old time heroes. I glanced across the street again. The driver had returned to his post next to his car, and the woman had resumed her brisk walk.

No deal.

Disappearing into La Mella (the poor neighborhood up the hill), she left me with a heavy heart.

“People, Help the People” is one of the songs I had on repeat that night in my apartment, just a few blocks away.

God knows what is hiding in those weak and sunken eyes

fiery throngs of muted angels

giving love but getting nothing back

People, help the people!

And if you’re homesick, give me your hand and I’ll hold it. . .

God knows what is hiding, in that world of little consequence
Behind the tears, inside the lies
A thousand slowly dying sunsets
God knows what is hiding in those weak and drunken hearts
I guess the loneliness came knocking
No one needs to be alone, oh save me

Later, I posted the journal entry on my other blog, and finished it with these words:

I asked God that night to never let my heart be indifferent to the suffering around me. The worst possible thing is that I can see the sex trade happening in front of my eyes, and look the other way.

God answered my prayer within a week with an email from Exodus Cry, a Christian organization dedicated to the abolition of slavery through prevention, restoration, awareness, and prayer. As I read their monthly prayer update, their unique prayer campaign stood out to me: “Red. Stop. Pray.”

What you pray for on a regular basis, you will not stop caring about.

I am in traffic in Santo Domingo every single day, on the way to my mission work with HOPE International. And although red lights are frequently not observed here, there is plenty of commuter time to pray for the “red light districts” in this city, and throughout the world.

This is my prayer for women and children trapped in the sex trade:

“When I think of all this, I fall to my knees and pray to the Father, the Creator of everything in heaven and on earth. I pray that from his glorious, unlimited resources he will empower you with inner strength through his Spirit. Then Christ will make his home in your hearts as you trust in him. Your roots will grow down into God’s love and keep you strong. And may you have the power to understand, as all God’s people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love is.”--Ephesians 3:18-20, NLT

Fast forward to two robberies six weeks apart, one in the street at knifepoint on Good Friday, and one at our apartment while we were at work.

Pause to remember the first time I ever attended a funeral for someone who had been murdered—the older brother of my coworker Yaneilis.

Later, I wrote about how it felt to go to the viewing that morning, instead of the office:

In the metro station, a metalwork sculpture hung on both sides of the tracks. On one side, blue and silver shapes seemed to depict a paradise in the clouds. On the other side, flames licked towards the ceiling, several stories high. I stared at the bright shards hanging on the station walls as I waited for the train. 

Over the course of the next few days, I found out that Armando was a bus driver who would leave for work at 5AM every day. Everyone knew him as a hard worker, and a loving father to his two little girls, ages 3 years and 3 months old. On Monday, March 11, at 8PM, he was headed to the Syndicate of Transportation to turn in a portion of the fares he had earned throughout the day. The only other person in the bus was the cobrador, or the kid who calls out the route, and collects fares from the passengers. But he left the scene running after someone else jumped on the bus, fired 8 shots at Armando, and fled on foot—leaving Armando’s bleeding body and all his money in the bus. 

As I stood on the platform waiting for the metro car, all I remember thinking was that the split second between a finger pulling a trigger and a bullet entering someone’s chest is not too short a time to cry for mercy. But who knew if he had cried out in that moment, like the thief on the cross? 

As I boarded the train, I cried, for the first time in too long, for those beyond the hope of Christ. My soul echoed Paul’s words of desperation: “I could wish I were lost, that they might be found in Him.”

In the week after Armando’s death,  two people told me they would get right with God another day—that they are young, and they have time. I wanted to scream at them: ¨You don´t have time! You don´t have time! Don´t you get it, you don´t have time!¨

My heart had awakened again to the necessity of making Christ known. Of living each moment to make Him known. Of redeeming my time. Of preaching the true Gospel, the very Words of God that truly cut to through hard hearts and change lives—before it’s too late.

Every moment lost is somebody’s too late. Somebody’s daughter, husband, sister, lover.

How is the way I am living today serving to know Christ and make Him known, while there is still time?

A few weeks later I returned to the States for 1 week at a conference with the microfinance agency I worked with; and 2 weeks with my family to welcome my niece, Evelyn Grace, into the world. On the same day I arrived in Ohio, Evelyn was born, and my Chinese friend Frida accepted Christ as her Savior. It was one of the happiest days of my life.

After two weeks home, I returned to the Dominican Republic.

Chapter Two: Coming soon