It is not uncommon for me to meet people down here in the Dominican Republic who teach me more about God and what it takes to be a Christian than I could ever hope to teach them. I might have the academic knowledge gained in seminary, yet these people help me understand what I already know. One such person is Marino. Marino is a member of a training program I help teach and a pastor of a small and very poor church in the barrio of La Puya. La Puya is a Spanish language onomatopoeia which describes poverty and a difficult life. Tucked into one of the wealthiest parts of Santo Domingo, La Puya is crammed down a steep gorge where the houses climb the cliffs, stacked upon each other in a haphazard manner. You would never know La Puya exists if you didn't know where to look for it. It is just off a short dirt road not 200 yards from a massive mansion. La Puya, a community of thousands, has no street access. It sits across a creek clogged with sluggish filth. The only way into La Puya is over a small foot bridge, though you must skirt a heap of garbage to reach it. Needless to say, life in La Puya is difficult. Yet in the midst of this difficulty lives a pastor, Marino, who is transforming La Puya one life at a time. As I sat in Marino's one-room house and drank some of his pop he proudly offered me, and which I'm sure he couldn't afford, I realized that I was sitting in the presence of a man of God from whom I could learn so much. We talked for some time about his life, his ministry and La Puya. His words even now reverberate in my memory. As he sat in his tiny home in the middle of the squalor that is life in La Puya, he said, "What makes me stay here is seeing lives transformed by God." Later he said, "My hope is that the people of La Puya can see the abundant life they can have in Jesus."
Such words might sound trite or even cliche coming from anyone else. But coming from a man living in abject poverty and ministering to the least, last and lost of Santo Domingo, those words are otherworldly. I am still in awe of the faith I found in Marino. I am in awe that this man who has so little in this world could still speak of the abundance and riches he has in Christ. Academically I have always known that truth. But now thanks to Marino I understand it.
Comments (1)
thanks for your story, it brings tears to my eyes, thank God for people like Marino, to give a an example of Christlike ministry.
-kelly van engen