A letter I sent out a few months ago about my 2008 summer…

I trust you had a great Christmas time with your family and friends. I was reminded once again this Christmas how amazing God is and how much He loves us all. That He loved us so much that he would indeed send His Son as our Savior, the ultimate gift of Christmas. I pray that you were able to see the true reason for celebrating Christmas this year.

 

I am writing to update you on what God is currently and has been doing the past year through and in me. I do apologize dearly for not getting this done sooner. As most of you know God laid a passion on my heart first of all for missions but more specifically the Dominican Republic (DR) a few years ago. After doing 5 straight summers of 2-3 weeks short-term missions trips to various countries God opened up a great opportunity. I decided that short-term trips were not long enough and that it was time to do something more. So I applied and was accepted into an internship program down in the DR that would last 10 weeks over the summer. I went into this trip with the question to God in mind of "God please let this trip signify whether or not full-time missions is in my future." Well God answered with a yes as well as a not yet. I will get back to that in a little bit. First let me tell you about what I was doing over the summer.

 

The internship was with Students International (SI). All throughout the summer they have high school and college aged students come down for 2 weeks at a time. The interns support SI as their summer staff to help manage these 2-week outreaches. Along with general help, I was the intern at the construction site for the summer. We were doing random construction projects around the community and at local churches as well as trash pickup for a community that the city decided was too far away to send a trash truck.

 

Getting back to God's "not yet"… Along with the normal duties of the interns I started helping out with maintenance type projects around the base. As I began to take on these projects it became evident to me that because of all that goes on, SI could really use a full-time maintenance person. Little did I know that the directors were actually in the process of searching for a person to do just that. As a result of my starting to help out around the base the director approached me and asked me if I would be interested in working full-time down in the DR as the facilities manager. As we talked about the expectations of the position it became more and more evident that this is exactly what I would love doing. I was ready to move down at that point. That's not quite where God was though. Through much prayer and listening to God, I felt God's guidance in a very clear way. God said, "This position will still be here in 2 years." This was a very hard decision for me to make but through God's grace I was able to have peace about putting off the desire for full-time a few years. The door was not shut completely though. In talking with the director we decided that someone was still needed to focus just on maintenance for at least the summer. With joy I agreed to go back this summer as an administrative intern. My main focus will be doing maintenance on the base but I will also be there to help with whatever the director needs. I am not not sure yet on dates nor do I have more details of what I will be doing. I look forward to sharing with you more specific information in a follow up letter within a few weeks.

 

Thank you all so much for all the support, both in prayer and financially, you have given me over the years. It means so much to me to know that I am surrounded by with people that believe in me and want to see God's kingdom expanded. I am blessed to be able to serve Christ around the world.

In Christ,

Jeff Mills

God is Good

Here I am Lord! Send Me...

2 Cor 5:14a....

"El amor de Cristo nos obliga"

"For Christ's love compels us"

So tonight was staff bible study and we talked about what motivates us. 2 Corinthians 5:14 what definitely a verse that stuck out to me. Christ's love has to be what compels me. Please pray that my motives stay focused on Christ. 

The new teams arrived on Monday and went through their orientations yesterday so therefore today was the first full day at the sites. Today also happened to be the hottest day yet that I have experienced. I have 5 students (1 from Bakersfield, CA and 4 from Canton, Ohio) working at the construction site. The plan for this outreach is to continue to work on the house that is sponsored by the church as well as start construction on the basketball court at the Base. Today I worked with the Dominican crew laying block while the students and Jose went and picked up 2 loads of dirt from the Church. The dirt was brought to the house so we could level out the floors of the house before we pour the concrete. Getting the dirt took the first half the day. Near the end of lunch one of the guys started complaining of dizzyness as well as numbness in one of his legs. Long story short he ended up getting worse and worse to where we decided to send him to the clinic. It ended up being that his blood sugar had shot up (over 350). He was about to go into a coma when he got to the clinic so at that point they rushed him off to the hospital and he was admitted into the ICU. Thankfully he is stable now, they are keeping him overnight and hopefully by mid-day tomorrow he will be back at the base. He most likely has diabetes. Please keep him in prayer. He name is Justin. 

Over the weekend I decided that I needed to make more of an effort to learn spanish. I had looked into getting Rosetta Stone Language Software (the best computer software for self-teaching a language) awhile ago and I decided to revisit that idea. Since my sister Janine wanted to learn spanish as well so she can teach her son Wesley I decided it was worth the investment to buy the program and have it shipped to me down here. I am totally excited to get started and I think it will make a huge difference to start the program while I am down here. Please pray that I stay motivated to learn. 

Well it is getting late here and tomorrow will be another long day...

Thanks for your prayers....

~Jeff 

Gloria a Dios

Back to work...

Well I woke up this morning with enough energy to go back to work. Praise God! All that is really affecting me now is the medicine when I take it because of how strong it is. I finish the meds on Saturday though so its not too bad. Be in prayer about health down here. There is some kind of virus or flu going around. There are a lot of people getting sick. Thankfully though they didn't have amoebas like me though. Those are much worse. 

Today at construction we poured a floor for one of the local churches that some of the missionaries go to. The area we poured is for the pastors office and the church office. It always awesome to be able to help out the local churches. 

Tonight we have community outreaches. This summer we have 3 different outreaches that we do. We split the teams up into 3 groups and rotate through 3 different cities. The 3 outreaches are a Volleyball outreach, a kids club and a Prayerwalk. I will be going on the Prayerwalk tonight. The idea with the prayerwalk is that we go and prayer over a city before the other 2 outreaches make it to that city. 

Please be in prayer about the outreaches. Also be praying for the students as they only have 2 more days at their sites before they head back to the States. 

Thats all for now...

First week plus an amoeba...

So I am now just over half through my first outreach. The first week went great. Tuesday was full of orientations for the students and then wednesday, thursday and friday we were at our sites. The construction site is a very flexible one though. Wednesday we were collecting very large rocks all to help support one of the roads that gets washed out when it rains. Thursday I was the site leader because Jose had to be in town all day long. We were gardeners that day. We mowed the lawns at 2 of the other ministry sites. Friday we were hauling away broken up concrete from one of the local churches as well as a load of trash for them. Saturday was the excursion day. We took all 52 students to one of the water falls in the area that has a pretty nice beach area. That was fun. I am thinking this is where I got the amoeba. I most likely accidentally swallowed some river water. Saturday evening we took the students into town for shopping and dinner. Sunday was church in the morning and then we took the students up on a hilltop to pray over the city. Monday morning is when I got sick. I was in bed all day. Not fun at all. Then today Tuesday I am starting to feel better but still pretty weak. I am on some pretty strong meds to kill off the amoeba. Hopefully I will be able to go back to work tomorrow. 

Well thats all for now. 

First Day...

Okay so I am now starting my 10 week internship with Students International in the Dominican Republic. Today was just a day of orientation and a lot of free time. There were already 4 interns here when I got here and they have been here for 4 weeks already so there isn't much work to do yet. The current outreach leaves tomorrow so therefore we have time off until monday night when the new group arrives. 

During worship/bible study this morning I felt a piece upon me. Everything just felt right. This is exactly where I am supposed to be right now. I can't wait for next week to get started. 

Prayer Requests: Please be in prayer about the construction site. We currently have no projects and no money. Please be praying that some projects come up as well as the money to fund those projects. The cost of materials has gone up a lot down here so it is getting more difficult to help people build their houses. Also be in prayer about a special project I might be taking on. The main program of The Construction Site is Casas del Futuro (Houses of the Future). Its a program that we have that we present to people to help them build their house. In a sense we give them a loan as well as the labor to build the house and then they pay us back on a monthly bases. Their payment is determined on how much that can pay each month. What Students International wants to do is have the program written out on paper so it can be turned into a grant proposal. They want to apply for Low-income housing grants. This would allow SI to do a lot more for the people. What I might be doing is writing the program out for them. We will see though. 

Well thats all for now. I plan to update this as much as possible so please check back often.