Day 7
A personal note from Alexander
Tuesday 1 July 2025. We are halfway through by now, and I am taking a moment to pause and look back on everything we have experienced so far. Before I left, I already felt a clear invitation from God to go. I longed to learn to listen better to His voice. That is something I do not always find easy. Sometimes I hear Him very clearly, as if He is standing beside me. But there are also moments when I am searching, when I do not recognise His voice straight away. And precisely in that searching I felt Him say: “Pay attention to Me. Tune in to Me. Do not be led by haste or uncertainty, but stay close to Me.” With that longing this trip began.
I already knew Stichting Dienstbaar through deliverance ministry. Marien and Marjan have become dear to me, and it seemed special to make this trip with them, and with Arne too. Not only to work together, but also to discover more of God in a culture and context that was completely new to me. Because to be honest: I have never been so far from home.
What I found in the Dominican Republic has touched me deeply so far. So much warmth, so much openness. I experienced God's love in places where I had not expected it: in small churches, among children, on the street. Sometimes there were moments of wonder, sometimes of amazement too. Such as at a church service full of flags, where we suddenly felt that we were one in His Spirit with a church we had only just got to know. Of course the trip also had its comic side. We had, for example, a car that turned out to be too small, so part of the luggage had to go on the roof. Tied down with ropes, we bumped over absurdly high speed bumps built specially to slow down scooter gangs. Every bump became an adventure. And when Pedro was also given a bag of bananas as a present, an enormous bag, that had to go on too. On the roof, of course. Until the police pulled us over on suspicion of smuggling bananas between provinces. But with a prayer, a good conversation and Pedro's help, it ended with a warning.
Yet it is above all the deeper moments that stay with me. Such as our visit to a children's home. Children lie there who are paralysed, with deformities, crooked backs and legs. They were brought there by their parents because they could no longer care for them. The sight of those children, strapped to their little beds, gripped me. And yet we could bring something: a hug, a prayer, a blessing. Simply 'being there' for a while. Marien has been coming here for twelve years; to him these children are not strangers.
I found it hard to leave again. You feel you would so love to do more, come back more often, pray, hold them. And yet I also know: even if we do not see healing, even if nothing seems to change at that moment, God's love is no less powerful. That love is what we get to bring. That is what remains.
What I am learning on this trip is that being available matters more than plans. You have to be flexible; nothing goes as expected. But if you let yourself be led by God, wonderful things happen. Sometimes big, sometimes small. But always real. I am grateful. For what I have seen. For whom I have met. And above all: for the love of God, which is stronger than illness, stronger than distance, stronger than my own uncertainty. And we are only halfway.
