Come Closer

By Rachel Sawyer

Some of you already have.  You have carried kids on your hips and on your backs.  You’re hair has been braided, perhaps, or the hat on your head grabbed in a game of cat and mouse.  You’ve played Pato Pato Ganzo and laughed when two laps were run instead of one!  You’ve shot baskets on basketball courts in the blazing sun (or maybe just sat and visited in that little strip of shade at Pancho Mateo). You’ve played soccer with guys in bare feet and kids running every which way in Chichigua.  You’ve colored and you’ve painted nails and you’ve offered your hand to hold - or maybe even your hand was especially chosen by a wide eyed child in search of adoration.  You have been adored and you’ve adored.  You’ve shared bible stories, songs, and the love of Christ.  

You’ve maybe gulped down tears - not pity tears - but tears about your own brokenness, and the Lord has turned your heart upside down on it’s head.  You’ve maybe reconsidered your initial definition of blessing.  Its taken on a multidimensional meaning that have less to do with stuff and more to do about such things that this life is actually made of - truly.  You’ve thoughtfully questioned what your response should be to your one week in the D.R. How will you remember the hands you held here in your daily life in the U.S.?  A question only you can answer. 

But, on the chance that you are reading this, and you haven’t been here in the D.R. (maybe your contemplating a trip, are on your way soon or you just stumbled across this website somehow), we invite you to come closer. Come closer because when you do your life will be altered in the most beautiful of ways, and so will someone elses.  Come closer and you will see the good and the bad and the broken and the beautiful (that’s all of us, right?).  Come closer where hope and creativity and resourcefulness mix with broken systems, broken people and broken servants, all rallying for the life changing grace of redemption and relationship and restoration.  

At Makarios, we know that we know that we know that the only ONE that can redeem and restore is Jesus Christ, and it is in relationship with Him that our lives are transformed and because of Him that we have any chance of offering hope to others even when we really can’t see how He is going to work in a situation.

So what does it look like when not worlds, but people, collide on the ground here?  It looks like relationship - not in a fix the broken sense, but in the  broken walking alongside the broken way.  It’s about learning about another culture, listening and caring and loving. 

Come closer because these relationships represent hope, and hope does not disappoint.  Sometimes coming closer is a call to action, it could be a call to prayer, a call to sponsor, a call to partner, a call to share in the broken beautiful, which has the power to transcend the constraints of the time spent in one week.  

Come closer because we can’t do this alone.  We. Need. You. AND the power of relationships rooted in Christ Jesus. Come Closer.

Whether you have been here in the D.R. serving alongside us or not, it is with a deep sense of hope and excitement that we invite you to come closer in a tangible way.  Please click here to see the faces of the children currently in need of sponsors and join us by entering into a beautiful relationship!