Encouragement from Chris

Hey everyone - I got a little behind in Chris DaVignon's monthly updates, and just read his March newsletter a couple minutes ago. I am posting it on here for you guys to read. What an encouragment and incredible testimony!!! If you have a chance, call or drop Chris a line sometime... he is still pressing on in San Jose, Costa Rica and would love to hear from all of us!


Reflections from my heart
Dear Sisters and Brothers
I am not a pastor , I am not a youth pastor , I don’t have a lot of bible training and I don’t know a lot about the world I live in and three years ago what I know about the world was limited as I had never left the borders of the United States. At the age of 18 I did not have a good relationship with my parents and well not many 18 year olds do so maybe my family was normal but, on the other hand my family fit into the normal American family my parents never got along and they separated when I was young and then a few years later made it final. Now at age 23 I look back on the past and in spite of all the crap of which some of it I was the cause can say that they did an ok job with me and I am thankful for that. My mother although she was not a big part of my life taught me one thing and that was how I did not want to live and how I did not want to bring up children. However, my father who I love dearly was my saver and he saved me from the abuse of my mother most of which was emotional. I am thankful that he was able to
see through her problems and save me from them in light of his own issues he was the dad that I think most kids dream of. Over the years the history of my family I have tried to forget and I have also tried to forgive my mother for all the things she did to me but, I just can’t seem to do that until this past summer.

As many of you know I worked in Mexico this summer on a church planting team and had the
opportunity to meet some awesome people and shear the love of Christ with a number of people through community development. One day droning the summer all the staff and all the interns where given the day of a day to rest and spend time with God droning that time I found pace with many of the issues from my past that had been on my heart and it was a good time of giving stuff to him. It may seem strange to some but, I am no stranger in the area of family issues as I have been through a number of them. It away it’s funny because when I asked God into my life back in 2000 at a Christ youth conference I thought life would get better because Jesus would fix it. It did not take long to find out not much changed but, something was different I just was to young in my faith to understand the complexity of what was to flow
over the next few years and for a number of years the dynamics of my family changed a number of times and many of the changes where healthy but, no one could have imaged that within a few short years life would hit me and my farther fast and we would find ourselves back in the old days when it was just me and him. However, this time was a little different with me looking at universities. Without God I don’t know where I would be today and without the love and support of my wonderful farther here on this awesome plaint which we call earth a lot of what happened would have never happened. I tell some people the stories of my past and they say that I would have fit into the group of at risk youth if that group was a groping when I was younger. There are times in our lives that our not always easy but over time we
learn what is right and what is wrong and somewhere along the line we learn what we can do about it.

Many people have taught me a number of things some good and some not so good but, overall we learn from doing as the most important things will never be found in a text book.
As members of a global community do we know what is going on around us?
In too many cases we can’t always see what is happing behind closed doors and what we see is
not always the truth. If we only see the world through the world that we know then what we can see is limited to only what we know and therefore we won’t be able to see anything that is outside what we know. As a child I had many people tell me that I would never go anywhere or become much of anything and that the disabilities that I had would prevent me from having a normal job and so on and so on…
As you can see I sucked at listing and I am thankful for reading tutors and other people who could see past what everyone around me was saying about me. I am not saying that everything has been easy as I have been down many bad roods but, over time I have learned to deal with what I have and I believe that God blessed me with a disability as I am able to understand a wonderful group of people who many will never get to know. Each of us has been given some kind of gift from God and this is what makes each of us a special member of the body. As each member has a job in the body and when a part of the body is broken it is the job of other member to help the hearting part.
“The work is plateful and the works are few”

In a country like the United States there is a church almost everywhere and people have access to God’s word and they also have access to learn about him and his wonderful gift of salvation. Over the past two year I have come to learn about the third world and lands where the name of Jesus is not know by many and if they know his name they don’t want anything to do with religion. At first I was confused way so many people did not want to hear anything about Jesus or God and over time I came to learn that people didn’t want anything to do with religion because in many case they had been hurt by the church or in some cases they where scared that there family would not be very happy with them if they said Christ was there Lord and Saver. After they learn about the love God has for them and his gift of salvation thy start to see that God has nothing to do with religion. There are a lot of good church’s out there but, I have
yet to find a church that sol focus is own living as a community and have Christ at the center.
We are not all called into full time ministry and we weren’t all created to sever our God and king
that way but, no matter what we do for a living we are in a small way severing our Lord and King.
If you’re a teacher your teaching the kids of today to be ready for tomorrow and if you’re a doctor yourdoing your part too and the list goes on and one. Ministry comes in many shapes and sizes and one size douse not fit all some of us work in our homeland and server in a verity of different ways and others go from there homeland and join up with locals to help them with their needs. I have meet a number of people who’s don’t understand missions and have little or no idea of what they need to do and as North Americans many of us have this “Fix it now” mentality which is as unhealthy as eating only fried food.
As missionaries we most ask a number of question before we try to help anyone and first off we most spend all of our time learning the history of the local people then as we are learning the history we must learn to speak the local language then over time as we get to know the local people and we gain an understand of who they are and what their needs are then and only then can we start to help them identify the needs of the area then ounces this has been accomplished then we can move into the next steps of working with the local people to utilize any local resources which might be able to help with the issues and needs that have been identify. At no time can we go into a community and tell the community what needs to changes and who they most changes as this method will not work and would you like someone coming from a unknown land coming into your community and telling you what you have been doing wrong for 100 plus years. I think not and over time as we work with the local people we teach them how
to teach others and as we are working with the locals on the needs of the community the opportunity to teach them about the Love of God and his gift of salvation will arise and then the teach moves to a new leave and in a short time the seeds we plaint well grow and then we move on and let locals teach locals.

I was online looking a few nights back looking for some information on the church and came
across a website for a church and my eye was drawn to this line “Youth Group membership at an all time low down 13.6 % from January 2007 but, Church membership up 20% this month as we have reach our goal of 2,000 plus.” This church has needs to take a good look at ask themselves where God is? Reading the line sounds like something I would see on the NY stock exchange website not on a website for a church. What happened to the church, what about the body of Christ? , what about living in community?
I am not trying to say that the church is a bad thing all I am saying is let us ask ourselves and see where God is and if he is not at the center then we need to check to see if we are rely working for him or have we become a part of the world that we are only visitors in?
This past week has been a time of rest and I am thankful for the time that I have been given to reflect on a number of things that over the past 8 months or so God has been teaching me. There are a number of question that need to be asked when it comes to ministry.
1. What are the needs of the local people according to the local people?
2. How can I/we help the local people come up with a plain to address their needs?
3. What recourse is available to that local community that can be used to address some or all
of the needs identified ?
4. How can we use this recourse?
5. What are two needs need to be address imminently?
6. What outside help is need to aid in addressing the needs of the community , what outside
aid do the local people think would be helpful
a. Job Training
b. Community development
c. Communication
7. What douse the community want to see happen over the next 6 months, 1 year , 2 years … ?
8. How is the community going to take ownership of their needs

It’s not easy being a member of the global community but, it is very important that we learn from each other to addresses each other’s needs. Some needs may seem obvious where other needs may be hidden from the view of the human eye. Needs such as conflict revaluation may not be as obvious as the need for access to clean water but, what every the needs of the community our it’s not our job to tell the community what their needs our it’s our job to help the local people see what their needs our and help them see what they can do to address their own needs. We are here to help each other , we are not send to another land to tell people what they our doing wrong for who are we to say what they’re doing in not wrong. It may not be how it is done in the states but, we have to remember that we are not in the states. I am reminded time and time again that God has been in a place for many years before I
even get there so it’s not my job to play God but, rather it’s my job to shear his love with the local people and he will do the rest.
As I move from place to place shearing the love of Jesus and his message of salvation with some of the youngest member of the kingdom and I add each place to where I am from as each place I live because a part of who I am, it douse not matter where I am or where I am going one thing will never change. I fit into the body of Christ and I fit among the member of the global church.
As I move from country to country I add it to where I am from as the people and their language becomes a part of who I am and my understand of the world changes as who I am changes. There are a lot of things I do not know and cannot answer but, I do know this I am a child of God and I am a member of a global community and I have a reasonability to work with my sisters and brothers in Christ to make the global community a better place.

How are you being part of the body of Christ as a member of a global community?
God’s already there before we arrive.
What have we let God do for us? What douse God want us to do? Where douse God want us to go?

Today I am studying Spanish in San Jose Costa Rica preparing to share the fathers love in the Spanish speaking world and to work with my Spanish speaking brothers and sisters make the world a better place. In the past year I have lived in Mexico and Costa Rica, I have also worked in a number of churches with inner-city youth and children as well as urban children and youth in Mexico. I have also been to three other countries on short term trips and have developed a view of the world that not many hold. I live in the third world and am a member of a global community. If you don’t agree with what I have to say I’m ok with that as what I am saying comes from my expenses from working on a global level. In addition I am struggling with a number of money issues and the money in my bank account keep going down and the bills don’t go away. I have been blessed up to this point and I have yet to be late on a payment so places pray that my money problems will not get out of hand. Also over the past few weeks I
have felt a need to stay in Central America maybe here in Costa Rica or to make a move to another part of the region. I have a number of ides I would like to try out and I would like to start experimenting with a few of them in La Carpio. My first idea which is not rely my idea but, comes from working in Mexico this past summer is a oven that uses the sun. They are cheap to make and they can save money as they use the sun and that’s free. For about 6-7 USD there also cheap to make. I have places to make them but, they have not gotten of the ground as of yet. Places pray for God to guide me as I work on trying to build on myself and convert the plans. Place pray that this solar over will become a ministry tool.

Blessings
Tu hermano
Chris