Digital Discipleship in the North Caribbean Conference

30/07/2021

“One of the defining experiences in my life was being a chaplain at a hospital for a summer right after graduating from theology school. A pretty big portion of undergrad theology is getting all the big ideas down and having the ‘correct’ understanding of the Bible and truth, so that when you meet people who think differently you can move them in a different direction.⁣
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I had this moment where I was sitting and talking to this guy one night at the hospital. He was scheduled for open heart surgery the next day and he mentioned something about Adventism, and something he said was totally off. My personal reaction was to go, ‘Oh, this is an opportunity to correct his understanding of Adventism.’ But thankfully the Holy Spirit had a moment with me like, ‘Okay, hold on. Is this guy concerned about Adventism right now or is he concerned that tomorrow he’s going to have his chest cut open and his heart is going to be operated on?’ ⁣
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The thing that I thought was important wasn’t that important at that moment. That experience was definitely the beginning of changing the way I viewed spiritual and religious interactions, especially with people who think differently than me. Really one of the tenets of chaplaincy is to not go in there with your own agenda, but to go in listening and asking for the other person’s agenda. What was really important to me was going into a room with the question, ‘How are you doing today?’ You might imagine at a hospital it would sound all the same, but it didn’t. From one room to the next there’s a span of people who are super happy and people who are super depressed. For me it was a really beautiful time to develop that kind of listening. That was a key moment and experience that’s developed and transformed me over the years.⁣
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Religion for me changed from a kind of certainty and feeling like I knew everything to more of a trust and relationship. I think it’s also an ongoing experience of trying to see things from other people’s perspectives. With one hand I hold on to the most basic and vital truth that I understand and that gives me the freedom to explore the others without losing my mind.”⁣
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21/07/2021

“I feel like appealing to young people has very little to do with having an engaging service, and more to do with trusting younger people and giving them responsibility. When I was in high school, and looking for a sort of identity, I was looking for that. I enjoyed being trusted by those around me.

I used to stay after school for hours doing various extra-curriculars. Sometimes I would sit in my chaplain’s office with a bunch of other students and ask questions about life, God, and the church. I enjoyed not being spoon-fed. I wasn’t looking for answers, but rather people to search with me. I didn’t want a concrete answer to many of my questions, but just to have my questions validated.

I remember once, unprompted, our chaplain asked us, ‘Did you know that Jesus lied in the Bible?’ And it’s not that he was trying to make us think critically about the Bible - he was helping us to think about religion in a different way. He showed us in the book of John where Jesus talks to someone and he says ‘Go ahead to the party, I won’t go.’ But then he disguises himself and goes. He asked us things like ‘What does it mean to lie?’ For me, it was a point where I wanted to figure out what morality meant. These are the moments that really helped me to fall in love with ministry.”

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This story is thanks to Humans of Adventism’s first ever summer intern, Josh Peinado. Thanks, Josh!

21/07/2021

“I’m studying theology at Walla Walla. As a person of color and as a woman, we’re not preferred - that’s just the reality of this field.

I really started being involved with ministry in high school. You and these other students would plan chapel services, community events, and other spiritual events throughout the year.

I was in a space where my race and my gender were always celebrated. As long as I had a willing heart, I could do just about anything in this space. It was in my ministry group that for the first time in my life, I was taken seriously. I was taught that I have something to give.

There were adults that really poured into me, and showed me that I was valuable. They allowed me to mess up and move on to the next thing. A lot of this is why I chose ministry. I think that there is something special in having a group of 14-18 years olds to create services because you’re allowing these kids to experience God in a non-restrictive way.”

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16/07/2021

09/07/2021

“I loved being married more than anything else in my life. And I loved being married to my wife. She was my best friend and it was the best. I found myself in a place on a pretty ‘typical’ young Adventist person path. I had gone to Adventist schools nearly my whole life. My wife and I met at an Adventist academy, we worked summer camp together—summer love at summer camp. We went to an Adventist college together and the year following graduation we got married, as did seven people out of our friend group. Everyone was getting married. I guess I expected that normal, traditional path for my life. Being a pastor we had moved around a lot - the Seattle area, then California for a while, and things were going so well.

When divorce happened it derailed that path. It ended up derailing more than I realized. I remember we’d look out at the next ten to fifteen years and we were so excited. You dream together and vision together. Talking about kids and family and a future. I remember sitting in a hot dog shop and musing with her that it had been a long road and we had been through some hard times as a couple and a lot of difficult things together. And we were like, ‘Wow this is so good. How did we stumble across an almost perfect marriage?’ That was our perception at the time.

I felt like I’d reached this place of contentment and competency. I was a pastor at a university church, which was a huge blessing with a great community. I realize now after lots of therapy that my marriage became a core part of my identity. Internally, I felt like I was somebody because I had such a great marriage. It became such a foundational pillar for me because I felt a lot through my younger life that I wasn’t good at a lot of things. Finally in marriage I’d found something I was really good at.

It felt like all I had ever really wanted was family and friends and relationship and connection. I think anyone who knows me really well would agree with that, I’m a super relationship oriented person. So in my marriage I found that kind of foundation. Like, if I could accomplish nothing else in life I would be happy for the rest of my days just to love my wife, everyday, forever.”

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06/07/2021

“If I had known there was going to be a pandemic, I would have gone abroad. I would have travelled. This is stuff you’re supposed to do when you’re young. I could’ve taken my time, met more people, done more things. But I had dreams and goals that I was so dead-set on achieving that I didn’t take time. I thought that if I started working as soon as I could at a young age, I could be more successful.

I remember at the beginning of college sitting down with my advisor and saying ‘Look, I want to be out of here in four years. I’m not going to go abroad and do a missionary fifth year, I need to get out of here as fast as I can.’

I knew from the beginning that it was going to be hard going into the film industry, but I also knew that I would make it. I had been working all of my four years to ensure that I could find work after college. I was meeting with people, calling people, literally emailing random people I had found on the internet saying ‘Hey, this is who I am. I would love to pick your brain and network.’ A lot of no’s, and no responses. But every yes was a great opportunity. Once, I got to hang out at the NBC ‘Superstore’ lot because I knew a person who knew a person on set and they invited me for the day. Through that, she said after college to send a resume and we’d see if we could set something up. Another lead was going to Buzzfeed for the day, which was because I emailed somebody who knew somebody. Another person there also offered me opportunities for work after college.

All of these connections led me to not being worried about my future after college, because I had been working so hard to ensure that I would have opportunities and contacts to get work. But then a pandemic hit.”

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This story is one of many upcoming stories put together from interviews conducted by our 2021 summer intern, Josh Peinado. Thanks, Josh!

02/07/2021

“I was beginning to recognise a pattern. In two other ADRA positions I had started, I experienced a natural disaster about five months into my contract. When the rain started to come down in a prolonged intensity that I had not experienced in the four months and ten days of rainy season that I’d been in Timor-Leste - I suspected that the pattern would be repeated.

The power went off in the early hours of Easter Sunday morning. I knew that life was about to get busy for our small ADRA office. Daylight confirmed this as I watched the river of murky knee-deep water flowing past my compound - where just the evening before there was a road.

Other parts of Dili fared worse, with landslides killing several people and contaminated water washing through people's houses - leaving knee-deep mud. Disaster requires coordination with other government and non-government agencies, so the next three weeks were a blur of increased relationships via email, Zoom, Microsoft Teams, in-person, phone, and Whatsapp. So many communication tools clamoring for attention - so many relationships to be fostered, renewed or begun.

As country director, my job is less about frontline distribution and more about coordinating staff and navigating meetings, writing proposals for funding and, in the process, ensuring that ADRA serves the most vulnerable. Keeping those in need close to my heart is important to me to provide motivation for working in the chaos.”

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This week’s stories are dedicated to stories of ADRA staff. The Adventist Development and Relief Agency (ADRA) is the global humanitarian arm of the Seventh-day Adventist Church. Touching millions of lives and over 118 countries around the world, ADRA is currently working to assist in COVID-19 relief in India. If you would like to learn more, follow ADRA International on social media, or at ADRA.org.

01/07/2021

“When the news of a new pandemic reached us early in 2020, it struck me how far away from home we were. We had been living in Nepal for around eight months and were just starting to find our feet, both at work and navigating life in such a foreign place. We didn't know how bad things would get.

I read the reports coming out of Italy and New York with trepidation. Nepal’s health system was already so fragile---how would it cope? How would the people respond? Would there be chaos, riots, food chain disruption? With only two cases reported, the Nepali government placed the country in a strict lockdown and completely closed the international airport. If I felt far away before that, I felt trapped after it - stuck indefinitely.

Many countries were evacuating their citizens on state organised charter flights. Australia organised several charter flights for their citizens and allocated one for New Zealanders to use to get home. I watched that plane fly away from my rooftop and thought to myself ‘could we be the last four Kiwis left here?’

My husband and I had prayed for guidance throughout this time. Would we leave if we could? Would we bring our children to safety? As someone who usually takes the safest option, I really wanted to leave - but the answer I kept getting was to stay. There were five months of ‘hard’ lockdown where we were only allowed to leave our house to buy food between 6am and 9am. The airport was closed for the entirety of that time. After that was a period of eased restrictions until a complete opening in January 2021.

Our family had to learn to be together 24/7 for months on end. In spite of the fears and trials of that period, God blessed us immensely in that time. It tightened our family bond. We made deep connections with our immediate neighbours and felt the - though mostly virtual - support of a wonderful community that also stayed and prayed with us through a year of lockdown.”

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This week’s stories are dedicated to ADRA staff. The Adventist Development and Relief Agency (ADRA) is the global humanitarian arm of the Seventh-day Adventist Church. Touching millions of lives and over 118 countries around the world, ADRA is currently working to assist in COVID-19 relief in India. If you would like to learn more, follow ADRA International on social media, or at ADRA.org.

28/06/2021

“Whenever there is a disaster that ADRA decides to respond to, I am one of the first to be deployed to the field. I have been serving at ADRA since August 2007, and I am currently a member of their emergency response team in Indonesia. Rapid needs assessment is urgently needed during the first 24 hours of a disaster so that we can assist survivors according to their needs.

Disaster preparedness is very important. You can’t eliminate the threat of some disasters, but with preparedness, we can mitigate and reduce their impacts. By building self, family, and community preparedness, we will save more lives.

Indonesia is one of the countries with the greatest disaster intensity in the world. Various types of disasters such as earthquakes, tsunamis, landslides, and flash floods can all occur within the span of a single year. I saw with my own eyes the enormity of the earthquake and tsunami that occurred. It destroyed and shattered everything. Meeting those who had lost their relatives in tents or in the refugee barracks really impacted me personally.

I remember one day I was interviewing with one of the disaster survivors. Our attention was briefly caught by a small child, about four years old, who was happily playing and running around. An older woman came out of a tent and took the boy back into the tent with her. I didn't ask who they were, but the man I was interviewing then explained that the little boy had lost his father, his pregnant mother, and his five uncles. All that was left of his family were him, his aunt, and his grandmother. I learned the value of building good relationships with our fellow family members at every opportunity that day - we don't know when we will lose them.

On one occasion, I interviewed a woman whose task was to record the incoming aid that was being distributed in the community. After a few questions, I asked her how she was feeling at the time. She just looked at me blankly with a smile and said, ‘I can't cry anymore. My tears are dry and gone. All I can do right now is help other people to survive through this crisis.’ Hearing her answer silenced me. I began to shed tears. I admired her. Even though she was in a slump she was still willing to serve those in need.

These experiences changed my perspective. They taught me that human life is fragile and temporary. God wants us to be a channel of blessing to those who are in need. We can help in any way we can to lighten their load. No matter how small the help we provide, it will have a positive impact on them.”

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The Adventist Development and Relief Agency (ADRA) is the global humanitarian arm of the Seventh-day Adventist Church. Touching millions of lives and over 118 countries around the world, ADRA is currently working to assist in COVID-19 relief in India. If you would like to learn more, follow ADRA International on social media, or at ADRA.org.

18/06/2021

“Later, I started a church for homeless people in downtown Oakland. I didn’t want to raise any unnecessary red flags with the conference - I was a strange entity and new to the area - so I started it under a church in downtown Oakland. I told them, ‘You don’t need to have any kind of involvement. I'll do all the work!’ but they were happy to help however they could. They were so impressed because we would help get people off the streets and reconnect them with their families. To be honest we weren’t doing much - just providing a safe space for people to come and worship and be themselves.

The church was so impressed with this work they hired me as their associate pastor and that’s how I started pastoring. The NAD even did a documentary series on the homeless ministry we were doing in Oakland. It’s called Stained Glass - they showed it at the 2010 General Conference session.

Something I learned from the homeless ministry is that a lot of what we do as Adventists is very insulting and belittling. We go into people’s communities and we tell them what they need. You can’t find a better way to insult people about their own intelligence.

The reason we got started there was that I was out on the streets giving out sandwiches and there were already 50 other places giving out food better than ours. So I started playing dominoes with them. I couldn’t see, so I started joking with them and saying, ‘Look guys, I'm blind. If you let me whoop you in dominos you should just quit playing the game!’ And they would be like ‘Really? Bring it on dude!’ They beat the bricks out of me but then I’d use the blind card and go, ‘How could you take advantage of the blind?’ So I won either way but they’d fall out laughing and we bonded over that. Just being fellow human beings. I started talking to them and I said, ‘Look we’re out here trying to give out sandwiches but you don’t need sandwiches. What is it that you need?’ They were the ones who said ‘We need a safe place to come and talk about God. Sometimes we’re kicked out of churches and or not welcome, and people look at us funny.’ That’s where the idea was born. A lot of it was their concept - I just facilitated it.”

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Pastor Dexter Thomas is the author of a new devotional book entitled, “Discovering Hope in 66 Places,” which can be ordered through his website at www.innovativeoutreach.com. His work in Oakland was featured in the NAD’s “Stained Glass: Grand Avenue” video series, and can be viewed at www.nadministerial.com/stained-glass-videos.

04/06/2021

“A week after my 28th birthday and the two year mark since becoming a full time, I had a talk with somebody regarding my calling. I was being questioned on whether I shined in ministry. That conversation brought out anger, depression, and confusion. I thought my pastoral ministry journey would come to an end. I questioned if I was capable of being a pastor.

I felt that being a young, Black, single woman pastor was a liability. I struggled with not fully showing up as Darnisha. Months before, I was extended an invitation to preaching in the bay island of Honduras - Roatan - with a group of pastors from my previous conference. I was considering dropping out from the group because I was thinking about the pending future. I felt inadequate, but I was able to muster up some strength and went ahead with the preparing for the trip.

Before I landed in Roatan, my assigned church changed three times. At the first church the pastor didn’t prefer a woman pastor preaching on his pulpit. The second church was given to another person because of an emergency, which led me to the church I was assigned to in Punta Gorda - but I would need a translator. Despite all the changes, I was determined to make the best out of my experience in Roatan.

While I was in my hotel room there, I wrote in my journal asking God to give me the zeal to preach His word again just as He done in the past and restore my confidence. There were times when I wasn’t sure how to communicate my sermons each night, but I took that time to remind myself that I was capable to preach, I was called to preach, and that I didn’t get my MDiv out from a cereal box or because I was pretty and nice.

The moment I stepped foot in my assigned church, I felt loved by the members. I wasn’t going there to baptize people but to build relationships. To learn their best practices in relation to ministry and community, and help others realize that there is a God who loves us and wants us to know Him. They were my family. I had two great translators that helped translate my message. Best of all, the majority of the members looked like me - melanin and all.”

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📸: Whole Heart Images

09/03/2021

“I started a devotional thoughts series a while ago. I started posting videos every week talking about things that made me uncomfortable and how I’ve grown from one area to the next. People really resonated with that. I was surprised, I’d been thinking, ‘I’m going to share these and no one’s going to like them or comment on them.’ But people started stopping me in person and saying, ‘Yo, I watch your stuff all the time!’ They don’t comment or like them or anything sometimes, so I didn’t know, but I’ve had people say, ‘Man you’re sharing stuff that’s so real. Keep doing what you do!’ I would have never known unless they told me.

By 2020 I’d gotten really comfortable doing these videos, and I decided to change the theme of them to ‘misconceptions.’ Things were going fine, but then my dad went into the hospital. He went in for a headache, and they wouldn’t let him out of the hospital. The pandemic had started just a few weeks prior, so he couldn’t leave. Then they tested him for COVID. He just got worse and worse. They put him in an induced coma, and he never got out. My dad died on May 1st.

I kept doing my devotional videos after that. I didn’t miss a week. But by June I was in a bad place. After my dad died my mom started renovating our entire house to cope. She picked my room first. So I didn’t have a room, I was sleeping on the couch, there was no hot water for a couple of weeks. She got rid of the fridge because she was buying a new one, so there was no food in the house. I was ordering a bunch of junk food from Uber Eats. I was just frustrated.

The last Saturday in June, a friend of mine took me on a camping trip up in the Appalachian Mountains. His dad had died while we were both at Andrews. We bonded over that. When he brought me back home, I said ‘For the next six months I’m going to be super consistent. I’m tired of beating myself up. I’m tired of moping.’ So that’s what I did.”

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