In September, eighty people, leaders of Nazarene Compassionate Ministries (NCM) from Panama, Cuba, Puerto Rico, Costa Rica, and the Dominican Republic, gathered in the Dominican Republic for a ministerial update training: Jesus in my Community.
“I had never seen compassion in the way I saw it during these three days. God spoke to my heart in a very direct and clear way… somehow my mind was totally changed,” said Wellington Muñoz, one of the attendees.
The training, said Paquita Bidó Balbuena, coordinator of NCM Mesoamerica Central Field, was carried out with the support of the NYI, NMI, NDI, and NCM ministries. Its objective was to train leaders so they could prepare local churches to develop a ministry able to cause transformation in the lives of individuals and families in their communities.
The conferences were given by Dhariana Balbuena, Esteban Rivera, and Yaima Diaz. Topics included migration, disaster response, and human trafficking, among others.
Wellington Muñoz, one of the participants from the Dominican Republic, works in patient care in a hospital where over 800 people seek medical attention daily.
Wellington said that during the morning he had assisted a foreign woman with an approximately one month old newborn. After his lunch he ran into the woman again, she asked if he knew where she could be given some food, and he told her to ask at a nearby cafeteria. As she went to the cafeteria he watched to see what happened. “At that moment I asked myself, ‘Am I feeling sorry for this woman or is it compassion? What would Jesus do?’” Then he saw the woman refused service at the cafeteria, so he shouted, “Give her a meal and charge it to my account!” At that moment, Wellington said, he didn’t have any money, but he did have a way to get food, and that is what he did. “Somehow I remembered what I had heard at the Jesus in my Community training and I thought, “Jesus at my job!”.
Each participant received the book “Compassion From the Beginning”, written by Dhariana Balbuena. “We are thankful for all your support and for this tool that transforms everyone’s knowledge,” said Paquita Bidó. She also thanked the whole team that made the training possible.
“It was a great blessing as the topics discussed are current problems hitting our most vulnerable communities,” said Alicia Richards, NCM Coordinator, Western Panama.
“I thank God for the time we had at the conference… we were able to share testimonies of what our denomination is doing in many communities,” said Paola Morales of Panama. “Also for all the tools and strategies that were given to us so we can be a compassionate church that sees people with the same eyes as Jesus sees them.”
Source: Paquita Bidó Balbuena, Mesoamerica Central Field NCM coordinator
