Struggling Against a Culture

Neither Ryan and I are fans of "downer" blog posts. We usually like to write about the successes of our ministries. However, the reality is that not everything we do is a success. As you all know, my co-worker and I have been working on encouraging the couples in El Callejon to legalize their marriages. The past several weeks have been focused on just this...helping them through the legal process and planning for a celebration ceremony. This has not been easy. The intention was to marry off 3 couples. There have been complications with each of the couples, but I'll share with you the details of one...

Censio and Tona have lived together 18 years and have 4 children together. In order to get married in this country you need 3 things: an identification card (cedula), a birth certificate, and your children's birth certificates. Both Censio and Tona had their cedulas....check. They also have all of their children's birth certificates...check. However neither of them had their birth certificates. Tona's problem was relatively easy to solve. Her birth certificate was expired (didn't know that could happen!), so we had to go to Santiago (about 1 hour away), fill out some paperwork, and done. But Censio has been much more of an issue. He did not have any form of his birth certificate, and on his cedula there were only zeros in the area where it usually tells you his identification number. So we were told that we must go down to La Vega, where he was born, (1/2 hour away) to get his birth certificate. We went once, with no success. They told us that we had to go to the hospital where he was born. At this point it was already late so we went back to Jarabacoa. The next day, we decided we had done enough traveling, so we gave Censio the money and information and told him to take care of it. Later that day he told us that he had given everything to a friend and told him to get the birth certificate for him. However, we found out that this was a lie and that he had used the money to pay a bill he had. So we realized we needed to take care of the problem ourselves. We went to La Vega to the hospital he was supposedly born, they sent us to another government building, then another, then another. At the last building they told us that we needed to go to the capitol (2.5 hours away). At this point we were ready to give up, but my co-worker, Daisy, has family in the capitol that could help her out so she decided to give it one last shot. Failure. It turns out that Censio's cedula number is just completely wrong. My best guess is that he got it during elections at some point and they just gave him a random number so that he could vote.

By this point we were exhausted, frustrated, and ready to give up. It seemed as though we were trying to do the right thing...get this couple married, but everything was going wrong. We went to our site director, Nate, for some advice. He shared with us that Satan has had a grasp on the community of El Callejon for years and years....especially in the area of marriages, and that he is not going to give it up without a fight. That is why we were being attacked by the government, the lawyer, and the couples themselves. Satan wants us to be exhausted and give up. But then he would win. We must be wise on how we spend our energy and time, but if we continue with the legalization of these marriages....we are going to see a great change in the community. We already have! We have seen and heard about (from people in the community) how the men that got married last year have changed. They no longer drink too much, or sleep around, and they even sometimes help with the dishes!

We don't know what the next step should be with Censio and Tona. A fellow staff member said we should get a lawyer involved (i.e. lots of extra expenses). It's just shocking to me how so many people in this country live this way, without any valid paperwork on themselves. How do we handle a problem like this??

Please pray for wisdom in what to do. It seems as though we have had many failures in this part of our work, but the reality is, we are fighting against something that has been engrained in this culture for who knows how many years. Therefore, the fact that 4 couples have been married (and many more are interested) since we started this project is a huge step forward! I'll leave you with Ephesians 6:12 that has been an encouragement to me...

"For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms."