Family and Origins

I was the sixth child of a family of seven and an only son.  My parents named me Dominic, after no one and for no apparent reason.  I was born and raised in a little community in south-central Wisconsin and my dad was a well-known high school biology teacher who taught multiple generations of students.  Thus my birth was probably significant news after so many girls had arrived before me.  In the 1970’s and in the eyes of the prevalent Irish-German town folk I’m sure the Alvarez clan resembled some weird interracial Hispanic Brady Bunch.  It’s funny how I never thought of myself as Hispanic until many years later when I was thrown into the company of men of many creeds and colors who together became soldiers. 

Ethnically, I consider myself a mutt (as many Americans should), since I carry the heritage banners of a Spanish-Philippine, Norwegian, Englishman, Irishman, and German.  This is an unlikely assortment of groups to be wrapped up in one man and I believe it has resulted in one of God’s stranger and at times more dysfunctional creations!  I was blessed by being raised by two loving parents who instilled strong values of respect and appreciation.  As Catholics, we attended church weekly where I spent most of my pew time day-dreaming about girls and worldly adventures.  I never knew God, let alone that He loved me and was deeply invested in me and an intimate relationship with Him.  Jesus Christ was a crucifix; a wooden sculpture of a man in a contorted expression of agony on some weird, eerily-suspended cross. 

Spiritual Awakening

Something happened the year I was to be confirmed and it had very little to do with my church. First of all, understand that the Catholic Church to me was largely just an exercise in religious traditions.  This is not to say that I did not meet men and women of strong Christian faith in the Catholic Church, but it is to say that it is not until now (or more recently) that I realized the quality of their fabric and trueness.  However, in my then (and still) crude understanding of Catholic traditions I would sum in this: Genuflect upon arrival…say this…say that…bow your heads…shake some hands, line-up for a weird wafer, exit building...amen.  Any message that was given was blurred over or all-together erased by my careful mental reckoning of which girls were where while simultaneously deliberating the velocities required to zip-line from the various columns holding up the cathedral ceiling.  Alas, I was lost.

I was about fifteen when a family vacation to Myrtle Beach meant I wouldn't be able to participate in the upcoming confirmation field trip.  Instead I attended an alternative event called TEC (Teens Encountering Christ).  During that event, it was the first time I looked at the cross in a different light.  In retrospect, I think it was the first time I saw the cross without Christ upon it.  It was the first time I saw the True Jesus Christ and it was the first time I wept in church for reasons other than reprimand or death of a loved one.  I experienced something that my traditional Catholic upbringing did not help me explain.  Was I saved?  Honestly...I don't know.  Moreover, the next eighteen years of my life certainly wouldn’t seem to lend to that assertion.  Perhaps, more than anything it might have paved the way to later understanding that I did need saving.

Faces of the Enemy

Ironically I began some heavy and frequent binge drinking at about age fifteen.  I'd quit for sport seasons or would get caught and would stop for a while, but an evident family history coupled with a young start had me treading down a dangerous path.

Three days after high school I left for the Army where I served three years as an Airborne Infantryman in the 82nd Airborne Division.  Drinking was a way of life there, especially since I was part of the All American Division (AA for short– also known as the most-fit group of Alcoholics Anonymous on the planet).  I was well on my way…or as was the paratrooper’s tenet, “All the way!”

After the Army I served in the National Guard for four years while attending school at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.  It's a party school and I excelled (at the partying).  During my military and college years I began having vivid dreams in which I would seemingly be awake and in bed and I would get into intense physical wrestling matches with something that I can only describe as a wraith-like demon.  It was a shadowy, yet humanoid-like thing that was both form and formless and had incredible strength.  The hideous sound of labored breath sounded as if its mouthful of wicked teeth and too much saliva were impeding each breath.  It would launch upon and suppress and crush me in an attempt to steal the breath from my lungs.  As soon as I resisted– by mustering all my strength to throw it off, it would leap back onto me, pressing me down once again.  The only way I could end these nightmare bouts was to call upon the name of Jesus Christ.

I wasn't going to church at this time, save for when I visited my parents.  After college I moved to Arkansas where I worked for a private non-profit field science education organization.  I became a staunch evolutionist who worked with some brilliant scientists and educators– many of whom were atheists and/or had resigned to the shadows of worldly intellect.  My drinking increased and my nightmares continued.

After five years in Arkansas I hit what seemed like rock bottom.  Funny how it seems “the bottom” just gets deeper each time you tussle with it.  On the heels of brokenness and in the pits of drinking-too-much I wrote a suicide letter and set out into the Arkansas hills on a cold and icy January night. 

By the grace of God that night didn’t find my end.  During the subsequent ‘sabbatical’ from work I visited Ridgway, Colorado to visit my sister and her family.  While at her church I felt a barely familiar feeling and wept uncontrollably.  The same words kept coming to my mind as tears streamed down my face that Sunday:

"Remember the gift I've given you...this gift."

I wish I could say that I quit drinking that day.  My drinking became even more cyclic with periods in which I’d abstain from drinking altogether followed by a spectrum of increasing drinking until I'd correct myself and thus start the cycle anew.  Finally, after much encouragement from my sister and her husband, I moved to Ridgway.  I began going to church weekly and participating in Bible studies.  I began thirsting for God's word.  One night I awoke in bed, sitting upright in my sister’s guest room with my arms and hands reaching out in front of me towards the wall and a blinding and blazing cross.  Was it a dream?  Does it matter?  Despite these things going on in my life, my dangerous drinking cycles persisted.

A couple years passed until I had a couple close calls while drinking and driving.  On the Friday before Thanksgiving, after a heavy night of drinking I passed out at the wheel and slammed head-on into an embankment and totaled my car.  Fortunately, no one else was hurt and I walked away from the incident with minor injuries.  To this day the only physical scar remaining from that accident is a left thumb that doesn't bend quite right.

The next morning I was still in a lot of pain. During a state of fear and panic the previous night, I'd managed to cover up the evidence of my crash...save for the totaled vehicle parked in front of my rental studio and a horribly discolored and swollen thumb.  My brother-in-law came over (I had told him what had happened).  I was so ashamed of what I'd done...what I'd become.  I cried as an emotional levy somewhere between spirit, soul, and body gave way.  He shared the following verse with me and encouraged me to read it every day:

“Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.”

Colossians 3:12-14

Born Again

It’s been nearly four years and I haven't had a drop of alcohol since, nor have I had the wrestling-the-wraith dreams.  Were those simply dreams?  Does too much alcohol plus increasing dehydration equal demonic dreams?  Maybe they were just hallucinations? (These dreams always took place in the room where I was sleeping).  Perhaps these dreams were just an over-active imagination? (Something I’ve been indicted for in the past!)  Whatever you may think of these experiences, know that I believe that I was in a very real struggle with a demon of addiction.  When I finally began living for Christ this demon’s power over me was defeated.

Soldier of Christ

Since being in Honduras as a missionary I have experienced things that most "Christians" would dismiss or simply be baffled by.  I have seen a whirling mass of flies in the shape of a body try to attack me (or was it just the side-effects of chloroquine!).  I have been helped by an invisible hand out of bed so that I could kneel beside it and pray.  While back in the states I was struggling with the decision of whether I should return to Honduras.  During the emotional climax of this conflict and while in tears and praying, my cell phone rang with a call from a woman in Switzerland who I've never met before in my life and she said, "I know we've never met before, but for some reason God wants me to pray with you right now."  

When I returned to Honduras, on Good Friday I was praying and I asked God to help me understand Christ's sacrifice on the cross better, that I wanted to experience that which he knew I could handle to help me understand, and while lying awake in bed I stretched out my right hand and thought about the nail and from outside my window I heard a loud and resounding WHACK, of what sounded like a wooden mallet on a stake.  When I thought about my left hand, and in perfect timing again, I heard again a WHACK, and a third time when I crossed my feet.  Utterly shocked, I jumped out of bed and ran to the window to look outside (it was around midnight) and there was no one there.  I was not asleep (and I was not on chloroquine or any other drug!).  God gave me what I asked for and only as much as I could handle…the sound of a mallet driving nails into the Son of God.

Living in Grace

So here I am, living one breath at a time, in faith, in struggle, in love; in pursuit of a more intimate relationship with God.  The life I now live I live in Christ, and each day I learn more about myself and my relationship with Jesus.  A lot of what I learn is hard, mostly because I make it that way.  I forget that I have died and I am something new.  I forget to keep Him at the center of all thoughts and things.  I stumble and fall away to the patterns of a world which teaches that it’s all about me.   Because that’s what it is not all about.  It is all about Him.  It’s all about a love relationship with Him. 

I am not here to do anything for the people of Honduras.  The God of Abraham, the God of Jacob, the God of Moses, the one True Living God, who is omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent doesn’t need me to do anything for Him!  In faith and upon His strength, I am being the new me.  I am here seeking Him and His heart, and each day as I draw closer to Him in that relationship, He reveals Himself to me and invites me to join Him in His work.

A Testimony

My name is Dominic and I am the only son in a family of seven.  God has known me and my name since before the beginning of time itself.  I seek Him because He first chose me.  Merciful and sweet savior, redeemer and King of Kings; Jesus Christ...I am yours, as the name given me and so it means…“Belongs to God”.  Soli Deo gloria!