Destination: Dominican Republic

Where we went:
The Dominican Republic, Cielo and Nasarett, two communities near Santo Domingo.

Why we went:
It was our mission: Vaya y amo à Go and love. We went to love and serve, to build relationships and concrete floors.

When the trip took place:
March 11 through 17, 2006.

Who went:
Twenty volunteers from Status, a non denominational church that meets Sun. evenings in downtown Orlando. (You should check it out sometime: www.whatsyourstatus.com)

What we did:
It’s really all about people. Our main focus on this trip was to build relationships with the community in the Dominican Republic. We spent a lot of time in the villages surrounding Cielo just getting to know people, playing with kids, praying with families, showing them that we really loved them. A different community we shared our time with was the leper colony in Nasarett. Here we visited with the residents, helped them celebrate their birthdays with singing and cake; we comforted them and loved them.

A different product of our desire to build meaningful relationships was doing some manual labor. The second day in Cielo we put a floor down in a small two bedroom house that had a little bathroom, kitchen, living area and porch. We spent all morning and most of the afternoon mixing and hauling buckets of cement down a hill and into the house. Previously, the family of four had been living in one single room all together for five years because they couldn’t afford to finish the project. The next day we slung buckets of sand, mixed more cement, and laid down a floor in the new youth center. In efforts to make the community a better place, Mission Emanuel had built this structure to encourage young people to socialize in positive ways. The floor we helped construct would support the weight room for the young men to utilize. (For more information on the amazing work Mission Emanuel has done go here: www.missionemanuel.org)

There are several other things we did on our trip, like helping children in the private school write Easter cards to their sponsors. Some people scraped paint off walls in a classroom while others painted murals on playground walls. A few of us spent time helping out in the pediatric clinic housed in the Mission Emanuel school building. Others helped prepare meals every day. I could tell stories that would be pages long, but I won’t (for now…).

No matter what the motivation was for each of us to go on this trip, the point is that we went to serve. And I’m not saying this as a credit to our character or to boast about our abilities because it’s all a result of God’s greater love that we are able to love at all.

Mission Minded

I was moved to go. Generally, I’m not an impulsive person, but I was moved.

Some indicators in life are so vague you’re not even sure they were indicators at all. Like when I moved to Florida almost 3 years ago. I didn’t know if it was the right thing to do, if I should have stayed in Missouri instead, if God was intentionally being silent, or what. It wasn’t clear to me.

And then there are times when you just know its right. Like a month ago when I went to church and heard an announcement that there was a mission trip heading down to the Dominican Republic. I knew I had to go. On of the main reasons I felt this way is because I've been sponsoring a child there for almost 6 years. When they made the announcement that night I thought it would be a good chance to go down and meet him. There wasn’t a doubt in my mind. I picked up an application that night and by the end of the week had it turned in and was committed to the cause. I didn’t know a single person going on the trip. There was only a month to find funding. I hadn’t accumulated enough PDO to cover my time off work. There were a million other excuses I could have used to talk myself out of the mission trip. But God has plans bigger than our excuses.

As it turns out, we would be serving in the community around Santo Domingo. My sponsor child was in Santiago, 2.5 hours away. I didn’t end up going to see him on this trip. (It wasn’t right to detract from the purpose of the mission trip in order to fulfill my own desire.) But it’s interesting how God uses things that motivate us for the purpose of something larger than ourselves. I think if the group would have been going to any other country, I wouldn’t have gone or given it a second thought. (I already had plans to go to Russia and Africa later in the year.)

But we went to the Dominican Republic. We went to serve. We went to love.