MISSION 2004: DOMINICAN REPUBLIC
Team Report

Here’s the run-down on a really great mission project to the D.R. Fifteen teens and two adults from Church of the Open Door went there. We left on July 23. Our purpose was to be the hands and feet of Jesus, bringing His love and good news. We also wanted to learn to trust Him more. From the moment we arrived at the airport, it became very clear that the people of this little country are very friendly. Mostly, we played with the children of Barrio Filipino, a very impoverished neighborhood in the city of San Pedro de Macoris, where we lived and ministered the whole time we were there. There were so many children and they all wanted to play games and ride on our backs and wrestle with us. We also sang a lot of songs with them. These kids looked really happy for having so little material belongings. Their houses were crude wood and tin shacks with dirt floors and a pit out back for a toilet. But from the smiles on their faces, you’d never guess they were poor. They all wanted us to come to there house and hang out. We wish we had time to get to each one. We also did some work at the church in the barrio. We built some pews and repaired the interior walls and installed screening in the windows to try to keep the bugs out (you’ve never had a bug problem until you’ve lived in the D.R.). We also cleared a small field beside the church so the children could play. Usually, they just play in the street, dodging trucks and motor cycles and horse drawn carts. We removed a lot of trash and rocks and cut the grass. No weed whackers or Lawn Boys here. Just old fashioned machetes. We’ll never complain about using a lawn mower again. Ten minutes of slashing at the grass with one of those things only cuts about five feet of grass and adds a few killer blisters to your hand. But the really cool thing is that when we started working, men and women from all over the barrio came out and helped us. A Dominican man can take the same machete we used and cut about five times faster than us with no blisters. What!? It was awesome for us to be working side by side with these people we had never met before. Some were from the church, but others just wanted to help. The Dominicans live such simple lives, yet they are so satisfied. We have a lot to learn from them. Our prayer is that God will help us to live simply and just be a blessing to others. Thanks for your support and prayers.

Below are pictures from the trip:

	Even though their homes were crude wood and tin shacks with dirt floors, they were very hospitable and generous, especially with their smiles.
Christine loved the Dominican children, and would have brought half of them home if she could have.
	Each day when our team showed up at the church, 20 to 40 children joined us there within a few minutes. We played a lot of games, sang songs or went to there homes to visit their mothers (fathers were usually at work, or in some cases they had abandoned their family).
Jessica (on the right, standing in front of her mother) was nick named “El Presidente” because she liked to be in charge whenever we played a game. She was the third oldest of eight children.
	These horse drawn carts were pretty common in the streets of Barrio Filipino.
A baby chick sold for two pesos (about $0.03). Chicken is the most common meat served in the D.R.
	John and Kevin are helping to mix cement to be used to repair walls in the church. Since there is no running water in the barrio, it has to be delivered by truck. And usually, the electricity was not available. Nearly all the work is manually.
Felecia is the 13-year old girl standing next to her mother holding a book. It was a torn book in English, but she loved us to read it to her.
	You would never guess by the smiles on the faces of these children that they were poor. Even though they had much fewer material belongings than most Americans, they didn’t seem to lack for joy.
Pastor Alex (on the left) leads the congregation of Church Emanuel III, whose membership is about 70 adults and children. He works 40-60 a week at a factory making boots and then ministers to his congregation in the evening and on the weekends. He and his wife are very joyful and hard working. They have two children and another on the way.
	Hector (center) and his son run a small store in the middle of the barrio. Hector’s family helped to start Church Emanuel III five years ago when it started out meeting in his home.
Sometimes the children helped us with our manual labor at the church; but most days they just begged us to come out and play with them.
	On our first full day in the Dominican Republic we cleared a small field beside the church so the children would have a place to play. Before that, they would just play in the streets, dodging motor cycles, trucks and horse drawn carts.
BJ was one of our best balloon artists. The children at the orphanage really enjoyed our balloon sculptures, especially the swords and hats.
	The lizards in the D.R. were plentiful. Here Johnny holds one of his many prizes. Moments after this picture was taken he attached this reptile to his ear lobe, letting it hang there by chomping into his flesh.
We brought two large boxes of crowns and markers and coloring books that the children enjoyed on one of few rainy days we had there.
	Jon loved the children and they loved him. One time they pretended to show him a cock roach in a little boys hand. “Cucaracha,” they yelled. But Jon didn’t wish to see it. He took off running and about a dozen children chased him until they caught him and tackled him to the ground in the midst of loud shouts and laughs.
We shared the gospel message with these children many times and quite a few of them prayed with us to ask the Lord Jesus Christ to change there lives through His great love. Their opened to the gospel was extraordinary.
There was a McDonalds just a few miles from the barrio. On our last night in the D.R. we took a large group of children there, many of whom had never been outside there barrio. The children enjoyed themselves greatly and it was a real pleasure for our team to spoil them just a little.
	We really enjoyed going to church with our Christian brothers and sisters in the D.R. They worship the Lord with great exuberance and energy.
One day we took all the children from the orphanage out shopping and bought each child a new pair of sneakers. You can’t imagine how big their smiles were.
	The children wee just so precious. One mother gave a small gift to one of our team members. It was a stuffed animal that her father had given her when she was a little girl. This mother asked that we would always remember her daughter and to pray for her each time we looked at that gift.
We traveled throughout the D.R. on a bus driven by Pappito, our beloved bus driver (pictured in the center without a yellow tee shirt). The drivers there are crazy and the traffic laws barely exist in the D.R. But Pappito zipped through the roads with great skill. Sitting in the shot gun seat was an exciting adventure that we each took turns sharing.