Day 7: Adios Amigos

Saying goodbye is the hardest thing to do. Today, we loaded the yellow school bus and drove up into the mountains of La Altagracia province (adjacent to La Romana province) for the last time. We were finished with the construction work in Hata de Mana, but we had one more round to make to deliver supplies to the area schools. 

With Shannon Melton leading our pack, we stopped at the first school and delivered note pads, markers, crayons, and other craft items. We stayed for a few minutes to play with them during their morning recess, tossing the tennis ball, jumping rope, and playing Frisbee with the kids. It was the perfect start to a beautiful morning in the mountains.

Before visiting the next two schools, we stopped at the house of our friends Yosi and Elenita to say goodbye. After a fifteen-minute visit, we left the small house, with Elenita crying and saying she wanted to come with us. If any of us had had our way, we would have taken her with us back to Greenwood. It was heartbreaking to say goodbye, but it was something we knew we would have to do from the moment we met them less than a week ago.

We returned to Casa Pastoral for lunch and then the entire group loaded up on the big yellow school bus for the beach, which was the perfect ending to a wonderful trip. At sunset, our group gathered in a circle on the beach and had worship, where I had the high privilege of serving communion to my Christian brothers and sisters.

As a deacon at First Presbyterian, the opportunity to participate in the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper is one that I do not take lightly. Tonight’s communion service was one for the record books. The scenery was magnificently beautiful, I was serving to friends new and old, and it was at the tail end of a week of hands-on service to our Lord and to the people of the Dominican Republic. It was a magic moment, a Dominican moment.

Tonight, as I sit here in the dining room of Casa Pastoral, writing the last blog post for our trip, I can honestly say that this trip has been nothing short of transformative. I feel that our group has truly made a difference in this place. One can see the evidence of our work in Batey Hata de Mana, in Barrio Juan P. Duarte, in the various bateys visited by the dental and medical workers, and in the schools where God’s word was read and celebrated with the kids of the Dominican Republic.

Click here to see today's photos on Flickr.

Day 6: Be Still

Photo: Rafael de la Cruz Solano presents me with the flag of the Higuey Rotary Club.

Come, behold the works of the Lord; see what desolations he has brought on the earth. He makes wars cease to the end of the earth; he breaks the bow, and shatters the spear; he burns the shields with fire. ‘Be still, and know that I am God! I am exalted among the nations, I am exalted in the earth.’ – Psalm 46:8-10

At the end of each day this week, our group has gathered to share with each other where we saw God that day. It has been our way of sharing a personal moment from our day with the group while praising our good Lord for his gifts to us. As a result of this daily exercise, I have been going through each day looking for God. It’s funny how easy it is to see God when you are looking.

Yesterday, as I was standing on the roof of our water filtration house raking wet concrete into the forms for the concrete roof, I experienced what I can only describe as a “Dominican moment.” As I took a break from raking, I looked down from the roof, where a man and his child were riding down the street on a mule. In that instant, a stray dog ran across the road and a rooster crowed off in the distance. I looked up at the mountains in the distance and saw some smoke coming from one of them. In that moment, a flood of typical Dominican occurrences happened simultaneously.

As I began to look for God in that Dominican moment, I found him in the plume of smoke billowing from the mountain. For whatever reason, it made me think of when God appeared to Moses in the burning bush on Mount Horeb. When God commanded Moses to go to Egypt to set God’s people free from slavery. In that Dominican moment, I felt that God was with me as I worked 15 feet above ground to free the people of Batey Hata de Mana from the perils of unclean water.

As we raked the last bit of concrete into place, we climbed down from the roof to the ground below. I had met a man named Rafael de la Cruz Solano, who is the president of the Rotary Club in the city of Higuey, a few miles from Hata de Mana. A group of Rotarians had met our team on Wednesday to welcome them and give them treats, but Rafael, an architect, came back on Thursday to help work on the site.

Being a Rotarian myself, Rafael and I got to know each other and he asked if we would follow him to Higuey at the end of our day to exchange Rotary Club flags, a tradition when Rotarians meet up in international locations. We happily obliged and loaded up on the yellow school bus and headed to Higuey at the end of our work day to meet up with Rafael.

The route through Higuey was different from the route we had been taking each day. Higuey is a big city, and our route had been on dirt roads through rural areas the entire way. After taking a photo with Rafael presenting me with his Rotary Club’s flag, we loaded the bus and headed for La Romana. At the edge of town, our bus ran out of gas and our driver managed to restart the engine with just enough gas left to allow us to coast into the Shell station on fumes. We literally ran out of gas as we rolled into the service station.

After filling back up, we headed for home, only to realize that if we had not met Rafael, who insisted we come to Higuey, we would have likely been in the middle of nowhere, Dominican Republic when we broke down. Had we made it another 10 miles out of town, we would have been in the same predicament. It was again in that moment where I recognized God’s providence at work in our day and in the lives of everyone on our bus. It was almost as if God had reached out to us in this moment with a simple reminder to be still. 

Dental Clinic: Day 3

Our final day with our Dental health care friends from New York and Michigan began today and it was bittersweet, their kindness allowing our team to blend with them to be stronger than we would have been alone has been such a blessing. We said goodbye, looking forward to meeting them again to do God's work.

Today took us deep into the countryside to Batey Campo Nuevo, a relatively small area physically, but densely populated-extremely poor. Today's dental team consisted of Mary Holly Lott, Kaity Box, Airston Small, Lauren MacLean, and myself. We worked in a one room, open air, elementary school classroom with another view of the mountains that was breathtaking. Again, it was transformed into a twelve chair dental clinic that was elbow to elbow in working space—a spectacle to behold!

All of the team members contributed so much today, no one more than Lauren. Not only does she speak Spanish creole, the rural dialect, she was the first to strike in dental extractions. I had barely numbed the first patient and she was extracting front teeth with one of the doctors. Lauren was also priceless as an interpreter and worked tirelessly throughout the day. As I look back on God's providence, I can easily see Him placing Lauren in Greenwood in preparation for this mission trip.

Kaity and Airston began in sterilization, cleaning hundreds of instruments, in a dim, two-windowed, hot room, saying only, "We'll do whatever you need." After lunch, they both assisted a student and myself in multiple procedures. Both performed third molar dental extractions, gave local anesthesia, and sewed extraction sites.

Mary Holly began her day in dental hygiene, teaching countless of children how to brush properly  giving them toothbrushes and toothpaste. She was also a warrior in sterilization, working in the "hotbox" to turn over countless instruments. After lunch, she gave local anesthesia and extracted teeth with me. She saved the best for last, "schooling" the locals in soccer! What I learned about all four of these women is the same thing, they are fearless and serve the living God with a passion that is inspiring.

So we end the dental portion of the mission trip today with the knowledge that God has protected us in our travels to the bateys, that we have been able to serve some of His children and our brothers and sisters, and that we have received much more than we have given.

"For he who waits on the Lord shall gain new strength, he shall mount up like wings on eagles, he shall run and not tire, he shall walk and not be weary." To God be the Glory. Todd

Day 5: The Barrio

“Then little children were being brought to him in order that he might lay his hands on them and pray. The disciples spoke sternly to those who brought them; but Jesus said, ‘Let the little children come to me, and do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of heaven belongs.’” – Matthew 19:13-14

Today, I took a break from my usual group in Batey Hata de Mana and traveled to the barrio with the self described “Team Awesome.” Whereas the bateys are located in rural areas, the barrios are small neighborhoods in the urban areas. The locals describe them as ghettoes, where the urban poor live, work, and raise their families. For the past three days, Team Awesome has been working in Barrio Juan P. Duarte.

When we drove into the barrio in the yellow school bus, I joked that there was enough trash on the ground for it to be a landfill. As a city planner, I was disheartened to find out that Barrio Duarte was actually built on an old landfill, thus explaining the ever-present trash. All I could think about was that if Greenwood’s Mayor Carolyn McAdams were with us, she would have organized a cleanup campaign so fast it would have made the residents’ heads spin.

The first half of the day, I helped with Vacation Bible School at the school located next to the work site. We went to each classroom and read the story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden to the kids, in Spanish, from the children’s Bible. In two of the classrooms, I got to read to the kids. It was an awesome experience reading a Bible story in a foreign language to kids who completely understood what I was saying, even though I didn’t know what the words I was reading meant. The Lord moves in mysterious ways.

After reading the story to the kids, we helped them with an arts and crafts activity, making paper serpents with stickers and crayons. The kids loved every minute of it. At the end of each lesson, the kids sang a song to us in Spanish, and we returned the favor by singing a song to them in English. The cultural exchange between old and young, American and Dominican, was absolutely remarkable.

After VBS, we joined the construction crew and helped them make progress on their water filtration system. We moved piles of rock, sifted sand from gravel, carried buckets of mortar, and dug footings for concrete walls. And all the while, we had a great time in the Caribbean sun, enjoying each other’s company, and helping make the lives of the people who live in the barrio a little bit better.

One of my favorite moments from the day was when we were moving concrete blocks from one side of the wall to the other, a group of local kids came up to talk to us. Earlier in the day, we had been talking about the lack of OSHA work site standards with the exposed rebar protruding from the cinder block walls. As the kids approached us, I reached down and picked up a plastic bottle, showed it to the kids, placed it upside-down on top of one of the pieces of rebar, and then pointed to the adjacent field.

The kids looked at each other with a look of excitement, and ran out into the field to retrieve plastic bottles. They returned within five minutes, each with an armload of bottles, and then proceeded to make our work site OSHA approved by placing the bottles on the rebar. They were so happy to be helpful to our crew!

At the end of the day, we had accomplished a lot and the team was satisfied with the progress that was made. Although I will be re-joining my team in Batey Hata de Mana tomorrow, I will always remember the kids of Barrio Duarte and the love they had for our group of VBS teachers. Little ones to him belong, indeed.

Click here to see today's photos on Flickr.

Day 4: Just In Time

Today, my group returned to Batey Hata de Mana, this time with no blowout on the way. When we arrived at the work site, our Dominican co-workers were nowhere to be found. Instead of wait around, our team sprung into action, backfilling the footings and moving cinder blocks into the work area. Once the masons arrived, they went to work laying block while we mixed mortar and concrete by hand.

By lunchtime, we had added several more courses of blocks to the wall and we were all tired. After a lunch of chicken and rice, meat pies, peanut butter sandwiches, and cookies, we went back to it, working in the hot sun for another hour or so. At about 2:30 p.m., one of our Dominican guides invited us to play baseball with a group of local kids who were gathering on the field behind the worksite.

It was great to interact with the batey locals, to attempt to speak Spanish, and to take a break from work to enjoy the day. The kids from the batey provided all the equipment we needed, handing over their gloves each time we took to the field. Although they beat us in all three games that we played, we laughed and otherwise had a really great afternoon.

When we returned to the worksite, the walls had been finished by team members Larry Crawford and Bill Crump, along with the Dominican masons. As we said goodbye to our friends Elena, Yosi, and Elenita, we promised to return tomorrow. The bus ride back was enjoyable as we took in the beautiful scenery, told stories from our day, and enjoyed the fresh air blowing in through the school bus windows.

Back at Casa Pastoral, we showered and enjoyed a meal of barbequed chicken, rigatoni pasta, plantains, mixed vegetables, and bread. For dessert, we enjoyed tres leches cake, which would rival anything you could order from the Crystal Grill. At Bible study, we heard from Jonathan, one of the missionaries at Maranatha Mission. He told us about their projects and the work they do to spread God’s love in and around La Romana.

The night ended with a trip to the Jumbo for helados (ice cream) and other necessities. Shannon Melton bought a new pair of shoes for her friend Yosi from Hata de Mana. Tish Goodman purchased candy and toys for the children in the batey she has been working in. We returned at the end of a full day, tired but ready for tomorrow’s journey.

Early in the day, as I was filling up Larry’s bucket with mortar to take to the masons, I remarked that we were mixing mortar “Just In Time.” As a production strategy, Just In Time (JIT) management maximizes profit by reducing inventory. Throughout the day, I returned to that phrase, thinking about alternative meanings it could have.

Perhaps our group arrived in Hata de Mana to install a water filtration system just in time to keep someone from getting sick. Perhaps our group arrived at the classrooms in the bateys just in time to provide the encouragement some kid needed to stay in school. And then again, perhaps we came on this trip just in time for God to make a difference in our own lives, and by doing so, in the lives of those we’ve met along the way.

Click here to see today's photos on Flickr.