Dominican Republic Mission Trip!

This summer God blessed me with an amazing opportunity to go on a mission trip to the Dominican Republic! I have felt God's call in my life for along time now to go on a mission trip to a third world country and I was so excited when this opportunity presented itself. I went on the trip with a local church and we partnered with an organization called AIM (Adventures in Missions). We left Atlanta on June 11 at 6:30am and flew to Miami. Then we flew from Miami to Santo Domingo, DR. Once we arrived in Santo Domingo we rode a bus for 4 hours to San Juan Maguana, which is where our house was. Throughout the week we worked in a community about thirty minutes away from there called Batey Chiquita. To begin, I would like to explain a little background information about how the area we worked in was first started. Years ago a missionary named Miguel went on a mission trip to the DR and truly felt that it was where God wanted him to spend his life. After graduating high school he headed back to the DR and began work in a neighborhood called Watchipita. There he started a home church. Now the family that hosts the home church is trying to plant another church in another community called Batey Chiquita, which is where we worked. They have just started the process of planting a church here; therefore we did a lot of relational ministry and also hosted a VBS in the afternoons.

I have to be honest; my plan in the beginning was that I was going to blog each day that we were there to update family and friends about our trip. Unfortunately, I was not able to do that due to cell phone complications, I’m sorry about that. So, I am going to have to give you all the quick overview of everything that I remember.

This was a fantastic experience! Though we went to go to tell these people about Christ, when we first arrived, it overwhelmed me how much more these people live like Christ than we do. Obviously the poverty level was quite a humbling experience. The interesting fact is that when these people recieve Christ it is everything to them, literally. These people have so little that it truly takes every bit of faith and strength to put their complete lives in Christ. They can be very critisized for being believers. It made me realize how shallow our relationships can be with Christ at times because we already have so many of the life materials that we need. Throughout the week we were able to form many relationships with the people living in the community because we would revisit them over and over again. One of the closet relationships that I formed was with a young man named Waquin. Waquin was in his 30s and had been in a terrible motorcycle accident 7 years ago. He was severly injured from his waist down and had to sit in a wheel chair constantly. Though Waquin was stranded he had such a kind and loving spirit about him. His wheel chair was broken and therefore he could not move at all. Fortunately, we were able to fix his wheel chair while we were there and he was then able to move about his home. He and his mother where so thankful and excited!



This trip was truly a life changing experience for me. When I cam back home I really struggled with being home where I have everything at my finger tips and knowing how little my friends in the DR have. It truly has made me so much more aware of the way I live my life here in America. Though the Lord has always been my number one priority in life, this experience helped me to understand how important it is that I open every aspect of my life to God not just the things I want to.