DR TRIP - 2012

Give Me Jesus – That was the theme of the 2012 Dominican Republic (DR) trip. And yet more than the theme, it was our goal. Sure, we were there to continue construction on the new Haina church, but the real purpose was to either achieve a relationship with Jesus, or strengthen a relationship already in place. In addition, we wanted to share that relationship with our brothers and sisters in the DR. The scripture passage that we chose to reinforce the theme was John 4:6 – “Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”

Five years ago God placed a desire on my heart to travel to the DR. The 2012 trip was my third in five years and the goal, individually and as a group, was to find Jesus in as many ways, and in as many people, as possible. I have to say that it really wasn’t much of a challenge. I saw Jesus’s love in the way fellow missionaries interacted with the Dominican children. I saw obedience every day as we all travelled back and forth to the worksite – tired and prepared to sweat another day. And there was joy. Joy in the faces of the Dominican children as they saw American friends returning. Joy in our group as we get to experience “full immersion Christianity”. But mostly the joy of worship; of praising God, feeling the Holy Spirit and having the opportunity to spend time with Jesus.

There is something special about these mission trips to the DR. Sometimes when I try to explain it to different people I receive looks that indicate a general lack of sanity on my part. The interesting part is that I can understand why people look that way. After all, when I am sharing about my trip I inevitably include the following bits of information:

• When we leave the airport in Santo Domingo, we are saying goodbye to air conditioning for the next 9 days and nights
• Most of us are going to be doing 5 to 6 days of physical labor in temperatures that we’re not used to.
• We need to be aware of the problems that drinking the local water will cause. We need to remind ourselves that drinking, washing and cooking food and even brushing our teeth needs to be done through the use of bottled water.
• Even the most careful of us get brought down by gastro issues at some point.
• And let’s not forget that it is a dangerous enough place that we have two armed guards with us 24/7 while we are there.

And yet despite all of that, there are some interesting facts to consider:
• There were 26 people in our group this year. All but two of us are returning veterans
• We use our vacation time and our finances in order to attend
• Some of the youngsters that go, save their birthday and Christmas money in order for their parents to be able to afford it.
• One of the younger members of our group has specifically said he prefers the DR trip to Disney World.

In retrospect it is actually an easy thing to explain. For ten days and nine nights we are living, eating, sleeping, working, praying, studying and worshipping with other Christians. We spend almost every waking moment, and some sleeping moments, concentrating on what God wants us to do. In return we get to experience a taste of the Joy that Jesus promised awaits us in heaven.

I could write for hours on the positives of this trip. I could talk about the fellowshipping, the work we continued in building a new house for God or the prayer time that I was blessed to be part of. But the most uplifting part of the trip, as far as I was concerned, was the Tuesday night Campagna. In the DR a Campagna is a street corner, or intersection, revival service. The goal was to have a service that could be enjoyed by the Dominican members of the congregation as well as us missionaries from Woodside. But we also hoped to reach out in the community and touch the hearts of those that have not yet met Jesus yet.

Because the Campagna was outside the walls of the church, we had an opportunity to reach Dominicans who may not yet know Jesus. And while Campagna’s are not rare events in the DR, the attendance of Americans is considered a drawing card. As we planned the Campagna there were three important components of the service. We wanted the service to be a combined effort of Americans and Dominicans. We looked for testimonies from anybody that wanted to share their walk with Jesus. And lastly there had to be a message that led to an altar call inviting others to come forward and meet Jesus.

The service exceeded all of my expectations. We had some amazing praise worship that concluded with Dominican’s and Americans singing and dancing together. There were testimonials that almost brought me to tears. And the crowning moment was when Rafael, a Dominican brother, came forward to recommit himself to Christ. It was a powerful moment but it wasn’t until the next day that I realized the significance. When we have an altar call at the prison and guys come forward to recommit themselves to Jesus, we see that as a renewal of their love for him. A recommitment in the DR means the individual is returning to Jesus after losing their faith and leaving the path that he lays out for us. In essence they are being reborn, a much more powerful statement than a renewal of faith.

On Monday we had held the annual Vacation Bible School (VBS) for the children of Haina. In addition to songs and crafts we performed a skit based upon the parable of The Lost Sheep (Luke 15:3-7). In the skit Annabelle played the part of the lost sheep and Greg played the part of the shepherd – Jesus. On Tuesday night Rafael took the role of the lost sheep. The part of Jesus was played by Himself.

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