A DR mission trip for those who go is primarily an experience. It is sights, sounds, smells, feelings, friendships, accomplishment, frustrations, rebar injuries, dirt, sweat, heat and exhaustion, incredible worship services that go for two to three hours, fun, and a sense of sadness when you leave. You come back from it a better person than you where and you leave behind something better than it was. But I think it takes the gift of time to put into perspective how a mission trip changes the lives of the people you visited. I say this because it takes years to see the value of a church in a community that has not had one. The transformation can be astounding. More importantly it gives you the perspective of what mission work can actually do. I just posted on this website a video that shows the before and after for Calvary’s first mission project. I hope it does a better job than talking in conveying what the results of mission work can do and give all those who supported us, who did not go, a sense of the acomplishment of which they were a part.
2005 - Church Under Construction
It has been five years now since Calvary's first mission trip to the Dominican Republic. On the first trip in 2005 we helped in the construction of the church in the town of Chiahone (yes I know this probably isn't spelled right so if anyone knows the proper spelling please send it to me). The word "town" here may be a bit of a misnomer. This place is not even a swelling of the tiny dirt road that it's on. The "downtown" area consists of two concrete buildings across the road from the church construction site. We named these buildings The Gentleman's Club and Wal-Mart (more on this later). The town was really nothing more than a series of run down cardboard or corrugated aluminum shacks along the side of the road dispersed amongst the sugarcane fields. Occasionally you would see a concrete and cinderblock home, but not often.
Churches in the rural areas of the Dominican Republic are far more than just places of worship. In many cases they are the best constructed building in the area. They are built out of cinderblock, concrete, and oh yes a lot of rebar. They are usually the only source of refuge for tropical storms and hurricanes and as such are the primary source of shelter when weather happens. They make quite good storm shelters (however since neither concrete nor cinderblocks are very elastic they don't hold up well in earthquakes, it's not a perfect world). Church buildings also become the center for community activities. They are used for meals, social gatherings, play, education, worship, shelter, and as a source of cohesion in the community. A church in the Dominican Republic can single-handedly transform a community and give it a sense of purpose.
2009 - Finished Church
More now about those two buildings across from the church that I mentioned earlier. One was a small yellow store that we jokingly dubbed "Wal-Mart". The second blue and orange building we called “The Gentleman's Club”. This was because all the unemployed adult males would congregate there to watch us build the church. There was always a crowd watching us do our thing from across the street. But every single day we were at the construction site, Nardo the local Pentecostal minister and our host, would go over to the club and witness with his Bible. By the end of the week many of these young men were helping out at the worksite, not all but some. Quite a transformation for five days. We certainly noticed the difference on our return in 2009 when we visited the finished church. The town seemed cleaner, almost no one was loitering around, and in general the town seemed to have a sense of purpose. It's something I noticed even more when I edited the video that I just posted.
Wal-Mart and The Gentleman's Club
Many people have asked us when we return from a mission trip about why we send people to work in other countries. Why not just send the money. After all it costs a lot to fly and support people overseas, so why not keep the people at home and take all that money and just send it instead. Surely more money can do more good, right?
Now you can quote the Great Commission from the Bible for all you're worth, but for many people that's still not a good answer. I mean, after all, you can substitute money for people. Well, money can do a lot of good and it is certainly a vital component of any mission trip; however, no matter how much you improve an individual's physical circumstances through the gift of money, there is something that money lacks.
Hope!
No matter how much you improve a person's physical living conditions if you don't give them hope you accomplish very little other than keeping them alive. Hope and the spiritual message that only people can bring is absolutely vital. Jesus understood this better than anyone. Look in the Gospels, Jesus never threw money at a problem, he threw lots of people at a problem.
The Six 2005 Missionaries Who Returned in 2009
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