In July/August of 2005 Calvary UMC sent its first international missionaries off to the Dominican Republic to help build a small church in the suburbs of a town named Yaguate. There were a total of 15 people on the team, of which one third were under the age of 18:
Sarah Dorrance - Mission Team Leader
Ed Koch
Dave Meadows
John Hale
Debbie Beall
Terri King
Jessica King
Jeffrey Taylor
Debra Taylor
Michelle Taylor
Jamie Dorrance
Melissa Dorrance
Christiana Martin
Kevin Martin
Teresa Martin
The first job necessary for any mission trip is the raising of money. The cost of this trip was roughly $1,600 per person with half of that sum going to airfare and the other half used for the purchase of building supplies for the church. Building construction in the Dominican Republic can be an off and on thing. As you travel the countryside you can see many unfinished buildings. This is because the Dominicans will build for as long as they have money, then when they run out, construction is suspended until new money is obtained for its continuation. It is not unusual for any given building to undergo several starts and stops in its construction history.
The primary goal of this mission trip was the construction of a new church in a small village about 3 miles from the town center of Yaguate. When we arrived the foundation had been laid and there was a large amount of dirt piled up inside of what would become the inside of the church. Dominican buildings are usually constructed out of cinderblock and cement. Wood is very rare in Dominican buildings. The cinderblock walls of a building are usually tied together with rebar into large poured concrete support post. At the worksite there were paid Dominican workers who laid the concrete blocks and made wooden forms for the concrete pillars. Our missionary team was engaged in a number of different support roles in the construction process.
All Churches Start as a Mound of Dirt
First, we moved dirt, we moved a lot of dirt. When it rained the dirt turned into glue. When they dug the foundations they put the dirt from the holes into what would become the space of the church. We then had to move that dirt to the outside of the church and use it to back fill the holes around the foundation of the building. The excess dirt that could not be used to back fill still needed to be moved outside of the church space to make room for the floor. This was all done by people, shovels, and wheelbarrows. Numerous jokes were to be heard about the unavailability of things like backhoes, bobcats, and dump trucks.
The main use for wood in Dominican construction is for forms to pour concrete. Two items that seemed to be recycled endlessly were plywood and nails. The plywood had been recycled for so long that not only did it come in all shapes and sizes but it was incredibly heavy due to all the concrete it had soaked up over many construction cycles. Indeed some of the nails look like they were brought to the New World with Columbus. Gathering and reclaiming both wood and nails was a large part of our construction experience. Other things we did at the worksite were bend rebar, cut rebar, moved piles of cinderblocks , move sacs of cement, hand mix cement, and move mixed cement.
Our teams biggest triumph for the whole week was with cement and its movement. The cement was typically mixed in a clearing across the road from the church. Whenever a concrete support pillar was poured the cement had to be moved from the mixing location across the street, to the top of the wooden form for the pillar. This was done through the use of a two gallon rubber bucket with handle, a strong back, and a pair of legs. Trust me, two gallons of wet concrete is not an insignificant weight. The bucket would be filled with concrete, via shovel at the mixing site, carried across the road to another person at the foot of the ladder, that person would climb up the ladder and pour the concrete into the wooden form. After several hundred buckets of concrete you have a support pillar. I'm not sure whose idea it was, most likely Ed Koch or Dave Meadows (God forbid it could have even been a woman's), but we formed an old-fashioned bucket brigade from the mixing site to the top of the ladder. The empty bucket was then thrown to the ground where one of the numerous local children picked it up and ran it back to the mixing site to be filled again. This appeared to constitute a major innovation in Dominican construction. In the space of one hour we were able to pour two completed support pillars on morning. The locals were quite amazed and assured us this was a record .
A Support Pillar Being Poured
But life on a mission trip is more than just eight hours of backbreaking labor, we also had quite a night life. Almost every night, after a quick shower and supper, we would head out to a church in one of the many small communities that surrounded Yaguate and have about two hours of Bible school for the children (and in some cases for the adults as well). By that time of the evening it was usually dark and some of these churches had no electricity. Makes the phrase, "let your light shine" take on a whole new meaning. Our team sang, did skits, performed puppet shows, passed out gifts, made crafts, and taught Bible lessons. In one small village the minister couldn't find the key to the church, so we did everything in the muddy street, in the dark, and in the rain. For a missionary this is about as good as it gets.
Last but not least, we got to attend worship in the church in Yaguate (this was the church that was demolished later that year to make way for a new highway). We didn't know it at the time, but some of us would be returning in three years time to start construction of the new, larger church to replace the one that was demolished. Most of the churches in the Dominican Republic are Pentecostal. It is perhaps the fastest-growing denomination in the Caribbean. They do an excellent job of planting new churches. Perhaps it's because their ministers don't go to seminary. Pentecostals believe that ministers are called by God (like Jesus' disciples) and not taught. If you received the call to minister to a congregation there is an apprenticeship that occurs with a senior minister for a year or so .
The Yaguate Pentecostal Church
In the Dominican Republic the word worship is not a noun but an action verb. There is not a lot of quiet sitting in contemplation. Their worship is filled with music and a lot of congregation participation. The service usually lasts for several hours, and when they're done you're not quite sure where the time went. There is usually no worship on Sunday because it is market day and a day of rest. Worship usually occurs on Saturday or in the afternoon or evening during the week. There is also not a set time for worship. Whenever the spirit moves the minister they have worship. The people know it's time for worship by word of mouth, when the see the minister walking to church, or they hear the sounds of praise and singing coming from the church. Pentecostal church is LOUD and everyone around knows when it starts.
The Group at the End of the Week
All in all it was a very busy week.
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