I have been on missions trips before but the kids and the people I met last month, will stay in my heart and mind forever.
I was joining my church on our yearly Bibles and Bricks mission trip to San Juan de la Maguana in the Dominican Republic. My church, Second Pres, partners with an organization called Solid Rock international for this mission trip. This trip is called Bibles and Bricks because we lead a VBS in a local barrios and we work on a construction project.
I quickly realized that traveling with a language barrier is very hard. However when I realized this we were in Santo Domingo. Which was a lot faster pace and people weren’t as willing to slow down when they spoke. It was very hard to communicate. We spent the night in a nice hotel on the coast of Santo Domingo. There was hot water, air conditioning, huge fluffy beds and a pool. It was like a little vacation but it was weird. And I couldn’t figure out why.
The next day we packed up into our little bus to make the 3 hour journey to San Juan de la Maguana. The differences between Santo Domingo and San Juan where amazing. We went from seeing statues, and a busy shipping port, hotels, and American stores, to seeing barrios, and mom and pop shops, and poverty. It was like we were in a totally different country. The guest house we were staying at felt like a home away from home. We had cold water and bunk beds and it was hot and there were bugs but it was like heaven. It was so beautiful. We spent every spare moment in the hammocks outside talking and bonding until we were all falling asleep.
One of the first things we did when we got to our guest house was run into the barrios to go play with kids. There we were the only white people, in a large group, walking down a dirt path to find kinds to play with. When 2 little kids came sprinting around the corner, running straight to us! They were so excited. We would say hello and ask how they were doing but the first thing they would do after that was tug at our arms or shirts and look up at us saying “Caballo!” Me, not knowing Spanish would just smile and stare blankly and them and say “Lo siento. No hablo Española.” (“I’m sorry. I don’t speak Spanish” – A phrase I learned my first day.) I felt bad I didn’t know what they wanted until my friend Alex told me they were saying “horse”. They wanted piggy back rides. There was never a time one of the “Americanos” didn’t have a kid on their back. the language barrier wasn’t bad here. we could communicate through games and smiles and attempting to learn the others languages.
The first day in the barrios were hard because the only translators we had there the recently graduated high schoolers who had taken Spanish and we were just walking though the barrios hoping kids would come play. The next few days were easier because we had real translators that would help us better communicate.
The two aspects of the trip were construction and VBS. VBS was amazing. Seeing kids, so excited to memorize the verse of the day or to making that days crafts was amazing. On the first day we might have had 50 kids, maybe. But by the end of the week there were probably between 175 and 200 kids I a one room church, with no AC, so excited to learn and worship! It was infectious. While VBS and the kids were so much fun, my favorite day by far was the day I spent at the construction site.
Solid Rock International is currently in the process of building a new clinic. But the title clinic doesn’t do this project justice. It is a full blown hospital. We were working on the construction of the building. Building walls, priming the walls, drilling pilot holes in plywood, digging a trench, while the Dominicans were laying the concrete for the roof. VBS was cool because it was the spiritual side of mission but I have been helping with VBS at our church since I was in 6th grade. The construction day was amazing because we were physically building something that will one day soon change the lives of so many people in San Juan. This new hospital will be the only need based hospital and emergency hospital in all of San Juan. I have never been a part of physically building something that will so directly affect the lives of so many.
In the states there is the thought that we need certain things to be happy. Most of the times they are meaningless material possessions. After visiting San Juan and the people that lived in the barrios who were so unimaginably happy who didn’t have a lot, I was reminded yet again that you don’t need to do a lot to bring others joy and happiness. All we did was play simple games with these kids and it made them smile.
As I am about to embark on the World Race I realized that when I’m in all of these countries all over the world I can be missioning to people is simple ways. Simple ways as leaning their language well enough to have simple conversations, playing with street kids, and so many other things. The smiles of the Dominican people will stay with me forever.
