DR Reflections-Part 3 (Our purpose)

Our specific purpose for this trip was to be a helping hand to Freedom International Ministries at Freedom Christian School, to be a part of the work that God is doing in San Pedro de Marcoris in the Dominican Republic. 

This is the third Christian school that God has given me and Mike the opportunity to work with outside of the United States. We spent a summer working with missionaries, Mark and Karen Hedinger, in Tasquillo, Hidalgo, Mexico in 1998 at El Camino de Vida (Evangelical Institute). We later spent a month working at ECA (El Camino Academy) in Bogotá, Colombia in 2012. Now we got to spend a week working at Freedom Christian School in the Dominican. 

Each school stands out with a very unique ministry, but I must say that this one just blew me away by all the different levels of discipleship and ministry taking place here. Such a well-oiled machine with so many working parts, between the ministries to the 373 students in the school, the bus drivers making their rounds to the (not easy to get to) villages, the families in the bateys (sugar cane villages), the grounds crew, kitchen crew, and cleaning crew, the mission teams who sometimes come through weekly, the Dominican teachers on staff, the interns who come as teachers or construction workers, the discipline team, the MK's on campus, the child sponsorship program that gives kids nutritional meals, school supplies, uniforms, and also funds their teachers' salaries, and the extra mentoring and discipleship that goes on at varying times through the week. What stood out to me more than anything (besides the level of organization to keep it all running smoothly) is the JOY that you feel all over the campus. It is a joy to serve the Lord here in this place. 

This is the front entrance to the school. I've been told that the school looks different (and bigger) every time someone comes back, as it continues to grow and thrive with so many different missions team coming through week after week. 

This is the fourth grade class that our church sponsors, specifically giving them opportunities to go on field trips!

This is the daily morning assembly that happens once all the students arrive and have eaten breakfast (which now includes some type of protein, thanks to so many children being sponsored). Precisely at 8 am, they start by singing the national anthemn while volunteers from one of the classes raise the flag. 

This is a special drink that comes with breakfast many days. 

These are the breakfast lines all ready for kids to arrive. 

This is a full cafeteria filled with joyful kids bused in from the villages, 

eating the breakfast provided for them. 

We were able to join the kids for both breakfast and then again at lunch. The kids are served a full plate of food and are expected to eat every last bite. A few need a little encouragement to eat, but most have no problem!

Here is a picture of a village school where many of them would attend if not for Freedom. The educational level between the two schools is a night and day difference. 

This picture pretty accurately gives a picture of the living conditions they come from. Even still, they are smiling. 

This is our tour guide showing us one of the churches that opened their doors to lend space to Freedom missionaries who wanted to open a school for the village children. 

Another church that lent its space for those first classes. 

Freedom's very first classroom held in the village where it all started. 

Thirty 3-year-olds came to class here. Many of those original 3-year-olds are now 11th graders at Freedom and will be the first graduating class a year from now. They have a good grasp of both Spanish and English, they have a solid Biblical foundation, and their education has already far surpassed that of their Dominican peers. 

Another pic inside their village. 

To live in these villages (bateys), 

someone in their family has to work in the sugar cane fields. 

More school pics.

A Kindergarten classroom. 

The front entryway

The missionaries who serve here

A view from the roof.

The playground and terrace area.

The apartments that the missionaries live in. 

The apartments where the single interns live (and the future apartments that aren't finished yet). Much of the construction is completed by youth teams that come in the spring and summers. 

Most of the classrooms. 

The top floor is reserved for secondary (7-11th grade). 

A glimpse of our dorm room accomodations. 

Unlike other trips the church has taken here, we were the only team here for the week. Melissa said that the dorm is usually full between our team and any other teams that are there at the same time. But we oddly had the whole room to ourselves, so we had plenty of space (and peace and quiet). 

We each came with specific skills, but also with an open heart to jump in wherever needed. 

DR Reflections-Part 2 (Our Team)

I must say that the best parts of any mission trip I've ever gone on are the deep relationships you form with the people on your team. Those people are some of my most treasured, life-long friends.

This trip, we went with a pretty small team, all people that I'd only talked with maybe a few times before, if that. They were pretty much strangers to me, except that we all attend the same church. I definitely don't look at them as strangers, anymore. In fact, we share a very unique bond now that holds precious memories we built together over our 8 day trip. 

First, meet the two men on our team. This is John. He works in marketing at his job, and he's the last in his family to come to the DR. He admits to being a bit skeptical at first about the traveling and the accommodations, but he expressed just how amazing the trip turned out to be and how thankful he was to have gone. 

This is Mike (or Michael). You already know him pretty well from my blog over the years. We have always enjoyed traveling together, especially on mission trips and to places that most tourists don't go. We haven't been on a mission trip together since we adopted Juan David from Colombia in 2013, and we haven't really traveled out of the country together since our cruise in 2019 to our three ports in Mexico, Honduras, and Belize. We did go on an excursion in Belize to tour an orphanage and get a taste of a typical meal there, which turned out to be a neat cross-cultural experience. 

We didn't think we could make it work out financially for both of us to go on this trip to the DR, but at the last minute, God worked it all out so he could go. We're really thankful that we got to have this experience together.  His skills definitely came in handy over the week. 

This is Melissa, our fearless leader. She's John's wife, and she's come to the DR with the youth mission trip about 7 times before leading this first-time ever adult/family trip. Her calm, laid-back personality was a big help on this trip. This is a picture of her with the child that her family sponsors, Escarle (who I got the privilege of tutoring over the week). Melissa and John were married within about a month of when Mike and I got married, so we have lived through many of the same life experiences as each other. 

This is Sarah, born a month after me. Her daughters are both in college right now, one at Grace College (I graduated from Grace) and one at Taylor University (I went to Taylor Fort Wayne my freshman year). She's a volleyball coach for BCSC (the district I teach in). She's on the prayer team at church, an incredible prayer warrior and very in tune with the Spirit. God gave her some very specific answers to her prayers over the week and made his guidance very clear over a specific child in need of a sponsor. Seeing her sweet connection with God over the week was truly inspiring and invigorating for my own faith. Her faith really touched my soul. I'm eternally grateful for this new friend and our opportunity to talk so deeply over our 8 days of traveling together. 

Here we are on Sunday morning worshipping online with the rest of our team, our family at Terrace Lake Church. The moment that our pastor prayed specifically for us gave me goosebumps. 

I love how God drew our small team together and bonded us all so well with the connections He knew we already shared. We sure had a lot of fun playing Dutch Blitz late into the night on several occasions! 

Our Terrace Lake team also became part of the overall Freedom International team, consisting of Abby (the teams coordinator), about 7 missionary couples with their families, about 3 more single missionaries, and then several year-long interns. We especially enjoyed getting to know Abby as she took care of our team, Ryan as he oversaw a lot of the grounds work that Mike and John did, Kimberly as she taught English to the Pre-K classes who we tutored, Scott as he gave us an educational tour of the neighboring bateys (villages for the sugar cane workers) and showed us where Freedom originally started, and Jacob and Mia, missionaries sent directly from Terrace Lake Church. Taylor Ingram has also been sent from our church, but she was at language school when we were there. With Mike and I still being fairly new in Columbus, we appreciate now having this connection with people like Jacob and Mia. We also got to know several of the interns, Lilly, Grace, and Maria, and hear their stories of how God called them to spend this year of their life serving at Freedom. Their passion for cross-cultural ministry reminded me so much of myself at their age, wondering just where God would place me and how He would use me. 

DR Reflections--Part 1 (Our arrival)

As I said in an earlier post, my first true exposure to the Spanish language came through a personal connection in my early teens to two high-school aged girls from the Dominican Republic who worked at McDonalds with my older brother. Over a period of time, they became like family to me, and I still call them my Dominican sisters today. They introduced me to their language, accent, culture, and food and music, giving me an insatiable thirst to immerse myself in all things Spanish. From then on, I excelled in any Spanish class I took and set my heart on traveling to Spanish-speaking countries that could bring my Spanish classes to life. 

God later opened doors for me to travel to Mexico numerous times on mission trips (and also a few personal trips), to study abroad in Argentina, and to make a weekend visit to Uruguay. Years later I spent time in and adopted my son from Colombia and later traveled to both Guatemala and Spain with him. My husband and I went on a cruise that stopped in Honduras and Belize. Now after 30 years since my first trip to Mexico, I finally made it to the Dominican Republic, the country that first captured my heart and gave me a desire to learn and embrace its language and culture. (If you count the United States, that makes it my tenth Spanish-speaking country to visit). 

We made it! 

And look how close we are to Puerto Rico, my next destination in just another two months!

Watching the flight tracker is one of my favorite things to do while in the air, showing me what places we're flying over and just where we are in the world. I loved seeing just how close the Dominican is to Colombia, the other country so near and dear to my heart. 

We were somewhat surprised at how mountainous we found the terrain as we flew into the Dominican. 

When I studied for my Spanish licensure exam last summer, I learned a lot more about each Spanish-speaking country's flag. I never knew before that the Dominican Republic is the only flag with a Bible on it. Getting to finally be on the ground to see their flag flying in the wind just filled my heart with delight. 

Even more interesting is the verse that Bible is open to on their flag. 

John 8:31-32

"If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will now the truth, and the truth will set you free." 

Sounds like a clear path to FREEDOM to me.

But first a stop at Wendy's to grab some lunch before we arrived at Freedom International Ministries.