It was a first for me. I’ve led many trips to the Dominican Republic, but they’ve always been HOPE International trips. We’ve exposed our guests to the Dominican culture and introduced them to the hard-working clients we serve. But for this trip, I linked arms with friends at Edify and Plant With Purpose. We invited friends of each of our organizations to meet Dominicans served by all three of our organizations.
Compassion, Healing Waters and the Local Church
We landed in Santo Domingo just after noon. Our guests packed light and we were able to bypass baggage claim and head straight for our first ministry visit. As a bonus, we arranged a visit to a church near our hotel. This Pentecostal church modeled partnership perhaps better than I’ve ever visited. Their church building was a hub for ministry in the community. In the basement, children sponsored through Compassion International met in classrooms to study God’s word, learn to read and to play with one another. A sewing and literacy training center was located on the second floor. And at the ground level, a clean water outlet disbursed safe water to the community. Healing Waters International designed the water solution. Using creative technologies will provide clean water to this community for at least ten years.
Highlight: The pastor, Domingo, reflected on how his church has changed over the years. Early on, he and his church condemned their neighborhood, quick to note the sin they saw in their community. Today, however, the community knows them by the way they serve. And the church is growing. This church serves with the help of partners, all of whom work with and through their church. “We see all these organizations as links in the same chain.”
Plant With Purpose
On day two, we were on the road early and started our day with Plant With Purpose (PWP). We visited a community they serve and met the farmers they work with. We toured the farm of Eladio Cabrera. He showed us the compost pile and organic fertilizer he created with the help of PWP and pointed out the diverse crops growing on his beautiful land. Avocados, coffee, pineapples, yucca, and citrus trees colored the fertile countryside. We finished our morning with a lunch at his home, feasting on the produce from his farm.
Highlight: As we stood by the lemon trees overlooking the rolling Dominican hills, Mr. Cabrera commented, “Even if someone offers a great price, I will not sell this farm. I raised my family on this land.”
Edify
In the afternoon, we visited the first of three Edify schools we saw during the trip. Edify serves over 500 “edupreneurs” in the DR. On average, these private Christian school proprietors outperform government schools by a margin of 3:1 and do so affordably. The first school–Mi Casita (“my little house”)–served close to 300 students, all paying $20/month for a top-notch education. There are some children unable to afford that rate so this edupreneur actually has 35 students on full scholarship. My wife, Alli, teaches first grade in a Title 1 school in the Denver Public Schools system. And so meeting these students and seeing them thrive brought great joy to me, personally.
Highlight: We prayed for the proprietor before leaving her school. And she blessed us by returning the favor, praying for the members of our group. The spirit of mutuality we experienced throughout the trip sharply countered the paternalism so common on many short-term missions trips.
HOPE International
We visited two additional Edify schools on Friday. Our partner, Esperanza, partners with Edify as their lender. When these school owners are ready to expand or improve their buildings or add computer labs, Esperanza and Edify together provide the loan. Esperanza serves over 8,000 Dominican entrepreneurs. Brunilda was the “missionary banker” to the three Edify edupreneurs we visited and a separate group of eleven entrepreneurs we also met. We participated in an Esperanza community bank meeting, where Brunilda artfully modeled the three services HOPE provides its clients: biblically-based business training, savings accounts, and business loans.
Highlight: We finished our day by visiting Ingrid. Ingrid took her first business loan out in 2010. At that time, she had just one sewing machine and two employees. Today, she has five sewing machines and seven employees. Her business continues to flourish. I was struck, however, not by her business success, but by the way she conducted her business. The Bible on her desk was not a paper weight. It was her source of encouragement and guidance in her business. “My faith impacts everything that I do,” she shared. “I came to Esperanza for the business loan, but experiencing God was the real value of working with them.”
Summary: The 13 guests I traveled with were all emerging young leaders. As a group, we read the story of William Wilberforce, a man who at the age of 26 determined to abolish the slave trade in the British Empire. And he did. But he didn’t do it alone. In his summary of Wilberforce’s life, biographer John Pollock summarized, “Wilberforce proved that a man can change his times, but that he cannot do it alone.” Amen.