Why the Dominican Republic?

Why the heck did God send us to the Dominican Republic?? And what am I even doing here?? 

My squad has been doing ministry in the Dominican Republic for almost exactly a month now, and I want to answer all the “why’s??” to our work.

First off, my team lives on a base called Hope Mountain in Lajas De Yaroa. This is one of many ministries that have been established in the Dominican Republic (thanks God!). I want to premise this by saying that I have not been exposed to all the issues in this country nor do I have a big picture perspective on the solutions. However, I think it’s important to share anyways!

So this is all I have seen and know and have been apart of:  

What is the problem?

• The Dominican is one of the countries with the highest amount of prostitution/sex trafficking in the whole world. Prostitution is actually legal here, so it’s something that nobody is trying to hide. In the big cities, specifically, it’s not hard to spot the prostitutes. 
• In Dominican culture, it’s normal for men to have multiple households/get multiple women pregnant. God’s design of a family is not upheld very often and it causes a lot of hurt that no one talks about.  
• People don’t know who Jesus is!  

How is it being addressed?

• Hope Mountain is fighting to be a government approved safe house as well as a friendly environment for family retreats and youth camps in the summer. 
• Hope Mountain is employing young men from outside communities to give them a unique opportunity for work and a place to stay, along with the chance to be discipled in a Christian community. 
• The family that runs the base has started over three churches throughout the Dominican. The dad, Rueben, is a pastor at one of the churches, but He has also been raising up other men and women of God to pastor and lead these churches. 
• Hope Mountain reaches out to the neighbourhood their base was built in. They bring food bags to those in need and invite the community to be apart of “talent shows” and other group based gathering and activities. They have built good relationships with their neighbours, openly sharing Jesus with them. They get to be an example of a Christ-centered household and God’s design for a family.
• They have created a ministry opportunity with prostitutes in the closest beach town, called Puerto Plata. Bags of food items, necessities, and notes filled with words of life and scripture are brought to women who are apart of the sex industry. They all meet up and distribute the bags on the beaches, and keep in contact with the women receiving the them.  

What role does the World Race get to play in that? 

We have four different categories of ministry: admin, outreach, creative, and manual labor. Each team each week participates in a different ministry category, so at the end of each month every team gets the opportunity to do all of them.  

• Admin: My team has created a kids curriculum for the churches run by the family here at Hope Mountain. We went through the whole Bible, coming up with ways to share Bible stories in a kid friendly way and relate it all back to the Gospel. Other teams have sorted receipts and written blogs for Vicki, the mom, which in the long run allows her to use her time for more important ministry aspects. They have also created Tik Tok’s to inspire this generation and the next to follow God’s call to go on mission’s and at the same time make Hope Mountain known. 

• Outreach: My team has written notes that go in the bags of necessities for the prostitutes at the beach. We specifically prayed for a word and a verse, and after translating them to Spanish, wrote them on nice paper. Teams have also been taking weekly prayer walks throughout the neighbourhood, covering the people and homes around us in prayer. As well as prayer, we wrote notes full of scripture to be included in bags of food that we bought and handed out to specific homes in need throughout the neighbourhood. This week, my team created and handed out invites to the “Show de Talento” that is happening here on base this weekend. 

• Creative: There is another missionary from the United States, named Jamie, who now lives here and mainly uses her experience in dance as a ministry. Through her partnership with Hope Mountain, each week she has taken a few days to teach the team on creative a dance or a skit that incorporates the Gospel. My team learned a lyrical dance to the song “No Longer Slaves” in Spanish that expressed a personal fear that God has demolished in our own lives. The other teams have been apart of learning very different dances and skits that express the power of God in a creative way. We hope to share these dances and skits with the community at the talent show.  

• Manual Labor: We have all gotten to partner with the men that work here on base to make Hope Mountain a space to be a future safe house and a place for retreats and camps. We also have helped build a separate house for one of the workers that live here and began tearing down parts of the roach-infested house that the family who runs this base once was living in. It’s a lot of small, daily projects that add up to the big picture over time.