The New York Times recently published an article stating that mission trips barely have an impact on the overall poverty of 3rd world countries. It claims that “Easing global poverty is an enormously complex task. To make so much as a dent requires hard, sustained work, and expertise. Even the experts sometimes get it wrong.”  This year over spring break I went on a week long mission trip to the Dominican Republic. I went with my church, Trinity Baptist Church. The church goes every year but this was my first time to go. We undoubtedly helped a lot of people but Dominican translator, Keny Tardes, said that “Y’all did not make an impact because the Dominican Republic has so much poverty but I am glad that your church came and I miss y’all.”

We went to help Haitian refugees that lived on plots of land called bateys. The people who live on bateys are allowed to live there if some of them will harvest crops for the owner, who is like a dictator and usually decides that they get no pay. A typical batey has no electricity, about 80 houses with each house being the size of a large closet and one bed, and about 1000 people. The Haitians are living there because they have fled even worse living conditions from Haiti. Haitians are treated badly from Dominicans and the government does not except them. Unlike in the U.S., when a person is born here they are automatically considered a citizen but there the Haitians are never accepted even after generations of living there. 

A few days were taken up with traveling but on the first day that we actually did stuff I did construction. We were helping build a school for a very poor community. The school’s building funds were minimal so we had to do everything the old fashioned way, which means having to make cement ourselves and shoveling sand and rocks into buckets then raising those buckets on pulleys to the third floor. For most people construction was the least enjoyable activity because the work was not easy, it was very hot in the Dominican, and we did not have much shade. I spent my second day doing VBS (Vacation Bible School). We went to a batey and used a sable mall, two classroom school. We were going to do VBS in the school but since the school was so small and we also had people doing a clinic inside the school we decided to not do VBS and just play with the kids outside. Playing with the kids was one of the best parts about the entire trip because they were fun and loving even though we couldn’t talk to them in Spanish.

The next day I did the clinic. We didn’t go to a batey but it was still an extremely poor community. We had a couple of doctors and one nurse that we had hired and taken with us to help us with the complicated things. Everyone did something productive; I took blood pressure. Every person that came to the clinic needed something and was at least given multivitamin/mineral pills and anti pesticide medicine. On the last day I did water purification. We went to a batey and set up 20 water filters inside a church and distributed them to 20 different houses. At each house we gave them their water filtration system and showed them how it works. We explained to them how to use it and how to clean the filter so that it will work well for at least 10 years. At the end of each demonstration we prayed for them. In between each house the kids walked with us and held our hands. At the houses they would try to play and communicate with us. The water purification day was my favorite day out of the trip because of the children and the amount of gratitude the people gave us.

My trip to the Dominican Republic was a lot better than I thought it would be and I am glad I went. Bob Jones student who also went on the trip, Thomas Oliver, said “It was my first time out of the United Sates and I think we did a lot of good work down there. Bringing food and water and helping build houses and adding onto the school and giving people checkups and getting them medications were things that we specifically did and I think they’re all very impacting.” Thomas also said, “I’m glad I went and I can’t wait to go next year.” I am also very grateful that I went but I think that we made a large impact but to a small amount of people.