Another mission trip has come to a close. We’re on our way home – first leg, Santiago, Dominican Republic to Newark. I am utterly and completely exhausted. But it is that best kind of exhaustion borne of hard work performed on someone else’s behalf. Our team really came together this week and poured their all into the mission. Many of us did not know each other prior to this trip, we return home as a mission family. Relationships are developed with so many, the common purpose of working for others erases differences and obstacles that often impede our connection with other people. The house we worked at all week was in a sort of semi-urban setting on a short street with a few homes and a bodega on the corner. Many of the neighbors took a real interest in our activities with a woman across the street making us coffee, a furniture maker next door helping repair dressers and loaning us tools while filling the area with Spanish music from his stereo. Young children watching curiously and playfully interacting with Ethan, Logan and Aiden. A neighborhood ‘den mother’ directing traffic and keeping a watchful eye on the elderly homeowner. Haitian contractors working hard in the Caribbean heat and allowing us to pitch in where we could. An older neighborhood ‘character’ who liked to be in the mix and particularly loved dancing with Candace in the street. Interpreters helping us work in a three-language setting – Spanish, Haitian Creole and English. Mission of Hope employees and interns helping us secure supplies and navigate the local setting. Dedicated team members always looking for what else is needed. A project to demo interior walls in the home and build new ones expanded to include emptying the home and sorting through so much stuff and discarding two large truck loads of unneeded items, a bathroom addition needed reroofing, we pooled funds to purchase the homeowner a new refrigerator, a new window was added to the dark home, a rear patio/garden area was cleared, and the entire concrete floor was broken up with sledge hammers to allow for pouring of a new floor. The new floor will be completed next week by the contractors. The end of the week brought tearful goodbyes with people we couldn’t imagine meeting a week ago and will likely never see again during our earthly life.
Morning and evening meals and free time allowed us to interact with other groups, including a medical team that had a father and daughter from Apple Valley as part of their group. The daughter joined us every morning for our group Rosary. There was also a team from Tennessee with many young members that welcomed our young guys for evening activities like volleyball. We bonded as a team at night with cards and conversation and vast amounts of laughter. We shared much about our faith and our families and our joys and our struggles. Removing ourselves from our normal day-to-day to work together in this strange and different environment fosters immediate closeness. The addition of our old friend Reggie, who wrote for our blog earlier this week, just put icing on the mission cake.
I feel God’s presence throughout the week, my prayer at the end of this trip is the same as it is every year as we return home. I pray for one more trip. These trips overwhelm me physically, emotionally and spiritually. My old friends greet me with smiles and hugs and my new friends welcome me with acceptance and trust. We continue to pray for our friends in Haiti and dream of a return there someday, but we also trust that God will continue to place us where we are needed and I pray that I will be able to continue to answer the call to mission.
Dave Berg
