Yesterday was a day off, a tourism day for us to check out different parts of Santo Domingo and see some sites. Today was also supposed to be a day off according to our original itinerary. It was Constitution Day in the Dominican Republic and that's a national holiday where nobody works. The missionaries had something pretty nice planned originally but seeing that 2 of our 7 days there would be spent not serving, we asked if there was any way we could politely decline the extra day off and find a way to minister somewhere.
God had something big in store that we could have in no way imagined. Because it was a holiday in the DR, almost nobody was working. A number of churches in the area had been working on a way to serve a village of mainly Haitian immigrants. The government doesn't recognize them so they don't receive any help whatsoever. The churches had been planning a medical missions with local doctors and nurses to go, take medicine, and treat who they could in this village. Because we politely asked if there was a way we could serve as oppose to relax on a beach somewhere, and because it was a national holiday giving all the doctors and nurses involved the day off, we were able to make a medical mission of the day and serve a community in desperate need of medication and medical attention.
We served just under 100 patients from within a little church that had been planted there. We also spent time with the children of the community, playing soccer and teaching them about Jesus. We even had time to deliver more crisis care kits to the homes in the village as well. That's where things got a little interesting.
When passing out these kits to the community we always trust the local church to best disseminate them to the people. As we started delivering these packages - once again in abject poverty, even more so than El Rosario - we began to feel the tension of the people there. The Haitian village speak a couple different languages, spanish and creole, making communication even more difficult. From what we could gather the pastor decided to give the kits to the families that most needed them rather than each family of the village. This caused quite the stir among some of the villagers.
As we passed one woman sitting in a chair she began to raise her voice towards the pastor we were following and us. Then a man from nearby did the same only took it to a whole new level. He was shouting at the top of his lungs at the pastor. We found out later that he was yelling gibberish - he was yelling in neither spanish or creole, he was just yelling. He was upset. He was needy and he was desperate. The pastors in the group quickly decided to alter plans and quickly move through the village giving each household one crisis care kit. That still caused an uproar when people wanted one per person when they received one per family. It's hard to describe in the moment but we continually prayed to God for guidance, protection and wisdom as we tried to do what we could to help them.
It reminds us that when Jesus talks about the least of these, he never says it's gonna be easy.
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