This summer, youth and adults from College Hill Presbyterian Church participated for the first time in a marvelous mission endeavor through the Foundation for Peace in villages a little outside of Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. We received amazing hospitality at a missionary house in Yaguate owned and run by a Pentecostal church community. In this town, we offered a Vacation Bible School program for local children and assisted in a free medical clinic run by Dominican doctors and the Foundation for Peace. A bulk of the time was spent in another nearby village in Zumbon where volunteers worked hand-in-hand with the Dominicans to begin a foundation and walls for a Pentecostal church building. (See picture of their make-shift church)  There was a great amount of work accomplished on the church, as well as the chance to play daily with local children and provide a Vacation Bible School program for them, too. We also visited a local batey, which is a village for Haitian immigrants and their children who are hired out by Dominican sugar cane companies and invited to live there but not provided with sanitary conditions, water, and electricity. We did a Vacation Bible School program with them alongside the Dominicans from the Yaguate church. We were able to worship with both communities on four nights. Rev. Mihee Kim-Kort had the privilege of preaching at two services.

For everyone on the trip, this was a transformative experience. The ministry was absolutely mutual and went both ways: we shared in the work, hospitality, and in faith…in many ways, we received more than we gave to them. The ecumenical experience was insightful and thought-provoking as we worshiped with another denomination, and it gave us a broader picture of the body of Christ and how we might continue the work locally and abroad. The participants are eager to go back again next year with a larger group to continue church construction, and most of all, to maintain the wonderful relationships that began this summer.

Thank you to the Synod for your incredible support and financial assistance of $1500. We could not have made it there without you! We will never forget this experienc