Promiseland Goes to the Dominican Republic

July 13-20th was an exciting and memorable week as Promiseland sent eight teammates to the city of Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic!  Our team’s two main goals for the week were to support the Children’s Ministry of long-time Willow Creek partner church Iglesia Comunitaria Cristiana (ICC) in their summer camp and provide training for church leaders in the community who work with kids.  We were thrilled to be involved with both.

Each day of the four-day camp brought about 140 bright and smiling little faces to the church building from ages 4-12. We were excited to support the children’s ministry by leading the games and crafts everyday.

The evening trainings, taught by our Promiseland team and translated by ICC, were also very well attended. The trainings focused on teaching the Bible creatively and the best ways to help kids learn, and we had 50-75 people from the church and outlying community come. Two of our team members, Doug and Tom, actually acted out a Bible Story for the class participants.  At this point in the training, there was no need for an Interpreter - as both men memorized their parts in Spanish! It was so thrilling and satisfying to watch the group then try out some of the skills they had just been taught.

Also, over the course of the week, our team witnessed God grow one of our teammates in a mighty way.  “Tomas” was not someone looking for an adventure this summer and when he was originally approached about the trip, his initial response was, “No thanks.”  He had many reasons why not to come:  He hadn’t traveled much outside the US, he didn’t speak Spanish, he was concerned about the cultural differences and he thought there was not much for him to do on a trip like this.  However, as he sensed the nudge of God in his life about this trip, he reluctantly agreed to come.  Now, Tomas sees this trip so very differently.  Instead of experiencing difficulty in all of the concerns he had. Tomas experienced deep joy.   While the language differences might have slowed down the communication process, God lost no time in the bonding of our hearts. 

Our team members and their team members were able to take our differences and similarities and learn from one another.  Daily, we were (and are) reminded that we are the Body of Christ, serving, really, in 1 church.