The Dominican Republic
- Maggie Coyle
- Nov 19, 2019
- 2 min read
June 30, 2019
A whole 24 hours of traveling later.. and I had arrived at what became my happy place. I was on my first ever mission trip to the Dominican Republic. We stayed in San Juan at a Christian guest house. The team and I got there later around five pm. After having our flight leaves without us and being stuck in the Chicago O’Hare airport for 13 hours or so, we were exhausted by the time we got there. When we got to the guest house we relaxed a bit but went over guest house rules. For a poor country in which you can’t drink the water, the places we stayed weren't that bad. After an hour of settling in, we hopped into the bed of a truck and went off to a church service in the village.
July 1, 2019
As our mission work, we spent the first two days doing construction at a site to help build a clinic hospital. Spending hours a day in 100 degree weather with horrible sunburns, we dug holes and made cement. The highlight of breaks was reaching for mangos off the trees and eating them. The Dominican had amazing ripe fruit. The following night we went to what was called Barrios, a neighborhood of slums where the children would run up to play with us. Even though the litter, pollution, and poverty was horrible, it was worth going through to make the kids days. Stray dogs would run around eating trash.
July 2-4, 2019
The following last few days in the guest house consisted of more construction and VBS (vacation Bible School) with the local kids. We took a few more trips up to the barrios before we had to leave the next morning.
July 5, 2019
After about a 2 hour drive we made it to the resort we stayed at for the last few days. The Dominican Fiesta Hotel was huge and very well kept. After seeing the outskirts and living in poverty, going to this was a huge change. There was a huge pool area, soccer field, sand volleyball, gym, etc. It was nice to treat the last two days as a vacation at the resort. The first night we ate at a steak restaurant, Grilling Fusion restaurant. https://www.facebook.com/GrillingRestaurant. Everyone got steaks but I got chicken. The next morning many of us ended up sick for weeks from whatever was cooked with the meat. We still couldn’t have water even at the resort which was hard.
July 6, 2019
Our last full day we got breakfast in the morning in the hotel, enjoying the fresh fruit one more time. We played sand volleyball, soccer, and stayed at the pool of course. That night we went to a beautiful Italian restaurant, Franco Ristorante Pizzeria. They had amazing pizza, and nobody got sick either! It was a warm summer night and the lights at the top of this rooftop eating area was beautiful. https://www.instagram.com/francoristorantepizzeria/?hl=es-la
Even though this was a mission trip and not so much a vacation, this was my favorite, life changing trip I have ever been on. I highly recommend going on a mission trip, especially seeing the worst side of the island and then going to a nice part. Experiencing new cultures is something everyone should experience.
Wow, this sounds like an amazing experience! It is so important to help out and it is really cool that your church was able to set up this mission trip. I'm glad you were able to make the work still enjoyable and that you got a few days to relax and enjoy the Dominican Republic. I will definitely be adding this to my list of places I would like to travel!