2023 Summer Youth FOUNDations Mission Trip
2023 Luz de Sion, Dominican Republic Trip Summary
Our Summer FOUNDations trip for 2023 was conducted from July 7-17 at the Luz de Sion church in the Dominican Republic. We built a church, conducted a dental clinic and children's ministry for the area. This trip is focused on our young people from our church and 37 of the 54 volunteers were young people.
Our group of construction volunteers were able to complete the church building in six days. We were able to help with completing the roof and worked wonderful Maranatha team that had worked with our young people in previous years. We were able to dedicate the completed church on Sabbath and the entire congregation was in attendance. The weather was VERY hot and humid, but we were blessed to work right next to a mini ice factory at the building next door! Once we confirmed that the ice was purified, we were able to cool ourselves a bit better later in the week.
Our VBS team was able to present children's ministries at the local school for over 60 local children. The children were very receptive and quickly formed bonds with our volunteers. In addition, after VBS every day, a group of our volunteers led English as a Second Language (ESL) classes. Our ESL team taught well over 60 adults and children each day!
Our dental team was able to serve over 150 patients during their time in the community. We build a church for the conference president (Gabriel Paulino) in 2013, so he was VERY helpful to our group and was able to loan the dentists chairs, machines and cleaning items from ADRA. We were also able to get assistance from two local dentists, which allowed us to treat many more patients!
For our excursion, we were able to take a boat ride to go snorkeling and to visit Isla Catalina for a great day on the ocean.
We were fortunate enough to be at the church in October when it was dedicated. What a fantastic experience!!
If you are interested in taking part in a future mission trip. please reach out via the Contact page for more information about short term missionary opportunities.
