As Holy Ghost Prep’s 5
th Annual Mission Trip to the Spiritan Mission of Nuestra Senora de la Esperanza came to a close we gathered for Mass with Fr. Don and the people of San Juan de la Maguana in the Mission Church. It is a simple Church with very few religious decorations and objects d’art. However, there is one painting in the front of the Church that symbolizes the hope of the people we went to be with. It is a painting of an expectant Mary (see below). There was a sense of gratitude and joy in that assembly that morning that unfortunately is not often experienced in our home churches. The children from the camp came to say farewell and to make sure we knew that they wanted us to come back and just “be with them” again next summer. (Many of the older children who have been a part of the camp in the past came to see how former missioners are doing.) The relatives of the children came to express their gratitude for our having come to be with them for this special week. Surrounding this church is a poverty that most of us could not endure for very long, but inside that simple church on that hot and humid Sunday morning, there was a wealth of spirit that many of us greatly desire but rarely experience. As with all truly successful missions there is a spirit of reciprocity, but as many of our young missioners discovered, it seemed liked we took a lot more from the Mission than we gave.
Following Mass there was a time for saying farewell and taking photos…this took over an hour. We all gathered over in the playground area that Mr. Malley, the Crawfords, Justin Berg, Marc Connuck, Patrick Higgins and many others have devoted the last few mission trips to building. This simple playground too symbolizes the hope of our mission – to just be with the people and what better way to be with the people than to play and just enjoy this special place to re-create. (…see photos).
After a long road and hot road trip down from the highlands to the Capitol City of Santo Domingo we spent our final night in the Dominican Republic in Juan Dolio which is only around 35 minutes from the airport and is actually on the beautiful Caribbean.
No, we did not spend the week in Punta Cana. We spent the week with the Dominican people, and although Punta Cana is nice, San Juan de la Maguana is
a more special and beautiful place, because it was there that the children and adults of the mission created a place and space for us to be with them.
Yo Maguana Siempre!
