Note: A Team of 12 people from Westdale Reformed Church, Hamilton spent 10 days at the end of January helping to build a school for Worldwide Christian Schools - if you want more info about this organization, visit their website at: http://wcsca.convio.net/site/PageServer?pagename=Reg0_BuildASchool

Here is a report on the experience from one of the participants, John Kapteyn, written during the trip.

St Francis wrote this prayer centuries ago:
Lord, make me an instrument of thy peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love.
Where there is injury, pardon.
Where there is discord, vision.
Where there is doubt, faith.
Where there is despair, hope.
Where there is darkness, light.
Where there is sadness, joy.
O divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be
consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand;
to be loved, as to love;
for it is in giving that we receive,
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
This prayer may best describe the experience that 12 of us from Westdale Reformed are experiencing here in the Dominican Republic.
We have just finished five and a half days of hard work in the hot sun with temperatures over 40 degrees. Some of our team have used our carpentry skills to build forming for a concrete floor and stairs to add a second story to a Christian school. Some of us have helped as we could. Some of us have spent hours playing games and spending time with many of the 300 pupils in this school in San Pedro. The homes around the school are made of either pieces of sheet metal or concrete. The roads seem like they have suffered through a war. They are full of debris and the potholes are much worse than even some we have in Hamilton.

The people are poor but I cannot help but feel that I am the one who is really missing out. The children, the Dominican workers, and the teachers all seem to have such joy, love and friendliness that most of us never come to experience. Their joy is in the Lord, their family and their community. They may be poor from a worldly perspective but spiritually they are rich. They loved us and cared for us. They played games with us and wrote letters of appreciation to us. They gave us gifts to show their gratitude to us for helping them turn this run down, undersized school into a facility that will serve them much better.

Each morning our Dominican co-workers greeted us warmly. I was especially moved by Ernesto, 57 years old and a grandfather of 20 children. He worked nonstop, doing the hard work that others would shy away from. When one of us would be sick, the children showed concern and compassion. I think that I can speak for our entire group, when I say that we will never be the same as we were when we came a week ago.

These words but scratch the surface of the love we received from those whom we came to give love to. As St. Francis said, it is in giving that we receive. As Paul says in Galatians 5:6, ¨The only thing that matters is faith expressing itself in love.¨ We came to share love, but the love which we received far outweighs that which we have.

Thank you,God, for we have seen your face in all those beautiful people we have met this week.

Blessings
Pastor John