Thoughts from a muddy road...

Driving along a muddy road in the outskirts of Villa Tapia last week, I was struck with the undeniable beauty of churches in partnership. My small team had just finished delivering food and providing medical attention to hundreds of people left homeless following the damage of Tropical Storm Noel in the Dominican Republic, and I was exhausted.

Eight of us were smashed into the back of a good-sized SUV, and when I paused to think about it, we had quite an interesting bunch. There were five Dominicans from ICC (Iglesia Comunitara Cristiana in Santo Domingo) and three Americans from Willow Creek Community Church, all of which had come together on this particular trip to serve a poor rural church in Villa Tapia, seriously affected by the storm. Although we had a few bilingual people in the vehicle, many of our conversations throughout the day happened through translation.

We had one more thing to do before heading back, which was to deliver the 100 new mattresses we had brought from the capital. Strong rains had fallen for four days straight leaving thousands of people in the Dominican Republic sleeping on wet sheets. Most people were trying hard to dry out anything they still had, so the delivery of these mattresses was going to give a dose of hope to some families who could really use it.

The easy, and often common way to distribute these mattresses would have been to bring them to the church building and make an announcement to the community. However, this often leaves the families who truly need the new mattresses out-of-luck and pushed to the back of the line.

Thankfully, this evening in Villa Tapia, we were doing something different as our SUV closely followed the delivery truck along a little road lined with wooden houses that had barely survived the floodwaters from the storm.

The pastor of the church in Villa Tapia was in the delivery truck ahead and knew which homes most needed the mattresses, so we would stop every so often to yell out the family’s name and carry their new mattresses into the home. He had done his homework before we had arrived: to walk this little street to check in with each household in his community. Some of the families would smile, some would give hugs and others didn’t quite have the strength to do much at all.
As the last mattress was delivered at the end of the road, I couldn’t help but be so proud of these three churches, working hard and well, together, in a time of great need – and getting the mattresses to the people who needed them most.