Jarabacoa, Dominican Republic 2025 #3

Jarabacoa, Dominican Republic 2025

   Experiencing the culture of the Dominican Republic has been one of the highlights of our trip. Students International provides several opportunities throughout the week to learn about their dances and foods. One evening the Students International summer interns hosted a dance night. One of the Dominican women from the staff taught us the steps to the Merengue and the Bachata. The beat to the music was pretty fast, so it was fun to try a new type of dancing. The food at the base is prepared by Dominican women, so it is very similar to the food a person would find in the city. They had prepared a Dominican favorite meal called Sancocho. It’s a delicious rustic stew with meat and root vegetables that is served with white rice. Another evening we visited a local home and enjoyed Dominican hospitality and an authentic meal.

    Another highlight of the week was going on a vision tour of all of the ministry sties offered through the city of Jarabacoa. It was meaningful to see the fruits of the service and ministry that short term and long term missionaries have poured into the communities for decades. The group of leaders toured the education, social work, youth sports, microfinance and water filtration locations. The region is very beautiful with tree covered mountains and valleys, so the travel up and down narrow steep roads were common. It makes the work of outreach even more critical in the remote areas as they have more distance to travel for resources.

   The small team of Patricia, Jeff and Peggy have had a lot of opportunities to spend with the Lord. It has been good to spend time in devotions and worship. We got together every evening for a time to debrief about our day and has helped us to develop a stronger relationship with each other as well as with the people we are serving. There have been some unexpected experiences that have been sometimes challenging and other times joyful. It has been a wonderful week serving in the D.R. and we are preparing to return home to share how we have seen the Lord working in this beautiful county.

- Peggy Close