Our Summer Mission team returned last month from the Dominican Republic, each of them having grown in their faith and in their friendships with each other. Here two of them share with us something of what God did during their time away.

Jae Choi
As a World Missions first timer, I did not have lot of expectations as to how God would utilize me or how I would be transformed by participating in mission. My motivation was a sense of calling from God to participate, and my own desire to experience what it meant to go to another country and serve.
I hesitated at first about going on a missions trip. I didn’t want to take time off from work, go through the training, and everything elso that came with the trip. However, God’s calling overcame my hesitation and I eventually signed up.
As we met every week to discuss everything from logistics to what to expect, I started to look forward to my time in the Dominican Republic. Spending time with Rich and Christine helped me better understand why others wanted to go on missions, and gave me a chance to get to know each of them as individuals.
From our preparation to departure and our return from Dominican Republic, I sensed God’s presence. The missions trip reinforced my belief that God never leaves me. We may detour from our journey in life and in the midst may sense that God is no longer with us. However if we take a moment, we realize we are not alone. God never leaves us, no matter where we are in our walk. I was continuously reminded of this throughout the trip.
It was by his grace that we entered the DR without any problems. When rain threatened our movie night, we asked him to give us a dry night to show The Passion of the Christ and he provided. When the generator went out, he provided through a local pastor another sound system to use. As we lifted our prayers as a group, He provided; I was amazed at the power of group prayers. My experience on this missions team has reinforced my faith in power of prayer.

Rich Koh
I can still remember the first day I started to think about going on the Dominican Republic Mission trip. I didn’t know what to expect in details, but all I knew was we were going to Bateye Fao for God’s work and serve the people there. There are so many memories from this trip, but I learned much about following God’s will and about the power of prayer.
The first day in DR we decided to check the building site where 4 houses would be built. Bateye Fao lost 30 homes, which meant that 30 families didn’t have a home. We started helping by placing bricks and cement, but our understanding of how to build a house was different than the people of Fao. The people of Fao had a systematic way of building houses and God seemed to show us that we were interfering and actually making it harder for them to build. They were correcting our part of the work on the houses and it seemed we were making them frustrated. So instead of helping with construction, we felt God wanted us to just spend time with the people of Fao, from kids to adults. It was just awesome to play games with the kids and just get to know them. The kids were so energetic and always full of smiles. It was a blessing to interact with them and see happiness among them all.
In addition to being with the people of Fao, I also learned the power of prayer. On our last day in Fao, we planned to show The Passion of Christ, but during the day it was raining on and off during our prayer walk (visiting each home). We prayed that the weather would cooperate so Bateye Fao could get a chance to see the movie. It is to some of them a once in a lifetime moment to watch current movies. With prayer, the sky was clear, beautiful, and not a single cloud in the sky during the whole movie – it was just amazing. The people of Fao saw the movie and got to see how our Lord and Savior died on the cross for us. It was great to watch the movie with the people in the schoolyard and witness this moment.
On another side note, I didn’t know what a prayer walk was exactly, but I soon learned. Prayer walking is basically walking around the village, stopping by and praying for each house. The families of these houses would clean up their houses before we would arrive. Their cultural expectation was that we, as visitors, would enter their house and sit and talk with them. We asked them the following questions: What brought them to Fao? Who lives here? Do they go to church? What we could pray for them and their families? It was a blessing to stop by each house and listen to their experiences. I pray that God would work through them and believe in Him.
When I look back on my experience in DR, I know I was there for just a week, but I pray that the seed we planted in Bateye Fao will continue to grow in the village and within the people. I pray that they will continue to know that Jesus is our Lord and Savior. I also pray that in the future, there will be future trips to DR to continue to share in God’s work there. I would like to thank everyone for their support and hope more Cornerstone members will go to Dominican Republic in the future.