Months ago, I went to an interest meeting to go on a mission trip to the Dominican Republic during spring break. I remember thinking I couldn’t afford the payment to go. Then, I received a message from my missionary asking if I wanted to attend because it was the last day to sign up, and I only had to pay $100 down.
I signed up, raised the money to go, and now I’m planning my next one.
Why I Chose to Go
When I first heard about this trip, it was at an interest meeting after one of my Sunday student masses. My head missionary, Stephanie Shipley, shared information on what we’d be doing if we went along and showed us photos and videos of her past mission trips with the same organization.
I loved the aspects of helping rural communities have access to clean water and developing relations with people who lived in these campos (countryside). I’m also a native Spanish speaker, so I thought of it as an opportunity to immerse myself in an environment where I can speak it fluently again.
During the meeting, I was on board immediately and would do anything to be on this trip; however, I needed to raise $1,850 to be able to go, which seemed like a steep goal at the time. Thankfully, I had an amazing support system that helped spread the word of my cause to go to the Dominican Republic, and I raised everything I needed by the payment deadline.
My experience on the trip
My trip was with an organization called Blue Missions, which focuses on water-based projects in countryside communities in the Dominican Republic. They made this trip stress-free and safe for our group; I’d highly recommend doing a mission trip with them.
Every time someone has asked how my mission trip was, I always say it was life-changing. We went from a life of luxury to just the bare necessities we needed for the typical day-to-day activities. We slept on cots with bug nets, used toilets without plumbing, showered in tents with buckets or in the river, slept without air conditioning, and had no mirrors.
When I tell people this, they tell me that I’m not selling this experience to them, but the reason Blue Missions went on the trip was more important than how we lived for a week. We built about 30 water filters for families in the community so they could have clean water in their own homes instead of using other water with bacteria and microplastics in it. Then, we split into groups to deliver these filters to the different households and had the opportunity to connect with the people of the community more.
Towards the last few days of our trip, our leaders gave us a new task based on comments from people in our group. The roads were littered with trash that would then end up in the water they use, so we collected and filled about 10 trash bags by the end of the hour.
An emotional experience
After the labor of making and delivering the filters, the rest of our “free time” was spent playing with the community’s children. This was by far the best time; there was so much pure, childish joy that radiated not just from the kids but also from our group. We played sports with them, taught them card games, put them on our shoulders, showed them how to make rosaries, flipped them, danced with them, played in the river, and so much more.
We grew close with so many of them, ranging in age from babies to teenagers. I grew close to a one-year-old who was so precious and loved to play with my glasses, and these children allowed me to embrace my inner child throughout the whole trip. I splashed my entire group every time we were in the river.
I also interacted with the adults since I spoke Spanish, which I was extremely thankful for. A lot of the women were amazing as they shared their stories of the difficulties of maintaining the household when they had to travel to collect water from the rivers before Blue Missions came into their community.
Even if some of us didn’t understand the language, we used other means of connecting with the people. Music was a big form of connecting with the community — whether it was our group singing songs people strummed on the guitar, us playing Spanish music to dance to, or the community singing in Spanish during the masses we held. We also had a playlist we would listen to throughout the trip, which was another way that music was able to connect with my group.
Love was also a universal language we used with the community. Playing with the children and interacting with others showed a great deal of love that we wanted to share with everyone; the love the community shared with us also moved me so much that I didn’t want to leave.
MY MISSIONARY GROUP
A big reason why this mission trip was so fun was the extraordinary group of people I went with. It was filled with people from my church organization, Catholic Noles, and we had 13 students, four missionaries, one TOR Sister, one Priest, one seminarian, four Blue Missions interns, and four Blue Missions workers. There are honestly no words I can use to thoroughly describe how amazing these people are and how happy I am to have gone on this trip with them.
We were warned before the trip that we’d be getting very close and personal to each other, and this wasn’t wrong. We all shared our faith journeys, lived together, cried, ate every meal as a group, prayed together, and made many memories that will last a lifetime. We had a lot of “you had to be there” moments on this trip, where describing it will never be as memorable as living it.
Even the new people my group met from Blue Missions, such as the workers and interns, made the trip memorable. They all hold such a special place in my heart because their personalities are very vibrant and their hearts are so big. I couldn’t have asked for a better group of people to have experienced this mission with.
Overall, having a great group is a key ingredient to an outstanding experience. However, anyone you go with will make an amazing group because you’re working toward the same goals: helping others and building relations on a mission.
Even while still on the trip, I began dreaming of signing up for another one, and I’m hoping to do an internship with Blue Missions as soon as possible. There’s so much to learn from going to another place and experiencing a different community’s lifestyle; it made me change some of my habits once I got back, and this was a bucket list experience I’ll keep checking off repeatedly. If you don’t have plans during any break, I suggest looking into a mission trip to fill up your schedule — you won’t regret it!
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