For the past four years the Northeast Grand Rapids Young Life Area has led a service trip to the Dominican Republic.
Not a mission trip, a service trip.
“We don’t call it a mission trip because we are going to serve and support what is already happening with Young Life down there, to serve and connect with that community,” says area director Matt DeHoog.
The team of students from the Forest Hills area go on this trip to partner with the Young Life staff that is already leading club and doing ministry in the Dominican Republic, as well as serve at Young Life’s Pico Escondido Camp in the mountains of Jarabacoa.
The service trip offers a unique experience for the students of Forest Hills, it invites them to Dominican Republic into a setting that is completely different from the all inclusive resort, to take a spring break that is normally dedicated to leisure and use it to serve. “We wanted to introduce them to a God who is bigger than their material possessions, to share a meal with someone who doesn’t own a car.”
The trip consists of two portions, the first of which is spent in the communities and villages around Santiago. The students and leaders are housed with families in the area in homes that range from pit toilets to three bedroom homes with running water.
But the community that these students encounter in these homes is so beautiful and deep, the meals they share from these patio kitchens, they provide a shift in perspective, true happiness isn’t about material goods…
“Even though there was a language barrier, the love of Jesus enabled us to go home feeling like we had left family behind in the Dominican Republic,” says trip leader and Young Life Special Ministries Coordinator, Ruth Bratt.
The second portion of the trip consists of time spent serving at Pico Escondido, doing gardening, building fences and clearing trees. Service work trips have been long standing at Pico Escondido, but Matt DeHoog was the first to imagine that these service trips could be used as a transformative spring break experience for high school students.
This trip mainly targets high school juniors and seniors, with a special focus on high school Juniors. The reason behind this centers around the vision that started the Dominican Republic trip in the first place…
Young Life’s main mission is to introduce adolescents to Christ and help them grow in their faith. DeHoog and the other leaders in the Northeast Grand Rapids Area felt they were doing a great job with the first part of their mission, but that they needed to do more with the second half. They wanted something significant they could invite juniors into after their time at club or wilderness ranch was behind them.
Ultimately they wanted Juniors and Seniors to view Young Life as more than entertainment, to take it out of a consumer mentality and use it as a way to connect friends with the message of Jesus.
And out of this desire the Dominican Republic trip was born.
The hope, the prayer is that after their transformative experience in the Dominican Republic these students will have a deeper bond with their leaders and area director. That because of their time spent out of their comfort zone, the work raising funds and serving on this trip that they will engage with the Senior Discipleship program and develop a faith that sticks around in college and well beyond.
For more information or to support this trip email Matt DeHoog, mattdehoog (at) gmail (dot) com.
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