Servants of Villa Hermosa

Courageous. Loving. Visionary. Responsive. Humble.

These are but some of the words that describe the servant-leaders we met who have sacrificed to minister to the physical, spiritual and emotional needs of people in some out-of-the-way places that we visited in Republica Dominican. 

These people work together. Really together. And sacrificially. Their stories are powerful examples of service, commitment and responding to a call.

Lupita Gonzales (left) visited these communities in 2004 on a "vision trip" from her home in Nogales, Mexico and decided to move to Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic to join the team as a teacher and children's/youth minister.

Alba Estevez (right) is a medical doctor who joined the ministry team about five years ago and runs a community health program, providing health check-ups and visits, vaccinations and hygiene and birth control training for people in various outlying and rural communities in the DR.

Jose and Carmen Rodriguez (left) have been the heart and soul of the church, school and water purification plant in Villa Hermosa since their inception a few years ago. These modest facilities are like a community center, or the city gate in ancient times, as Agua Bendicion (the water store, literally, "Blessing Water") does a very brisk business, attracting young children, grandfathers, single mothers, twenty-somethings, the local robust retired army general, the 94-year-old woman who lives across the unpaved street and anyone else looking to fill their 5-gallon water bottle with clean drinking water. Pastor Jose knows just about everyone who comes along and he greets them all with a hearty smile and a warm greeting, even at the end of a very long day of wearing multiple hats -- mason, laborer, program director, children herder, VBS emcee and gracious host to our group of American volunteers.

Jose earned a university degree and had a good career as a manager at a ceramics manufacturing company. His story is truly inspiring. To hear him tell it (via Andy, our trusty translator) and to see his emotion and humility was for me, a special moment. His life was transformed by a message of hope -- found in the person of Jesus -- a message that he initially resisted hearing. He actually threw rocks at Joaquin, the pastor who started a church and school (and eventually a water purification plant) in another part of Santo Domingo where Jose used to live. Jose and many others actively, and sometimes violently, worked against Joaquin's efforts to share this message and plant this church.

Once transformed, Jose brought this message of hope -- God making things right -- to the people of Villa Hermosa, taking his daily lunch breaks from his job to walk down the sometimes muddy road into the nearby community of the poor and forgotten. 

Joaquin (right) and Jose (middle) have since reconciled and are now friends and ministry partners working together to help others. Jose has passed the torch to Juniel (left), entrusting the care of these people, their church, school and water plant to this young man. Jose and Carmen's future plans are to push about 20 km further into Villa Hermosa and begin anew because Jose's heart is to be at the frontier of transforming lives, transforming communities with good news and the accompanying abundant life of social, spiritual, emotional and physical healing.

Like cold water to a weary soul is good news from a distant land.

- Proverbs 25:25

I have come that they might have life and have it more abundantly.

- Jesus

Blessings! More later at http://dominicanproject.blogspot.com