The Cicero, Indiana, mission team and friends arrived March 12 in Santiago Rodriguez, Dominican Republic, excited to begin work. On prior mission trips, the Cicero team constructed eight houses of worship in six countries. With this experience, they quickly organized, sent out a medical team and then started construction on a church building in Santiago Rodriguez.
Construction soon began on a second smaller church in the little town of La Lana. The larger church built in Santiago Rodriguez was a Maranatha church; the smaller one was a gift from the Cicero Church and all materials were furnished by its members.
The medical team set up a clinic in a different town every day. Clinic facilities included a beauty shop, open shelter, the disco hall, and various homes. Cicero member Denise Fruth laughingly recalls meeting in a barn where baby chickens kept entering and exiting with continual shooing from the Americans!
Without a previous announcement people came by word of mouth, and even the schools let out so children could be brought to the doctor.
This year, for the first time, the team provided eye exams and offered reading glasses. The people were so grateful to have them. One older woman who hadn’t been able to sew or read was especially delighted. She remarked, “God sent you here! God bless you!” Bringing clear vision to approximately 100 pairs of blurred eyes was just a tiny taste of the joy Jesus must have experienced when He smeared mud on the blind man’s eyes and told him, “Go wash in the pool of Siloam.”
The team’s record was treating 209 people in one day and by the end of the trip, 1,056 patients had been seen. The medical personnel came home every night exhausted, but so happy.
Elwin Shull, a Cicero member, headed the pew construction crew for the churches built by team members. Over the past nine years, 225 sanctuary pews and 75 children’s pews have been constructed by Elwin's crew providing seating for approximately 2,000 people.
Words cannot describe the sights, sounds, smells, and feelings that accompany such a trip. What words describe the smile of delight on children’s faces as they look into a goody bag and realize the treasurers are for them? Before each mission trip Carolyn Rollins, a Cicero member, begins her annual gift of love, cutting and sewing bags to be filled with treasures by church members for the children. Throughout the years she has sewn nearly 2,000 bags and spends approximately 100 hours annually on this project. She has never experienced the joy of watching the children receive the bags, but keeps sewing, knowing her mission of love will bless many little lives.
How can you explain the feeling you get when little old people put their arms around you and hug you with joy at finally having a church home? What adjectives describe the look of hopelessness as sick children are held out to the doctor for help?
The Cicero mission team was reminded that as we give, so we also receive abundantly. May God impress the hearts of those who can go on mission trips, and those who cannot, to give of their time and means to help others experience these blessings.
Collene Kelly and Ramona Trubey are Cicero Church correspondents.
