DominicanRepublicMissionTrip - Deep River Congregational Church

Deep River Congregational Church

The Dominican Republic Mission Team is HOME!!!!

This mission is in conjunction with the First Church in East Haddam and the United Church of Chester. Members from our congregation are: Pamela Garner, Tim and Phyllis Haut.

We ran medical clinics on the Bateys (small villages on the sugar plantations) daily, providing medical care, medications, eye glasses, food and clothing. Most of the villages have no running water or electricity. These people live in indentured servitude with no health care or education available but what is brought in by volunteers.

The mission team bus headed out along dusty roads through tall fields of sugar cane to bring medicine, food and clothing to the bateys (villages)of the Dominican Republic.

The bus of the Good Samaritan Hospital in La Romana arrives at the batey.

Children wait outside the building, hoping they will not be forgotten.

A full clinic at another batey.

La Casa Pastoral, our home base, dining room, and women's dormitory in the city of La Romana.

The cozy accomodations of the men's dormitory, where fans provided some relief from the heat (when the electrical power was working).

An evening assembly line divides bulk beans, rice, pasta, cooking oil, and sardines into packages for distribution the next day.

Jamie Hinchliff, a nurse and team leader, poses with bulk rice to be distributed--a staple of the local diet.

Sights of the DR: a batey street

Sights of the DR: a sugar cane weighing station

Along the road, women sift through refuse.

Looking out of the batey into the cane fields

Sights of the DR: sweaty t-shirts hung out to dry--on the roof!

Residents of the batey line up at the medical clinic, which has been speedily set up in a one-room cinderblock school.

Children and grownups all receive a dose of anti-parasite medication, affectionately known as "bug juice."

Nurse Phyllis Haut sees a woman patient as a local interpreter (left) translates.

Dr. Marguerite of the Good Samaritan Hospital accompanies our Mission Team to a different batey every day.

Food and clothing are distributed off the back of the schoolbus--a two weeks supply costs about $5 in American money.

Tim Haut with a group of batey kids.

Medicines brought with us from Connecticut are arranged for dispensing.

Nurses' stations are constantly busy.

The Rev. Kathy Peters of the United Church of Chester, one of our team leaders, with Pam Garner in the pharmacy.

Our Mission Team called ourselves "blue shirts," which were often soaking wet because of the tropical heat.

Dinner time at La Casa Pastoral.

Pam Garner leads morning devotions.

The 2008 Dominican Republic Medical Mission Team.

Sights of the DR: Sugar Cane

Sights of the DR: dusty roads through the cane fields from the windshield of our old schoolbus

Rev. Tim Haut with batey church leaders after preaching at a Creole service (with the help of a translator) on Sunday morning.

Sights of the DR: leftovers

Everywhere on the bus!

After each day's clinic, the Mission Team prayed together over the names of every patient and child seen during that day.