CCME Summer Mission Trip to Dominican Republic: A Life-Changing Cultural and Spiritual Experience

Ten students and two members of the Spiritan Campus Ministry staff will travel to a Spiritan mission in San Juan de la Maguana, Dominican Republic, on Saturday, Aug. 2, to run a day camp for 80 children as part of the seventh Cross-Cultural Mission Experience (CCME) in the Dominican Republic.

The Cross Cultural Mission Experience group
The Cross-Cultural Mission Experience students

The CCME group works with Dominican teens in the youth group at Nuestra Señora de la Esperanza (Our Lady of Hope) Parish to create the day camp. Activities for the week will include: arts and crafts, sports, dance, story time and a pool day with the kids. While running the camp is the primary focus of the week in terms of planning and outreach, the trip encompasses a cultural and spiritual experience for the Duquesne students.

The students spend most of their time getting to know the teens through dancing, sharing meals, attending Mass and painting a mural for the parish each year. In addition, the CCME students spend their afternoons after camp ends taking in the various aspects of Dominican culture and getting to know the townspeople. The group will also tour significant Taíno Indian art and monuments; climb to the top of the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist (the tallest point in San Juan); swim in a hydroelectric reservoir; and hike in a nearby cave.

Students work closely with children at a day camp during the summer CCME trip to the Dominican Republic.
Students work closely with children at a day camp during the summer CCME trip to the Dominican Republic.

A unique Cross-Cultural Mission Experience, the trip provides an opportunity for students to travel to work with the Rev. Don McEachin, C.S.Sp., a seasoned Spiritan missionary who has spent years working in both Africa and the Caribbean. As a collaborative effort between Duquesne students and Dominican teens, they must work through language barriers and logistics to create a positive mentoring experience for the barrio’s youth. However, the most important themes that emerge in the group’s daily reflections are about the relationships being built during the camp.

Throughout the seven years that they have traveled to the mission, Duquesne students have expressed how important the people in the community and their growing relationships are to the overall understanding of Dominican culture and experiences. The friendships formed that week have the most important and long-lasting impact for both Duquesne students and the Dominican teens.

CCME day camp children
CCME day camp children

Taking the time to forge relationships with members of the community becomes the focus of the trip as students visit the teens’ homes, work together, pray together and enjoy each other’s company. Students are able to experience the true essence of Spiritan work in the community and translate how the work that they do on campus or in their future careers can have that same authenticity as during the Dominican Republic trip. This trip to San Juan de la Maguana is just one way that Duquesne students can begin to see how those on the margins are not drastically different from them and how, together, we have “One Heart, One Spirit.”

Author Kate Lecci, a Spiritan Campus Minister, has made four trips to the Dominican Republic to date, both as a student and as a staff member.