United by Baseball, United Through Christ
I found out today that the word “batey” is Creole for a shanty town. I find it hard to imagine feeling good about wearing the word “batey” on a uniform. I would have difficulty feeling a sense of belonging with that polarizing label sewn across my chest.
For these kids, that does not matter. Where they come from is more than a degrading label. Where they come from is their family, their friends and their God, who does not distinguish between Batey Aleman and Beverly Hills.
Continue Reading ›If You Build it, He Will Come
Yesterday was Father’s Day in the Dominican Republic. It’s no coincidence that the day we handed out uniforms to these young men and boys is a day that represents the absence of a father for many of them.
When we arrived at the batey, we assembled all of the parents for a meeting. The assembly was mostly mothers and the lack of fathers present at the meeting was very noticeable.
Continue Reading ›
Bringing Baseball to the Batey: Rained Out
Yesterday, I made it into Batey Aleman, during a complete rainout. Tropical Depression Bonnie paid a visit and the rains haven’t ceased.
Right before going to the batey, I stopped at the Compassion Dominican Republic office and saw the 87 boxes of Rawlings and Nike equipment lining n entire wall three feet deep. I also learned quite a bit about Albert Pujols involvement in all the details of this league, including the discussions he had with Nike and Rawlings about what the team would look like.
Bringing Baseball to the Batey
A batey (buh-TAY) is a sugar plantation in the Dominican that mostly uses the labor of Haitians. Most bateys are defunct, but in some case the Haitians have been permitted to stay on the land, living in slums with little clean water or any means of support.
Chiropractors With Compassion
The hard work of Chiropractors With Compassion has helped transform the community of Batey Angelina from a place many wanted to leave behind into a model community in the Dominican Republic.
With a network of nearly 100 doctors of chiropractic throughout Canada and the United States, committed to donating U.S. $20.00 for every new patient that comes into their clinic, Chiropractors With Compassion have been able to raise around $1.2 million dollars since their founding in 2004.
By partnering with Compassion Canada, they have funded a number of major projects around the world and Batey Angelina is one of these.
Helping Haiti: Our Food Kit Distribution Process
We continue to procure and deliver relief supplies through our staging area in Florida and our two supply warehouses in Haiti. We estimate that 1,000 emergency relief food kits are arriving in Haiti daily, some of which are donated by church partners in the Dominican Republic.
Food kits are put together in the Dominican Republic and delivered to our Port-au-Prince warehouse via large trucks. In high-risk areas, we use security assistance from the U.S. Army, though at times this draws unwanted attention. As food and relief supplies become more readily available, there will be less of a need for this.
Smaller vehicles from our Haitian church partners come to our Port-au-Prince warehouse to pick up the food kits.
Each food kit gives a family of five one meal a day for two weeks.
Clean Water for Haiti
The critical need the poor always have for water has been heightened in Haiti after the earthquake. We’ve used various ways to distribute water to our church partners, and we’re looking to our strategic partnerships to continue to meet the short- and long-term needs.
We have a long-standing relationship with Healing Waters International, providing water systems to church partners in Guatemala and the Dominican Republic.
In response to the immense need in Haiti, Healing Waters International has provided 2,500 one-gallon jugs of water at no cost to Compassion Haiti. The water was bottled at the Healing Waters projects at our Dominican Republic church partner sites. If there is continued need, they are equipped to begin bottling on a daily basis.
The water will be trucked to Haiti along with the family food kits being assembled at our warehouse on the Dominican Republic/Haiti border.
We will also investigate several long-term solutions, such as building water systems at church partner sites in Haiti.
According to Gregg Keen, our Complementary Interventions Director,
“Healing Waters International and Compassion have been good partners for several years. When the disaster hit Haiti, Healing Waters was among the first organizations we called to ask what their response would be. They went to heroic efforts to find available water bottles in the DR when none could be found there. Bottled water will help people to avoid drinking and using contaminated water and the related diseases they can cause, especially in a disaster situation like this one. The impact of this can’t even be measured.”
Healing Waters’ mission is to empower local ministry partners to bring physical, social and spiritual transformation to poor communities, a mission that makes them an excellent partner for us.
Read more about our partnership with Healing Waters International.
Who Can You Sponsor a Leadership Student With?
In 2006 my wife and I went on a sponsor trip to the Dominican Republic. Before our trip, we thought we knew what Compassion did, but our understanding of the ministry fell far short of what we saw.
When I came home from that trip, I signed up to be a volunteer. I made coffee mugs with photos of my sponsored children on them, and I spoke of the kids often.
“Hey Patterson, you know those kids that you’re so fond of? ”
“Yeah, Norm.”
“I think we should sponsor one of those kids as a shift.”
I explained to Norm that a typical child sponsorship is under $40, but then I told him about the Leadership Development Program. I suggested that if we were able to get 12 firefighters together, we could sponsor a Leadership Development Program student and it would cost only $25 per person each month. (more…)
What Are You Doing, God?
The night before, we had prayed that God would do with us what He would. That we would be open and available to what He wanted to do for us … to break our hearts on this trip.
Letter Writing Ideas From the Moody Bible Institute Scholars
Four Leadership Development Program graduates now attending Moody Bible Institute share some tips on what you should include in the letters you write to your sponsored children.
Living in Two Worlds
How difficult is it for the Moody scholars to transition between the poverty of their homes and life in the U.S.?
What’s It Like Growing Up in Poverty?
Another clip from our video interview with the Moody Bible Institute scholars.
After watching it, will you sponsor a Leadership Development Program student? You can do so by yourself, but you can also do it as a group, with family, friends, co-workers, your small group, etc.
