Baharonas, Dominican Republic. In the spring of 2007 I traveled there with a mission team from The House (a campus ministry at UTC). Our mission there was very simple: Play with the children and show them love. Upon arriving in Baharonas, I realized why. Baharonas, DR, sits only a few hundred miles away from Haiti, the children we were going to be working with all week were refugees from that country. Their families had, of course, fled Haiti to find a better life in the DR.A better life for them meant working in the sugarcane fields. Their fathers work for plantations where they work from dusk 'till dawn and only earn about 100 pecoes per ton, which is equivalent to about $3-5. Needless to say, the villages are very poor and are in dire need of support. That's where groups like Children of the Nations come into play. They come into these villages, provide the children with education, food, clean water, clothes, and toys. In addition to this, they also bring in students to interact with the children. At almost any given point in time there is at least one group of American students in Baharonas.
Support for these children is important. I wish I could afford to support the children that I was able to interact with on a daily basis, and, for now, all I can do is pray for their safety and hope that someone out there has had compassion on them and has chosen to support them. If you want to support a child go to their website linked above and choose one of the children to support.
