March - April 2009

Carmen de los Santos (1935-2009) - RIP In May we laid to rest our friend Carmen de los Santos. She was a person always overflowing with joy. At the Peace she would almost smother you in joy despite the frailness and smallness of her body. The last time Michael took her communion she confided that the doctors had just told her that she had AIDS and TB, as well as the obvious osteoporosis. That would explain the extent to which she physically wasted away toward the end, but her joyful spirit was never quenched. Her life was emblematic of many who live on the margin. She enjoyed a certain level of security. At least she had a house where she could raise the two girls she took on when their parents died. (Although the title to it was recently placed in doubt because it had been confiscated by Trujillo and given to one of his supporters back in the 40s. Present laws entitle original owners to recover such properties.) Both of her girls managed to attend the university. One, who became a nurse, is now going on to medical school. Carmen usually managed to put fruits and vegetables on the table, and to bring us some from time to time. When asked how she did this, she jokingly jokingly said—with a twinkle in her eye—that they were gifts from her boyfriends. (If so, there were never any other signs of them.) But she also depended upon the staples given out in our weekly food distribution from Lazarus’s Basket. She

Carmen with other Lazarus's Basket clients at the 2008 Xmas party

complained about the violence in her barrio, including the neighborhood thugs that would occasionally force their way into her house and take things. And she needed to ask for bus money to get to church and back. She was not a typical member of our mostly middle-class congregation, but she nevertheless fit right in. She is missed. May her soul, and the souls of all the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace.

In recent months we’ve been looking for opportunities to visit and get to know other churches in the Diocese. The first Sunday in June we were able to get away from Epiphany and go to Bonao, about an hour and a half to the northwest of Santo Domingo. It’s in the central part of the island where the altitude is higher and the climate more temperate, and where the country’s agricultural production is concentrated. We stayed with the family of the Rev. Vicente Peña, who is the pastor of several congregations in this area. (Speaking of agriculture, he has a wonderful garden and blessed us with a mess of the freshest okra.)

Vicente was from a Catholic family and always wanted to be a priest, but when he grew up he put the call aside for several reasons, including the celibacy question. As a young man he moved to New York where he started several successful businesses. Then he became heavily involved in Dominican politics and was rewarded with a position in the New York consulate.  During his time in New York he became acquainted with the Episcopal Church, and when he returned to the DR to go to law school he began attending the local Episcopal congregation in Santiago. After becoming an active lay leader in that church, the question of ordination surfaced again, and he was soon in seminary. After graduation he served his diaconate in La Romana, and shortly after being ordained to the priesthood at the Diocesan Convention in February, 2008, he was reassigned to Bonao.

Vicente and Nancy Peña with their three children, Abel, Vivian and Ruth	Whenever the gathering finally materializes at Pentecostés the service starts

Vicente kindly offers for Michael to preside	The congregation included interlopers...

all ages...	and onlookers.	We had to go by the guitarist´s house and wake him up in time for the service. From the mean riffs that he threw into the hymns it was evident that he also plays in rougher places.

Ramona, the Junior Warden, also serves on the altar guild

Dominican clergy typically have many more responsibilities than their US counterparts, but Vicente’s duties are excessive even by Dominican standards. In Bonao itself there are four congregations.  He holds regular Sunday services for two of them, at 7:00 AM in Iglesia Pentecostés in the barrio of Villa Liberación and at 9:00 AM in San Juan Bautista downtown . The seminarian assistant, Ramón Gil, comes to both locations on Saturdays, to lead Bible study groups and to make preparations for the next day’s services. Once a month on a week night Vicente celebrates the eucharist for a group in Las Delicias, which meets in one of the members’ homes, and another group in Los Pedregones, which meets in the local public school. On Sunday mornings these groups have services led by lay readers. For the time being Vicente is also in charge of things in Jarabacoa, a mountain town about an hour away, where a Diocesan camp and conference center is located, along with a church and school, all named Monte de la Transfiguración. He holds weekly services there on Saturday afternoons at 4:00. A missionary couple from the US will soon arrive to take Jarabacoa off his hands—¡gracias a Dios!  But even so, because of Vicente’s extensive experience in politics, he also serves as the Diocese’s liaison with governmental agencies. Once or twice a week he has to come to Santo Domingo to take care of a missionary’s visa, to get items donated from the US through customs, and to guide applications for social services grants through proper bureaucratic channels, etc.

San Juan Bautista is the older, more established downtown congregation in Bonao	Everyone gets into the singing even though it´s all a capella here

Michael and April pose with Vicente after the service	The congregation in Las Delicias meets in this home...

in this room at the back of the house.	Guest cabin...

and central dorm at the Monte de la Transfiguración camp and conference center	One of the houses in Villa Liberación that the people of Pentecostés would like to help rebuild.

Many of the congregation at San Jan Bautista get into the picture

The structure that congregation Pentecost built in order to claim their land.

Despite being spread so thin, Vicente has managed to launch important initiatives. The camp and conference center in Jarabacoa has been extensively refurbished, not just to keep it in repair but also to make it more comfortable and more open to the surrounding light and scenery. Since San Juan Bautista was founded about 40 years ago, this downtown mission has had its ups and downs. Vicente is helping its renewal by making it the home for an academy where young people can learn the vocational skills to become employed as computer technicians, nurses and bank tellers, etc. In Villa Liberación, where the Pentecostés congregation nearly has the 100 members necessary to form an organized mission, the main challenge has been laying claim to a parcel of public land in the middle of their community. They dream of a center where they can offer an academy like the one at San Juan Bautista, house health services, and run a campaign to rebuild the most fragile houses in their neighborhood, etc. They were told by local authorities that they had to build something on the land in order to reinforce their claim to it. They couldn’t get any funds authorized, but they didn’t want to lose the land.  So they risked building just the superstructure of a church building—a concrete floor, metal roof, and wooden studs that will eventually frame the walls. This provides them with an open-air shed where they now hold services. In the communities of Las Delicias and Los Pedregones, houses damaged by last year’s hurricanes are being repaired with funds requested from a Diocesan housing relief program.

Houses damaged by hurricanes are already being rebuilt with the help of the church in Las Delicias.

These groups aren’t trying to solve the global economic crisis or singlehandedly bring in the kingdom of God. But they are doing what they can, taking small but definite steps, so that—as Vicente puts it—”people can live with a little greater dignity.” Amen.

With this installment in our monthly chronicles, we will sign off for the summer. In July we will return to the US to visit with family, friends and supporters. And in August we will be preparing ourselves to begin another year. So we’ll be back in touch next September.

Peace,
Michael & April