It is not uncommon for me to meet people down here in the Dominican Republic who teach me more about God and what it takes to be a Christian than I could ever hope to teach them. I might have the academic knowledge gained in seminary, yet these people help me understand what I already know. One such person is Marino. Marino is a member of a training program I help teach and a pastor of a small and very poor church in the barrio of La Puya. La Puya is a Spanish language onomatopoeia which describes poverty and a difficult life. Tucked into one of the wealthiest parts of Santo Domingo, La Puya is crammed down a steep gorge where the houses climb the cliffs, stacked upon each other in a haphazard manner. You would never know La Puya exists if you didn't know where to look for it. It is just off a short dirt road not 200 yards from a massive mansion. La Puya, a community of thousands, has no street access. It sits across a creek clogged with sluggish filth. The only way into La Puya is over a small foot bridge, though you must skirt a heap of garbage to reach it. Needless to say, life in La Puya is difficult. Yet in the midst of this difficulty lives a pastor, Marino, who is transforming La Puya one life at a time. As I sat in Marino's one-room house and drank some of his pop he proudly offered me, and which I'm sure he couldn't afford, I realized that I was sitting in the presence of a man of God from whom I could learn so much. We talked for some time about his life, his ministry and La Puya. His words even now reverberate in my memory. As he sat in his tiny home in the middle of the squalor that is life in La Puya, he said, "What makes me stay here is seeing lives transformed by God." Later he said, "My hope is that the people of La Puya can see the abundant life they can have in Jesus."

Such words might sound trite or even cliche coming from anyone else. But coming from a man living in abject poverty and ministering to the least, last and lost of Santo Domingo, those words are otherworldly. I am still in awe of the faith I found in Marino. I am in awe that this man who has so little in this world could still speak of the abundance and riches he has in Christ. Academically I have always known that truth. But now thanks to Marino I understand it.

I write to you today asking for your prayers. Today I do not ask that you pray for myself or my family or even my ministry here in the Dominican Republic. Instead I ask that you pray for this country's government and that the Lord might hear the cries of injustice wreaked upon the Haitian peoples living in the Dominican Republic by this government.

Haitians cross into the DR in droves, all looking for one thing...Hope. I have been to Haiti several times and always come away depressed. Haiti, it feels, is where Hope goes to die. There is little employment, no health care, little food. The only thing that abounds in Haiti is poverty. This is nothing new to Haiti. For decades now Haitians have sought relief crossing over to their wealthier neighbor to the east. Half a century ago the Dominican dictator, Trujillo, massacred thousands of Haitian illegal immigrants at the border. He had them all bayoneted rather than shot and claimed to the world that it was just a massive battle between Haitians and they "cut themselves up."

Today Haitians aren't massacred, but the same resentment and fear that fed the fires of hatred that caused the massacre years ago feeds a fire of horrible systemic racism in the Dominican Republic today. Haitian teens are brutally gunned down by police for petty thievery. Haitian babies born in the DR are not granted a birth certificate, they don't exist. When hundreds of Haitians were killed by the tropical storms last fall, the DR government did not report their deaths to the world because they had no identification, so as they were buried they were deemed only "missing." The government periodically hauls anyone off the street who looks too "Haitian" and if they can't prove Dominican citizenship on the spot they are immediately deported. Mothers are taken from children, fathers never come home from work. And now, new news has come to the surface.

A friend of mine, an educated professional, tried to get her birth certificate so she could get a visa to attend a conference in the US. Since she is Dominican-Haitian she was investigated thoroughly and has still not received her birth certificate. There is now a Dominican-Haitian who signed a contract to play major league baseball, he cannot get out of the country or get a US visa because the Dominican government is investigating his origins and is hesitating to give him a passport and birth certificate because of his Haitian blood.

Apparently the Dominican government, in the name of protecting their national heritage (because they could never say they are Racist - Haitians are quite dark in contrast to Dominicans), is seriously considering not allowing children born to Dominicans AND Haitians in the DR to apply for citizenship or even have a birth certificate. Furthermore, they are considering to retroactively deny and invalidate any Dominican-Haitian person their Dominican citizenship. My best friend here in the DR is Dominican-Haitian. He graduated from Calvin Seminary. He runs a ministry reaching at risk youth in bad neighborhoods. He is a pastor. He could soon become no one. A refugee without a country.

Nearly 95% of the CRC in the DR is either Haitian or Dominican-Haitian. By my guess there could be anywhere from 2-3 million people in this country who fall under this Dominican-Haitian stigma. Where would they go? They were never born in Haiti so they have no Haitian citizenship. Haiti does not have the economic room for these people.

Please pray for your brothers and sisters in the CRC of the DR. Please pray for this government so that it cease it's childishly petty games of racism. Please pray that a strong Dominican contingent of Christians stand up for their Haitian-Dominican brethren in the face of this government. Pray that this talk of new racist measures never become a reality.
In Christ,
Rev. Joel Renkema