This is long overdue. I wanted to write about this part of our tour to the Dominican Republic in January, from the day we visited the batey, but you see how long it's taken me.
You would perhaps like to know what a batey is. A batey (Ba as in back + TEY as in Hey!) is a Haitian settlement in the Dominican Republic. Back in the days when sugar was a major crop, the Dominican government recruited Haitians to come from their own country to work in the sugarcane fields. 
The government established these communities and constructed small houses for settlers. When the sugar industry dwindled, the residents found themselves without regular employment. Any one of the homes we saw would be condemned, in the U.S., but small and critter-infested as they are, and as full of open-air gaps, they are home to several people.
From the tour handbook for this visit: This community consists of approximately 2,000 residents, east of San Pedro de Macoris. "Typical houses are constructed of cement floors, wood walls and corrugated tin roofs. The most commonly spoken language is Spanish. The regional diet consists of maize, bananas, chicken, fish, beef and rice. Common health problems in this area include parasites, fever and colds. Most adults in Las Pajas are unemployed but some work as day laborers and earn the equivalent of $128 USD per month. This community needs water, electricity, classrooms and employment opportunities. Compassion sponsorship allows the student center staff to provide sponsored children with Bible teaching, first-aid training, medical checkups, vaccinations, sports, special celebrations, field trips, educational classes and vocational courses. They also provide evangelism and special celebrations for the parents and guardians of sponsored children.
I didn't make any notes in the handbook about this visit, but I think that the first thing we did was to help serve lunch to the students. We soon had an assembly line going; it took a while to get food to all of the crowded classrooms, and all the while, kids of varying ages were coming by, looking for their plate or bowlful
of food. As they came by, I had no way to tell if they had finished eating and were going outside, or were still hungry, but I was actually able to ask them, in Spanish, whether they had eaten. What surprised me a little was that, when I asked the question, those who had eaten, said so. Keep in mind this was quite possibly the only meal many--or any--of them would have, that day, and I knew the amount being consumed was far less than teenagers would be likely to eat, in the U.S.
Two other memories stand out from that visit: First, while we were all in the church (many of us with two kids on on our laps at all times) where we had watched the program that had been prepared, an old woman of the village made her way inside and about halfway up the aisle, and she wasn't quiet about it. She was shouting, sounding very angry and seemed to be denouncing what we were doing, or something. 
Bernard, our wonderful tour specialist from the country office, was up in front, when she came in. He listened to her for a few seconds, and then, using the microphone, spoke very sternly to her and pointed to the back door. He was obviously telling her to leave. She argued, and he answered even more firmly. When she did turn and head back toward the entrance, she was shaking a rattle over her head and doing some little steps, as in a dance.
We had been told that the batey communities are still strongly influenced by witchcraft, and I couldn't help wondering if she was the local voodoo priestess. I said as much later, when we were on the bus, and one of the men in our group said no, that a man of the village had been sitting next to him and had kind of blown her off as "one of our crazy women"; I think it unlikely, though, that the local man would have wanted to tell one of the white visitors that she was a priestess in witchcraft. I could be wrong, and I'll probably never know. But it was eerie enough, at the time, that I sat there, reminding myself that our God is more powerful than all the witchcraft in the world. I also knew that many of the locals would be influenced by her, as they are resistive to the gospel.
The project had somewhere around 300 children registered, if I remember correctly, and of all of the parents or guardians, only six were attending church with any regularity; only 40-some students had professed faith in Jesus Christ. Drugs, alcoholism, sexual promiscuity and prostitution run rampant. Even among Compassion-assisted kids, the girls will offer their bodies to boys in order to get money. Obviously, in that environment, a lot of babies are conceived by kids who have no way to care for them, if they survive. Many of the adults are not at all interested in the gospel, but they do like the benefits of having their children in the project. The biggest hope, then, is that more of the children will respond to the love of Jesus.
The other memories that stand out all relate to our home visits. As my group and one or two others were headed down the dusty road from the church, the crowd of children behind us grew. I glanced to my right at the groups going in a different direction and saw the same--a crowd of kids following them. I couldn't help but think of Jesus and his followers, walking along dusty roads, gathering crowds of mostly children. I said a prayer that we would be worthy of the comparison. Soon, we got in among some homes. My God, have mercy. Homes? Lean-to's would be more like it, with dilapidated walls and roofs, big gaps around the sides at top and bottom, allowing all manner of snakes, rats and other beasties to get in, not to mention rain; concrete floors with dirt covering added to the ambience of extreme poverty.
The hopelessness in this community was so entrenched that it showed in the people's nonchalance with regard to their environment. Tracey, one of our leaders from Colorado Springs, told me on the bus that, while we were all out making home visits, she had taken a plastic bag around the grounds outside the church building, picking up trash. Two or three of the ladies on the project staff stood, watching her as if to say, "Why are you doing that?" They made no move, gave no sign of being motivated to pitch in. This community exemplified, for me, some of Wess Stafford's statements about poverty: When hopelessness reaches such a point, people lose all sense of ownership of their lives and surroundings. There's no reason to try to make improvements, because "It's always been like this, and it always will be like this."
In some places, at least, when children begin to learn that they do matter, they are important to the one true and living God, who loves them and even died for them, they gradually begin to say, "This or that isn't right. I'm going to change it." That is how they grow up, then, in the project and in their faith and skills, to become leaders and contributors in their communities. And that is why we sponsor them, to give them the opportunity to grow into the persons God intends them to be and to find that life with Him is truly abundant.
More tomorrow, or in the next few days, about the day. But you need not wait: At any time, you can sponsor a child through Compassion International. Experience the joy of changing the world and building God's kingdom, one child at a time.
