Greg Penza's Page
In March of 2005, I received a phone call from the President of the Foundation of Peace, Dr. Ken Culver. He asked me to leave my job, my family, and my life in the United States to organize mission trips in the Dominican Republic (D.R.). I chose to join him in serving some of the poorest people in the Western Hemisphere, who are also some of the most joyful. The longer I am down here, the clearer it becomes that the people who I came to help are actually serving me. Primarily my job is to organize the construction of schools, churches, water purification systems, and medical clinics in conjunction with the 400 Americans who work in our communities each year. Two of the best parts of my job are helping to provide clean water to a community where they were previously drinking water that tested positive for fecal matter and building a church where they were worshipping in the mud.
Every morning I wake up with the opportunity to do something good for the Dominicans and for God. My plan is take advantage of the opportunities to be a part of God's work for as long as I can be used. Here are some of the stories from my mission.
One of my first assignments was to organize an HIV, Leprosy, and Malaria Prevention conference about 4 hours from Santo Domingo with a Dominican psychologist named Arturo. It was a group effort by the Foundation for Peace, Dominican government officials, and the leaders of 12 communities, which are known as bateyes. These villages are called bateyes because they are made up of Haitians who migrated to the D.R. to work in the sugarcane fields. Unfortunately, with the world demand for sugar decreasing these people have very little work. What makes matters worse for these people is the work in the sugarcane fields is only seasonal and now they have machines to do most of the cutting. In many cases, they are working for only half of the year and earning 3 dollars a day to support families of 7 and 8 people. In one of the bateyes we visited, the community leader told us that only three men had jobs out of a village of 325 people. I was talking to one man who told me he hadn't eaten meat in four years.
In the bateyes, which are not built on hills, they have serious problems with flooding. During a typical tropical storm the houses will fill with one or two inches of water carrying in all the trash and animal feces from the streets. Unfortunately, there are no drainage systems, so the rainstorms leave behind huge puddles, which when mixed with animal/human feces and garbage, quickly become a breeding ground for sickness and mosquitoes which pass on malaria. When we arrived at the first batey, I watched a naked two year old boy walk through a large stagnant puddle that smelled like sulfur, was filled with a blackish algae, and was swarming with mosquitoes. Then I watched two boys, who appeared to be between 8 and 10, skip from nasty puddle to nasty puddle in their bare feet. All of the children are covered in a light layer of dirt and their clothes are partially torn as well as permanently stained. They spend their days chasing around recovered hubcaps collected from a highway which is not to far from the villages. Because the Dominican government doesn't fully recognize these bateyes so, they do not feel obliged to provide sewage systems, water, or electricity.
Some of the inhabitants still live in huts made up of sticks and mud, and they sleep on dirt floors. Most live in two room or three room concrete houses w/ tin roofs. The houses are about twice the size of the typical shed you would see behind a house in a U.S. suburb and they provide shelter for up to 19 people in some desperate scenarios. The stories of poverty and hopelessness go on and on. We are working with the leaders of some of these communities to raise awareness and teach prevention of AIDS, malaria, and leprosy. It's tough to organize these things because they don't have phones, transportation, facilities, or calendars. I asked one girl if she knew anyone with AIDS. She said, "Yes." So I asked her how she knew they had AIDS. She said, "I watch them die." She said typically the person grows very thin, develops sores on his skin, and is killed by the flu. I was escorted into the house of one elderly lady who appeared to be in her 80s or 90s but was probably in her 50s. She lived in a single room concrete house about 15 feet by 15 feet. She had a metal bed frame with metal netting which was used as a mattress. She had put a worn, dirty piece of cloth on top of the metal netting. It only covered about half of the bed. This is what she slept on. There was a small dresser next to the bed with a few empty pill bottles on top off it. She fit all of her possessions in this small dresser. She then showed me the only window in the house. It was covered with scraps of wood probably collected over a number of years. She showed me how easily it could be opened from the outside. She then said, the local thieves couldn't be kept out. She said, they were constantly coming into her house looking for things to steal. Her bed was under the window so the thieves would trample her on their way into the house.
She then took me through a small doorway that led to a much smaller room. The walls and roof were made of sticks and mud. It resembled the type of stick fort we made as boys in the woods. There was small pit, filled with ash from yesterday's fire used to cook the only meal she would eat that day. There was space for three of four people to sit around the pit. There were holes in the roof and walls. This is her home.
I feel blessed that the Lord allowed me to witness the way this woman lives and that I had an opportunity to hear her story. I hope we have the insight and knowledge to know how to really improve these people's lives and the Foundation for Peace will be able to find the people and resources to make it a reality...
Click on this link to read an update on Greg February, 2007
Click on this link to read an update on Greg's activites in January, 2007