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My name is Brittany. I am 17 years old. I am a senior in high school in Columbia, Missouri. I recently went on a short term mission trip to La Romana with my church. My church typically has an attendance rate of about 100. No one ever thought we'd go on a mission trip outside the country. But we proved them wrong. In less than 6 months, we got a group of 13 people from our church (+ our group leader from Iowa), we raised around $13,000, and prepared for the trip. On July 7th, 2006, we left St. Louis for Miami, then La Romana. We primarily did work with the people of the bateys. We delivered food to the houses and did programs for the children. One of the days, we did a construction project on a classroom at a church on a batey. We also visited the orphanage in La Romana. The children there tugged at my heart strings. Our trip changed me, as a person and as a Christian. My faith is much stronger now. The faith of the people of the Dominican Republic caused me to reevaluate my faith. I realized that they were extremely poor, but it didn't matter. They were happy because God was taking care of them and would provide for them. I realized that "things" don't matter, people and faith and love and community are what really matter. It doesn't matter how much you have as long as you have people who love you around you.
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