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Lush vegetation creeps onto the roads wherever it’s permitted to do so. Tired political posters adorn the street signs, interrupting the brightly-painted buildings which line the crowded streetscape. Our bus darts through the tight thoroughfares in San Pedro, avoiding overtaxed motorcycles with nearly impossible precision. The streets teem with Dominican culture: Venders peddling just-picked-from-the-field sugarcane, scads of Chihuahuas scampering behind their owners and uniformed school kids winding through the bustle toward their classrooms.
I like it here. There is richness in the culture and authenticity in the people. My work has been the impetus for my recent travels here. Traveling with groups of HOPE donors, we visit the courageous Dominican entrepreneurs we serve throughout the country.  Each trip looks different. The donors, entrepreneurs, and communities we visit are unique. I see new places and experience fresh stories. There is one theme, however, which connects all these trips. I’m not proud of it, but I’ve committed one regrettable act on every trip I’ve taken here, an act I’ve only recently even identified.
While navigating through the DR, we always stumble upon a sad neighborhood. These communities, normally labeled shanty towns, usually border sugarcane plantations and they reflect a much cloudier image of the spirited Caribbean culture. Like a dandelion-rich lawn on a well-manicured suburban street, these poor communities stick out. The evident material poverty is jarring. And it’s in these places—on every trip—where it happens: I slip out my camera and capture the misery. I find an especially forlorn-looking mom or a cobbled-together home (preferably both) and snap away.
These snapshots, illuminating the most desperate scenes I can find, become like trip trophies. They’re the type of pictures which make me feel guilty about complaining. About anything. They remind me of how nice my house is and how full my closets are and of just how very much I have. The pictures hold just a glimmer of redemptive value in this convicting power. But, when I snap these candids, I define those communities by what they lack. With each flicker of my camera lens, I make one more strike against those places, stamping them by their deficiencies.
Our charity is often the same. When given the option between defining people by what they have or by what they lack, we normally choose the latter. It’s easier to meet needs than it is to unlock potential. It’s quicker to heal wounds than to train doctors. It’s simpler to raise money to give stuff than for training to make stuff. But, I know I’d sure rather be known for what I do well than by what I lack.
The LORD your God is in your midst,
a mighty one who will save;
he will rejoice over you with gladness;
he will quiet you by his love;
he will exult over you with loud singing.

(Zephaniah 3:17 ESV)
I’m thrilled to serve a God who truly knows me. A God who does not define me by my weaknesses. A Creator who made me in his image. A Father who “exults” over me, his child. These truths convince me that If God and I sojourned across the Dominican together, his pictures would look strikingly different than mine.

snapshot of dignity