Hello all!

My name is Hunter Lied. I am 18 years old, from Millsboro, Delaware, and am currently a senior at Delmarva Christian High School. I am attending Delmarva Christian High School for the sole purpose of a solid Christian education. Lord willing, I will attend Lancaster Bible College this upcoming fall to major in Business and Intercultural Studies. Intercultural Studies will educate me for better potential missions work after school. I also love to do video editing on the side whenever I can. I was able to intern with Empowering Action through an opportunity offered by my school. Every year following the Christmas break, we are offered a two-week period off for J-Term. This is an opportunity for the students to take extra curricular classes or attend trips that our school doesn’t normally offer such as, mission trips, aviation classes, home construction with Habitat for Humanity, participate in the annual short film, internships, and much more. I chose to do an internship again as I had done for the past 3 years. This year, I decided I wanted to do it with Empowering Action.

I have had a burning passion to do missions work since I was about 14 years old. God had provided opportunities for me to do local missions through my church, Bay Shore Community Church. The local missions I did were both out of state. The very first one to Campbellsville, Kentucky and the second to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. God had more planned for me. My first encounter with Empowering Action was when I went on a mission trip to the Dominican Republic in August 2016. Bay Shore Community Church, as well as Homes of Hope, went to the outskirts of Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic to fabricate their first container home. This is when the Empowering Action encounter came about. They were asked to choose a local church in the area that would then choose the family that needed this home the most. It was a life changing experience for sure. I was the youngest member to go on this trip, and at the age of 17, it was pretty cool being able to get out of the country for the first time. After this trip to the Dominican Republic, I felt a call to go back. God provided and this second time back happened to be my internship with Empowering Action.

I chose to go back with Empowering Action because I saw the impact they were making through the local churches in the Dominican Republic. Kent Husted, the Executive Director of Empowering Action, previously attended my church and I do not know anyone who is more devoted to changing lives than him. The most important piece of Empowering Action is how they work through the local church. This is the most effective way to serve for short-term trip participants who aren’t able to be present for all 365 days of the year. The local church is always there, so therefore it is the most effective tool for impacting lives for God’s kingdom. That is why I chose Empowering Action to intern with. I wanted to see how they do this firsthand. Arriving on Sunday, January 8, and staying there for a week, couldn’t have been a better timing. Escaping the 8°F weather, a foot of snow that Delaware got hammered with, and being able to land into 82° sunshine was amazing. That isn’t why I was there though. I was there to see how God is using Empowering Action, and how I may be able to serve for just the small amount of time I would be there.

Carlos, another member of the Empowering Action staff, was there to pick me up from Las Américas International Airport and take me to where I would be staying for the duration of the week. “We are headed to Quisqueya”, Carlos told me. I had been to Quisqueya before on the previous trip, and couldn’t have been more excited to be going back. Upon my arrival to Quisqueya, I saw kids playing baseball in the streets, people riding horses, and motorcycles weaving in and out of every obstacle. The car stopped, and we parked in front of Iglesia Arca de Salvación. This is the church that Jose Lorenzo pastors. Jose is on staff with Empowering Action as well. That is whom I stayed with for the rest of the week, Jose and his family. Helping out in his church most of the week, as well as doing home visits throughout the community to make sure people were doing well, were only a couple of the things I got to do.

Tuesday was the day that the Empowering Action staff returned back to work from the holidays and the New Year. Waking up at 5 am to ride a couple buses and taxi’s to get to Santo Domingo at a reasonable time was quite fun. Being crammed in a tiny bus, meanwhile being the only American, was very fun. Jose and I ventured out to attend the planning meeting at the Empowering Action office in the capital, Santo Domingo. Getting to meet all of the staff was incredible. That in itself was enough to just reflect on how God has blessed this organization. In order to have that many staff, there must be a lot going on. With Empowering Action, I can promise you there is always something great going on! This was my only day in the office, but that did not mean I wasn’t interning.

The most amazing part of my internship was being able to see how Jose gathers his information he needs from the planning meetings, and takes them back to Quisqueya (which is over an hour outside of the city), and applying the new information throughout his community. He didn’t just show up because he was there to do his job. He showed up to gain more knowledge on how he can serve his community in a better way. The next day, Jose, Henry (EA Staff), and I went around the community to film testimony videos for the Abundant Life program. Henry translated for me and it is just amazing to see another successful way that Empowering Action is being able to advance God’s kingdom through the local church. Pastor Domingo said in his testimony that, “the Abundant Life Program helped to motivate and mobilize the church to use the resources they have to grow and serve the community.”

For the remainder of the week, I got to play with Jose’s children as well as other friends from the community, and experienced multiple times of laughter and fun. Teaching them the game of dodge ball had to be the most entertaining event I may have ever seen in my life. Using my translator app on my phone, I was able to instruct them on how to play. Even though it was with a flat soccer ball and a very small foam ball, they made it work. They couldn’t have been happier. The thrill of them being able to fire a ball at an opponent and call them out of the game, left them with smiles from ear to ear. With baseball being their most popular sport, Dominicans can hurl a ball quicker than I’ve ever seen. After the games, Jose, his children, and I set up for an outside service of worship. We constructed a small stage and moved all of the pews to the outside just so the community could be openly invited. Unfortunately, a rainstorm came through and we had to relocate everything back into the church. The worship continued inside of the church, because honestly, rain will never be able to stop God from moving no matter what country you are in! I remember hearing Jose saying, “Gloria a Dios” multiple times that night because he wanted to certainly give glory to God for the high attendance that night. The night of worship was my last night there, and God couldn’t have sent me home with a better memory.

Empowering Action is doing amazing things in the Dominican Republic and I couldn’t have chosen a better organization to intern with. I pray that you may be inspired by this and hopefully God will provide for you an encounter with Empowering Action to see all of the great things they are doing for His kingdom.

Dios te bendiga (God bless you),

Hunter Lied