by Dee Yaccino

“Hey Wendy, how are you?” I ask when I see her in the lobby after the church service.

“Fine.”  She tells me, but I know better.

She looks surprisingly well and typically beautiful.  No one would ever know that a few days earlier she had been forced out of her “home” 7 months pregnant.  She watched from a distance as her makeshift closet with everything she owned was burned down by police.  And later, she found out that their dogs were killed by bullets that were meant for her and her little community — a community that had struggled to help one another survive.

But what some meant for evil, God has used for good.

Let me tell you Wendy’s story.

She and a little band of about 14 others live in caves located on a rocky beach strewn with garbage a couple of blocks from the colonial city of Santo Domingo.  She is there because, like many young people, she was having some serious problems with her parents (especially her dad) for unruly behavior and thought it might be better for everyone if she left.

She doesn’t give much detail about her home life but tells of how she is not welcome anymore (admittedly because of her own bad behavior).  She had heard of the caves and went down one day to see if it could be a place for her to live, since she knew she could not go home. The group there received her with open arms, fed her what they could, gave her a place to sleep, and above all this showed her acceptance.

Her parents do not know she is pregnant.  They have her other three children.

She tries to get money day by day doing odd jobs, cleaning hamburger stands, and asking people for money.  Sometimes she is even lucky enough to sell jars of freshly collected sea glass that she scavenges every day from the beach dump.

The man who is the father of her baby (Chino) does the same.  When they have enough, they can sleep in a one-room pension for a time.  But when the money runs out, they go to the caves.  When the baby comes, they are not sure what they are going to do.

“I want to serve God because I like what I have seen in this church.”

Wendy and Chino came to know of ICC (where I was first introduced to her) through the soup kitchen.

The church is located only a few blocks from the caves and when the couple heard that there was a place to get a meal for the day, they started going.  Now they both regularly serve there as well.  She often says, “I want to serve God because I like what I have seen in this church.”

(more…)