Humans of NGU, Aidan Toomey’s mission trips to the Dominican Republic
Kenzie Webb, Contributing Writer
Aidan Toomey, sophomore at North Greenville University, has been to the Dominican Republic on five separate mission trips. These trips have inspired Toomey to major in Spanish at NGU.
Toomey says, “There is a lot of hurt there caused by bad church… there is a lot of ‘you need to be good enough’ gospel taught there.” Toomey feels a calling to South America and wishes to aid in potentially teaching theology there one day.
Toomey describes the genuine hurt he felt over the course of the five trips he has taken. While in the Dominican Republic, the church group Toomey was with stayed at a mission house.
The church group stayed in the town of Higuey. While there the group split into two different groups going to different parts of the town.
Half went to the batayes which were small villages. The other half, including Toomey, went to barrios. The barrio, called Breezus del Mar, is the lower income area.
In the batayes, the group would perform a vacation Bible school. And in the barrio, they would do construction work.
Toomey talked about the cultural differences. The barrio was much more old fashioned than the batayes, so the missionaries had to be very careful with their conduct there.
He described how this trip felt different than the others. Toomey said, “the years before felt like we were a mission group separate from the community but last year we were more so living amongst them with close relationships.”
Toomey does not have a long term plan set in stone; however, he does know that his future will heavily depend on his Spanish major and calling to South America.
Toomey explained that he would love to help create church plants on the Mexican border and help immigrants enter the United States safely. Another goal of Toomey is to become a professor of theology at a university in a Latin American Country.
