FLATLANDS — The Youth Leadership Ambassador Program has reached mission fields from Africa to Central America, but the just-completed trip to the Dominican Republic might so far be the most life-changing, participants said.

A delegation of 18 ambassadors and eight chaperones visited the D.R. from June 28 to July 5 to assist families of Haitian sugarcane workers in a batey — basically a shanty town — about an hour’s drive from the city of La Romana on the island nation’s southeast coast.

The workers came there from neighboring strife-torn Haiti seeking better lives for their families. But the pay is very low, and the only available houses are tiny shacks, the ambassadors said.

Still, they noted, these batey inhabitants, especially the children, brimmed with joy. 

The ambassadors shared the gospel and played with the kids. They also helped build a foundation for a community center, installed water filters, and prayed with the adults. Three ambassadors described how, if circumstances were different, their lives could have become like those of the cane workers.

“It really moved me to realize that I need to be more intentional in what I do,” said Bryan Maitland-Jones, 17. “Out of all the trips, I’d never been touched like that. So, I felt this trip was the most meaningful.”

Father Dwayne Davis, pastor of St. Thomas Aquinas Parish in the Flatlands, also made this trip as the executive director of the Youth Leadership Ambassador Program of the Diocese of Brooklyn’s Vicariate of Black Catholic Concerns.

Each year, the vicariate sponsors the annual mission trips for the ambassadors. 

Father Davis ticked off a list of previous trips: last year they went to Belize; the year before it was Senegal and Ghana. In other years, they went to Uganda, Rwanda, and even places in the United States, like the areas around New Orleans that were slow to recover from Hurricane Katrina.

“Mission trips change lives and change hearts,” Father Davis said. “We want to get that black Catholic experience, no matter where we go. So, we go to Mass with locals in their language to see the Church’s universality.

“It’s one of the fastest ways to have people grow closer to Jesus.”

This trip, Father Davis added, especially nourished the ambassadors’ minds, bodies, and souls as they reached deeper into the lives of the people by praying with them, sometimes in Creole.

“I really believe this one was probably one of the best,” he said of the trip. “I watched them go into people’s houses and pray with them. At least two of them are from Haiti. And so, they were able to also use the language of the people there, which was great.”

Father Davis said this year’s participants were surprised by the living conditions Haitian workers endure in the batey.

Christian Lafontant, 20, an ambassador “alum” who made the trip, was a little boy when his family departed the ruins of earthquake-ravaged Haiti in 2010.

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Likewise, Christelle Couloute, 16, another ambassador on the D.R. trip, was an infant when her family evacuated to the U.S. from the same calamity.

They echoed Bryan in their collective realization that their lives could’ve turned out like Haitian cane workers’.

“If I didn’t come to America, that could’ve been me,” Lafontant said of the batey dwellers. “Seeing it just made me super grateful for the opportunities that I do have here.”

Christelle said she learned that women cannot stay in the batey unless they are married.

“I met a girl the same age as me who has a husband and kids,” Christelle said. “I thought, ‘Wow, that’s their way of surviving.’ And if a man breaks up with them, they have to find another man just to stay in the batey. So, there might be kids who have siblings from different fathers, but that’s their only way of living.

“That really impacted me.” 

Christelle’s family belongs to Sacred Heart of Jesus Parish in Cambria Heights. She is enrolled at St. Mary’s High School in Manhasset, New York, and is considering a career in business.

Lafontant, whose home parish is Mary Queen of Heaven in Old Mill Basin, is on the same education track, studying accounting and business at Babson College in Wellesley, Massachusetts. His family belongs to St. Thomas Aquinas Parish. 

Bryan is going to Howard University in Washington, D.C., where he will study biology on his way to becoming a family medicine doctor. His home parish is Our Lady Queen of Heaven in Old Mill Basin.

They each fondly recalled playing with the kids and sharing the gospel with them. Lafontant said the playtime was more strenuous than digging the community center foundation.

“I have a picture with three of them on my back,” he said of the children. “At that age, they’re also kind of rowdy. And me, just being bigger than them, they think you’re Superman.

“They want to play for 25 hours a day. And I’m hot. I’m tired. I need a break, and they’re not going for a break. They’re like, ‘No, big man, keep going!’ ”

Christelle said she came to tears when she had to leave the children. She said one boy banged on the window of the vehicle she was in to say goodbye.

“I looked into his eyes, and I just started bawling,” Christelle said. “Because I’m like, ‘I can’t get him out of that situation.’ He’s so smart. He has the potential to do big things, but I couldn’t bring him out. I couldn’t bring the other kids out of there.” 

Still, she said, the boy was smiling.