Interns Depart to the DR for the Summer

Each year, through our Intern Program, teams of college-age students serve in each of our countries. The interns spend eight weeks during the summer ministering to our children and supporting our in-country staff as well as leading personal ministry projects based on their passions and giftings.

Interns serving the Dominican Republic this summer are preparing to depart for their summer of service. This year’s interns are exceptional and will bless the DR with a variety of passions/giftings this summer:

COTN staff member, Brandon Bleek and his wife Shannon are serving as this year’s DR Intern Leaders. Brandon has experience in college ministry, cross-cultural missions, and church ministry and currently serves on the board of directors for the I Love Baseball Foundation (www.ilb.org). His wife Shannon is a seventh-grade science teacher and coaches varsity volleyball.

Megan Grycko will graduate next year with degree in Latin American Studies and minor in Business Management. She has visited the DR once before and is fluent in Spanish. She is very passionate about leading health classes and evangelical outreach in the DR this summer.

Ingrid Harper is majoring in both Nursing and Child & Family Studies. She previously visited the DR on a spring break team with campus ministry from Chattanooga. She hopes to lead health classes and possibly run sports camps (soccer, volleyball, basketball, and baseball).

Kate Maxwell has been to DR on three previous spring break mission trips. She holds a degree in History and had led junior high and high school ministry over the last year. She hopes to do some co-teaching with a Dominican teacher and would also really like to teach some sort of computer classes.

Karuna Luthra is studying Public Health and International Studies. She hopes to do any sort of tutoring possible or some sort of teaching. She especially loves to work with nursery-aged kids.

Rachel Longton is currently studying Nursing. Her passions include tutoring, any sort of art program, and working with nursery-aged kids.

Jessica Wise has been a COTN intern in the DR twice. She is currently studying Health Sciences. Jessica will be working alongside COTN staff in our clinic and has applied with her school to get college credit for working in the clinic this summer.

Lauren Mims is studying Elementary Education and hopes to do any sort of teaching possible, especially at the elementary level. She would love to co-teach with a Dominican teacher.

Andrew Neal is a COTN staff member in our Florida office, working with the Internship Department doing recruitment and logistics. He has degrees in Business Management and Nonprofit Management. Andrew hopes to lbless the COTN - DR staff with his expertise by supporting the COTN office and warehouse this summer and also possibly teach business classes or run a sports program.

Jenna Bishop is a COTN staff member in our Florida office. She splits her time between the Internship Department doing administrative support and spends the other half of her time developing a new Hospitality and Hotel management program for COTN. Jenna has a degree in Hotel Management and currently works at a hotel run by Disney. This summer she will be working alongside COTN staff in the DR to help some of the older kids from the bateyes to learn how to work in the hotel industry. She also hopes to lend some of her experience/expertise to our DR staff to help Casa Betesda (our mission center in the DR) run a little better.