In 2002, Ministries In Action was informed by one of its missionaries of a Dominican medical doctor, Silvia Martinez, who was struggling with a ministry through which she was offering free medical services to inner-city and rural communities in the Dominican Republic. Although she was receiving some financial assistance from the Dutch Reformed Church for her work in the rural communities, there was none available to build a clinic to meet the great need for medical care in the inner-city. Later that year, MIA assessed the need after meetings with Dr Martinez and her Board of Directors, and took the decision to recruit her into the organization as a medical missionary, and to support and extend her ministry by building a medical complex through Project Ebenezer.

In 2003, MIA purchased a tract of land in Hato Nuevo for the sum of $9,500 provided by donors. In 2004, the first short term missionary team to visit the project broke ground for the Hato Nuevo Medical Complex. Since then, MIA has sent many more teams to the site, providing construction labor and building supplies for the small hopital, medicines and medical equipment for the on-going clinic, and clothing, food, sanitation facilities and water purification systems for the needy families in the Dominican “bateyes” - communities where Haitian sugar cane workers and their extended families subsist. Six more teams are scheduled for 2007.

Currently, Dr Martinez, her husband, Samuel, and a small staff work tirelessly to provide daily medical services to impoverished families at the small clinic in the depressed inner-city Dominican community of Los Angeles. Their work is both corrective and preventative. They also make semi-monthly trips to some of the bateyes where they treat patients, dispense medicines and operate a feeding program specifically for malnourished children. Here, also, the bare necessities of life, when available, are distributed to families.


When commissioned, the hospital will greatly improve and expand the medical services now being offered by Dr Martinez at the Los Angeles Clinic to patients and the thousands of low-income families who live and work within the environs of the project. It will also serve as a medical referral center for patients screened in the bateyes through the limited but vital services of their regular medical caravan.

Short term missionary teams that visit this project have the opportunity to participate in the construction of the hospital and assist Dr. Martinez and her staff with medical and nutrition caravans into the surrounding communities.  There are opportunities for children's ministry and evangelism as well.

In Dr Martinez’s words, this hospital will be “a source of hope for sick and hurting people.” Please pray for the people of Hato Nuevo and for the successful completion and implementation of the clinic. 

Click here to request information about a short term mission trip to Hato Nuevo.

Click here to support this project financially.