The Doulos Sancocho
Rice, beans, and chicken (La Bandera - The Flag) is by far the most well-known Dominican dish. It’s like the extroverted oldest sibling of the DR's food family. But, a little further down the family tree is a subtle yet incredible, more understated dish called Sancocho. It’s a stew that can be made of just about any mix of ingredients; beef, pork, chicken, seafood, corn, yuca, dumplings, green bananas… you name it. A good Sancocho is a life-altering experience. That might sound a little extreme, but for those of you who’ve had it, tu sabes, verdad? Everyone does it a little differently; some might add extra yuca but no corn, or beef and pork but no chicken. The key to a life-changing Sancocho is the mix of ingredients.
Like Sancocho, there are many recipes for quality Christian education. What makes Doulos such a unique place isn’t the individual ingredients we use, but it’s the rare combination of our five key ingredients that makes us so effective at raising up Christian servant leaders from a wide variety of backgrounds.
Below is the Doulos Recipe or our Not-So-Secret-Sauce. If you leave ANY one of them out, it wouldn’t be Doulos.
Christian Discipleship - Every Sancocho needs a solid base, and Christian Discipleship is the foundation of everything we do. If all we did was provide a high-quality education for people from a variety of backgrounds, we would consider that a tragedy. We want to work with the Holy Spirit to anchor our students in Christ so that they will be part of his restorative revolution here on earth.
Expeditionary Learning Model - The DR faces a wide variety of extremely complex problems. This inquiry-based model shapes students to be curious, gritty, problem solvers ready to challenge the status quo and take on complex problems.
Mixed Socio-Economics - We believe that God’s leaders come from all socioeconomic backgrounds. So we hold 50% of the spaces at Doulos for students who would not otherwise be able to attend a private Christian school.
College/Calling Preparatory - There is the ability and expectation of everyone to grow their capacity for impact by pursuing higher education so that they are equipped to serve big and lead well.
Dominican - We are not an international school. We are a Dominican School. Through active service in the community, celebration, and critical reflection of Dominican culture we develop ownership, pride, and a sense of calling to shape the future of this country.
Bringing these five ingredients together takes an incredible amount of work. But this is the recipe God gave Doulos and we wouldn’t have it any other way.
A little experiment you can try right now is randomly choosing one from the list up above. Then imagine what Doulos would look like without that key ingredient. What if we took out the Discipleship, or the Mixed Socio-Economics, or even the Expeditionary Learning Model? We MUST have all five, or it’s just not God’s recipe for Doulos.
We’re so grateful to God and everyone (the staff, sponsors, Doulos families, teams, volunteers, and donors) who have invested and put in the very hard work of bringing this recipe to life. Doulos is a place like no other (Gloria a Dios), and we are so grateful to be cooking it up together.