Sentinel The Shorewood
Wednesday, June 13, 2012
Enterprise Publications • www.shorewoodsentinel.com
“I was really drawn to this opportunity because it seemed like God had set up a place where there was a great need and that I have been blessed with a passion and talent that can help fill the need present,” Brad Holehan
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Vol. 17 No. 27
Filling the Need
Math teacher takes passion for school, faith to impoverished country By Sherri Dauskurdas Staff Reporter
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Submitted Photo
Shorewood resident Brad Holehan stands in front of a waterfall near Jarabacoa in the Dominican Republic. The high school math teacher will be moving to the Central American community next month, to teach math and bible studies to needy children.
rad Holehan is about to change his life. The Shorewood resident, a Yorkville High School math teacher teacher will leave this summer for a two-year commitment in the Dominican Republic, teaching High school algebra and pre-calculus as well as leading Bible study for students at Doulos Discovery School in Jarabacoa. “I was really drawn to this opportunity because it seemed like God had set up a place where there was a great need and that I have been blessed with a passion and talent that can help fill the need present,” he said. Holehan first came to consider the Central American teaching position after his second trip to the region to visit his girlfriend, who serves as a youth ministry leader with Young Life. The first trip was my first time out of the country and my first true interaction with poverty,” Holehan said, adding that he felt “completely overwhelmed” by the experience. He would return four months later, this time able to begin to understand more about the culture, their school system, and the life of the Dominican people. “I remember sitting at a mountain top restaurant, overlooking the city where
I will be teaching and thinking, ‘This could be it. This might be a way I can do something about what I am seeing.’” But at that point, teaching in the country was just an idea, and it would take months to turn into a plan of action. Holehan returned to Yorkville High School and to a normal life of teaching and coaching track, but was unable to shake the idea of teaching in the Dominican Republic. “Over and over again, God brought the idea back in to my mind,” he said. Holehan said that from that point forward,his idea of teaching there seemed to be part of a larger plan, as barriers to the journey started to fall away. “Many doors began to open, which I certainly did not open on my own,” he said. He learned of the need at Doulos Discovery School for a math teacher, something up until this point that was not a position they needed filled. He found out about the opportunities for a possible leave of absence from his teaching contract in Yorkville. “ There were a series of so many inexplicable doors opening, that there’s no other way to explain it other than feeling that God was preparing the way for me to do this work,” he said. As time went on, a faith-driven Holehan began to learn more about the See NEED, page 2