To give you a little idea of the structure of our trip, we went down to Mexico with 10 high schoolers, 7 college students, and 6 leaders. We stopped for a night in Tucson at Jeremy's parent's house on the way in and way out. We went to church in the community of Empalme, where we did most of our work last year. I found myself as one of the stronger Spanish speakers on the trip (which isn't saying much...I decided that I talk like a cross between Yoda and Annie (my daughter)), so I led the children's program that night at the church and I wonder if they got anything out of it. The next day, we put sealant on the inside of a pastor's house and leveled the gravel in the yard. The pastors' houses we have worked on have been built because pastors decide to move in amongst the poor to really be a part of them and we get to help! We also worked on painting the large inside of a tall church. Did I mention that it was large and tall? At each place, we played with kids and passed out little toys and gifts. I liked that part more than the painting.
On the second day, we went back to Empalme, where I had made some connections with the young moms last year. We handed out food baskets, prayed for people, did spa day for the girls, and gave out clothes to the moms. The day ended with a rowdy soccer game in the playground with many of the local people. Each night, we would return to our hosts at Corazon del Dios...the home of a couple named Art and Brenda, where we got hot showers, a beautiful patio, and delicious homemade food. We usually had a team meeting where we sang and talked about our lives and the Bible each night under the palapa. One night, we went to a mid-week service in another poor area called Fatima. We got to visit the beach a few times, and even got to go out on a super-fancy yacht (through a friend of a man at our church who used to have a beach house in San Carlos). We finished our work back at the pastor's house in Fatima where we painted and gave more clothing and spa stuff out to the ladies and kids.
I decided to tell you my thoughts on the trip by showing you a few of my favorite moments through pictures. At the end, I will post the 6 min. slideshow with music that we played at church when we got home. It's good, you should watch it :)
As I said last year, I loved watching Jeremy get to lead and serve on this trip, because I am often at home with the kids during youth group events. He had some unique experiences...his first baby dedication:
Preaching with a translator and background music on an electric keyboard...
...to, apparently, a headless man.
(actually, that's one of our students who fell asleep during his sermon).
One of my favorite parts of the trip was getting to spend time with the people in our group. I loved watching our high schoolers become better friends with each other and I always love spending time with our high school leaders (who I consider to be some of my closest friends, even though they're 10-15 years younger than me...I'm so blessed!)
Another favorite part was going back to Empalme. I loved when we drove into the neighborhood and saw Perla's house and most of the people on the Fun Bus cheered out loud. We built her house last year and it was touching to see it standing, looking well-cared for and full of love in the middle of a very broken area.
I loved seeing the ladies I met last year and working with them to hand out all the clothes the MOPS moms from FCF had donated for us to take.
Even a dog came inside the church to see what all the excitement was about!
Some of our hosts mentioned that maybe the clothing giveaway was a little crazy and we should reconsider how or if we do it again next year, and I felt a little self-conscious and bad about it. But then, as I hung out in the late afternoon sunshine at the neighborhood church with all sorts of moms and their little kids, I felt touched that caring for them brought them together in community with the ladies of the church. And, I thought about our MOPS group in Flagstaff that came together to give the clothing and how 60 women in Arizona got to be blessed by serving these women and I felt so moved to have been a part of this act of love...though I do think we can figure out how to organize it better in the future.
I loved getting to walk around the neighborhoods and talk to people. I marveled at the connectedness of the community...how we could tell one small child that we were going to play games and wash hair at the church and scores of people would arrive an hour later.
I had been sad because I had brought some craft stuff to do at a kids club that had never ended up happening (actually, a friend from MOPS had donated a bunch of the things we needed). During the last hour of our work project for the whole trip, I met the pastor's wife at her home (that we were painting) and asked her if she could use the supplies for the craft. I was careful to explain that I wanted the items to be used for the children of the community because that's what they had been donated for. She got very excited and said they were going to have a kids' outreach the next day and the craft tied in with what they were already planning to do. She saw some popsicle sticks that I had randomly thrown in at the last minute and got even more excited and said that there was going to be a big parade downtown and that the church was going to march in order to invite people and tell them about Jesus. She said that the kids would make crosses that said, "Cristo Te Amo" (Jesus Loves You) to hand out along the parade route. So my little loaves and fishes (paint and popsicle sticks) in the hands of Jesus went a lot further than I could ever have dreamed! She also thanked me for doing a clothing giveaway at her house that day (we had "randomly" missed a huge box of women's clothes and toys for the kids during our giveaway in Empalme so we did a second one in Fatima) because it was the first time the community gathered at her future home, and that is her vision--that it would be a place of gathering and community, with worship music playing speakers in the morning. See, more loaves and fishes.
Even though I loved talking with the people and was a little apprehensive about my usefulness in the physical labor projects, I really enjoyed the work that we did. Last year, we went to a church service here:
...and this year, we got to paint the almost finished building. We heard that the people of the church sold thousands of tamales to raise the money to complete the building, and everyone pitched in to help: men who worked on ships did the welding of the roof and everyone collected rocks and gravel to use in the foundation and therefore made the neighborhood look cleaner.
We affectionately called this paint color "Grandma's Bathroom"
Our high schoolers were such hard workers...it was fun to watch them!
While we worked, I loved asking our Mexican hosts about their testimonies. They were all so touching, but this young man, Alex, really had a story to tell.
He grew up on the streets, using drugs and alcohol at age 7, ended up working for the circus (which was really run by the mafia), participating in all the things you can imagine (and can't imagine) that go with that. His aunt invited him to church for a year, and he refused, and then one weekend, he didn't want to get drunk and ended up at this aunt's house where she fed him and invited him again. He went, and stood outside, too ashamed of his piercings and tattoos and long braided hair. But, the pastor (named Nacho...who couldn't like a pastor named Nacho?) came and hugged him and welcomed him and said they had been praying for him for a year. It was really an amazing story!Something else that was amazing was the food. 'Nuff said.
The "staff" at the place we stay are so gracious and hospitable, and excellent cooks, too. They would bring hot meals to the job sites and always had smiles on their faces.
Eating hot lunch served on scaffolding.
Our hostess, Brenda (with her mom).
The place we stay at is just so special...nothing flashy or fancy, just the gift of hospitality at work.
Some of the team's best moments were in the evenings at "the compound" (as we liked to call it), under the palapa.
I loved watching God work in the students' lives...before we left, that had been a question in my mind--could I see God work in the students themselves, not just teach them that He can? The answer was an astounding yes...especially the night that this young man shared his story with our team.
He shared about some of the struggles he had had in his life, which included the deaths of his mother and brother. He was stoic and strong and shared about what God had taught him so far, even though it is still a work in progress. Our students reached out to him in compassion, and he really became a leader through his vulnerability and insight. But, the best moment was when, "randomly", Jeremy asked the worship leaders to play a song to end the night. "How about...'Before the Throne of God Above'" Jeremy said offhandedly, and the guitarist almost declined because she didn't know it very well, but played it anyway. It was an emotional song, most were crying, and at the end, the student wiped away tears and said, "Who chose that song? Who chose it? That was my mother's favorite song. Thank you. Thank you." More loaves and fish? I think so.
Another student shared with me, through tears, that she wasn't sure why she had come on the trip and how she didn't feel useful because of some slight physical challenges she faces due to a medical problem she had as a child. We talked about it through the trip, and I tried to encourage her the best that I could.
As we were trying to get across the border on the way home, the fun bus was running out of gas, the battery was dead, and we were stuck in a long narrow line of cars trying to make it through before the border closed. Jeremy and another leader were outside with the hood up, and the team decided to pray...led by this student. She offered her broken, self-conscious prayer up to God and as she said "Amen", the Fun Bus roared back to life. Everyone cheered, for her and for God. I am crying right now as I write this, that our God is so personal and so mighty that he could answer a teenager's prayer at the right moment, that he could save a young man from the Mexican Mafia, that he could provide the perfect song at the perfect moment for a boy still struggling with so much loss, and that he could part the Red Sea and turn 5 loaves and 2 fish into a meal that can feed thousands.
(Us at the border...it's the diagonal line across the GPS screen)
