If
I were to describe the past several days in one word, that word would have to be
awesome. I learned so much and had so many experiences in the past 6 days that
it's amazing. Mexico is so different from the states. The richest people there,
in Rosarito and Tijuana at least, would be comparable to the middle class here
most likely. I can't say that for certain, but I think that would be a not too
far off guess. Where do I start… well how about Friday afternoon… Bob
Smith's class… the final day. It was a short class because we were just
handing something in then eating desserts. What happened in between those things
though, was the biggest part of the day. We gathered around as a group and
proceeded to do something that I have never experienced before. We washed each
other's feet. After that, each pair would share communion together. It was a
powerful experience that I will never forget. There was a deepening of
friendship to some degree but that was by far out shadowed by what began the
next morning.
At 6:30 AM, I was up and ready to go. We left for the airport
around that time. When we got there, it was raining, hard… I got a tad bit wet
walking to the pre-selected meeting spot. When I arrived, I didn't see anyone
from the group, but Melissa was there. She had come to see Karyan off. I knew
that we were a few minutes early, so I figured everyone would show shortly. And
they did. Slowly a group of us formed as the group of 5 (mom dad, sis, me and
Melissa) grew to a huge group that attracted the attention of someone who was
napping nearby. As it turned out, she was coming with us. One of 2 people who
weren't at Moody last semester who came along with us on the trip; Brooke was
her name. Anyhow when the entire group showed we proceeded to check in and then
it was time to say goodbye to our families and friends and unite as one to do
God's work. We had an hour or so wait at Spokane International Airport before we
took off on for Oakland. When we finally got to Oakland, it was rainy and windy,
a trend that would still be the case when we came back through on our way home.
While we were there we had enough time to buy a snack then get set to head south
some more toward San Diego. I wasn't too hungry although it was closing in on
noon, so I just got a medium coke and was in great shape. As we climbed out of
Oakland and cruised south, I began to think. "This is what I may someday be
asked to lay down my life for. Am I willing and able to do that?" I
listened to the people chattering and the other members of the team talking and
laughing together and decided that yes I was willing to do that. So I think it
would be safe to say I mentally decided that death simply wouldn't be a factor
in my deciding whether or not to enter the military. Put aside the fact that
death has no power over me because of Jesus, and there lies the fact that I want
others to be safe. So, I concluded that if by dying I would save the lives of
people like those around me, I would die. I believe I can honestly say now while
looking back on the trip that I would die for anyone on my team. Honestly
speaking, I believe that I would at the very least seriously consider it;
especially the girls I worked alongside on this trip. The Bible talks about no
man having a greater love than to being willing to die for another, frankly I
hope I have that kind of love especially between those who went on this mission
trip with me. So as a quick side note, do you fear death? If you do and even if
you don't, why?
I don't fear death because I know there is more to life than living
and dying. After I die, I enter into the presence of Jesus and will be with Him
forever. He, who conquered sin and death when He rose again the third day, is my
confidence that death cannot only be bad. To be absent from the body is to be
with Christ; or put another way in death I'm going to God. But that is because
I've trusted Jesus to be my Savior. If you have not done that, you have no such
assurance of heaven and your only assurance is of hell.
Well once we got to SD, we landed and met Pastor Juan and the
people we were going to be staying with. On the way in though we must have flown
by a naval base because there were at least 2 carriers and a ton of other ships
docked in the bay. Boy, those carriers are awesome. Just the sheer size of them
is amazing. So, we loaded up and headed for the border.
Once we got over the border the culture shock began to set in.
things looked old and run down, and the farther from the border you got the more
extreme it because. To be completely honest I wasn't sure if I wanted to be
there. It was so different from the states in just terms of possessions. Here
most everyone has a car from at least the mid to late 80s make, there they are
mostly 70s make and don't run as efficiently as ours do. That first night I was
nervous. I had never been out of the Northwest without my family, I had never
been out of country to the south, and I hadn't ever seen anything that looked
like the Mexican homes did. It was funny, only a few of the guys admitted to
being nervous. I justified it for me because I was small… I was the lightest
person on the trip, even lighter than a girl who is a bit younger than me. Well
Sunday morning rolled around and we got up and proceeded to eat then have our
morning meeting and stuff like that. Before we did that though, Jonny and the
rest of us went out into the yard (I guess you could call it that) and along
with the group that was there worshiped. And wow was it ever powerful. Though
our groups didn't know each other, we were united under the common bond of Jesus
Christ. While we were lost in worship, the sun engulfed the yard with its bright
rays that warmed each one of us. That time was so special to me and it was only
a sample of what would occur in the next 5 days. We went to 2 churches that day.
This first was pastor Juan's church next to the ocean in an old beer store and
the other was the church of a family that the last group to come down (I think
it was the last group) had built a home for. Pastor Juan's church was basically
just an American service in Spanish. There were a few differences in the way
things were done, but I could tell that Juan had brought American methods or at
least some of them to his church. The next church was a whole different
experience. When I think of loud guitars and drums, I immediately imagine a rock
band kind of feel. You know some distortion and that kind of thing, but that
wasn't what happened. The guitar had only 2 single coil pickups, which I thought
was really odd, and it was old. It was loud, but I think the sound was too
"thick" or "fat" for the pickups to sound good. One thing
that was really awesome about that church was they took 2 offerings; the first
for them and the second for us. It blew me away when I found out what they had
done. Here we are, the Americans who are very wealthy by their standards and yet
they still give to help us do God's work. That impressed me so much, that a
people who didn't have much would give to people who did simply to aid in the
work of God. That is so rare in the states to have something like that happen.
Monday we started our working. We broke up into groups and started
working of the building project. I was assigned to work with concrete. Mixing
concrete there is much more strenuous that here. In Mexico, you pile the sand on
the ground, add the concrete, and mix it by hand. It takes a ton of water that
you add by bucket to get the concrete to the proper consistency. It is also very
heavy when you are mixing it with a shovel, especially for a little guy like me,
but I managed. (Not that this mattered but I had to be sure I did more than the
girls who were also on the concrete team. lol…) anyway, after we stopped
Monday we were well over ¾ of the way done with laying the forms for the church
building. It was small but it would work well for it's purposed when it is
completed. Picture a building about the size of the average garage. It was
probably about 20-25' rectangular building if I remember right. It is going to
house a children's church and later on that night, we got to see the need first
hand. A nasty wind blew in that night and stirred up a ton of sand into the air.
The sand was whipping into the structure that they had up to house the children
and it was getting in everyone's eyes.
Tuesday
I was once again working concrete. One thing that did help was that it had
rained the previous night so the sand was already wet, made for faster mixing.
It's funny that morning I got the only injury that made anyone lose skin. The
back of my right hand right where the thumb connects to the bone ran into a
shovel blade and the blade won. It took off a chunk of skin and took a little
while to stop bleeding. Adina felt so bad but I was fine. I cut like that wasn't
going to stop me so I rinsed it off, dried it off and was right back in the work
as much as I could be. Granted it restricted me a bit but once I got a band aids
to cover it, (which Adina put on) I just put my right hand in my glove, and I
was fine. I needed it to be in the glove anyway cause I had had a blister pop
and it was sore. It was the type of situation where, as she said later I could
have reacted differently and really made her feel much much worse, but I didn't
see the need. The way I looked at it, accidents happen. There's no need to put
another person down just because they accidentally do something, besides, Adina
is too nice of person to do that to. At the end of Tuesday, we had all but a few
of the walls up and all the concrete poured. We even wrote Juan 3:16 into the
step in Espanol. (We wrote John 3:16 on the step in Spanish) call it our mark on
the building if you will.
So, that takes us to Wednesday. We finished the project much
earlier than we expected. We were done by lunchtime. It seemed odd to be headed
back to the mission compound by noon done with what we were asked to do. So
after lunch we did some shopping in the local market then later went to Juan's
church to get it ready for that night, pass out some things to the local people
and then we walked out to the beach and worshiped for a while. The sun was
setting as we worshiped. We looked out over the ocean and the scene was
beautiful. The waves were a bit high and there was a sailboat out on the water
that passed through the sun just as it touched the horizon. A few of the songs
we sang, "God of wonders" and "I could sing of Your love
forever" it was so special. After the first group was heading back, I
grabbed the guitar and played. At first, I was just jamming, then I went into a
song that I had written, then into "Speechless" then "Dive,"
I think you can tell I like SCC huh? lol…that night the speaker talked about
psalm 20, and though everything was in Spanish, I found a few things interesting
myself. I got the entire cross-references and was able to draw some correlations
between them.
Thursday came faster than I think any of us wanted it to. It seemed
that we had just gotten started and it was time to come home again. I can
honestly say that Mexico has grown on me, though I guess that is a common
occurrence. We had to say goodbye to the people we had been working with for the
past days then headed for the border. We were already behind schedule when we
left for the border but God saw us through. Dave said that was the fastest he's
even gone through the border. The guard simply looked at ID, asked if we were
carrying alcohol, tobacco, or weapons back then said have a nice day basically.
That was it. We got to the airport in plenty of time to check our bags and
prepare for the flight home. Then came the second goodbye. Part of our group was
going to fly back later, so they stayed and we left. We flew into Oakland that
was once again rainy and windy. This time though it was bad enough to cause us
to be delayed in both landing and takeoff. We flew to Portland next and there I
changed seats to where I could talk with Karyan without having to turn behind
me. That final leg of the trip home was the one that I talked most on, at least
I think. Maybe I talked more on the others but it doesn't really matter. Either
way, this final stretch was cool. We landed in Spokane, and it was then that it
began to hit me, this was it. We were going to head our separate ways for a
while, some of us more than others. Adina is going to be leaving for Chicago
soon. She is going to try and become a missionary pilot through Moody Aviation.
I wish her all the best. Who knows, maybe someday I'll be assigned to fly escort
for a missionary pilot named Adina. If that does ever happen, it will be a great
honor for me; just as it is a huge honor to be able to call Karyan my hermana
(Christian sister) in Christ.
With so much happening in such a short time it's hard to write everything
down because there was so much that happened. One thing I do want to mention
took place Wednesday night, group affirmation. In this, we went around the group
and said what we liked about the person we were talking about at the time. We
did that for each person in the group. I loved that, I could reminisce about the
first time we had met, or some of the fun experiences we've had and what I've
learned from that person. I loved doing that. When it was my turn to be talked
about some things came out that helped me see that I'm at least close to the
road I want to be on. A few of the things that were said included things like
not making a big deal about when I got hurt, the fact that I was ready to get
back to work when I got hurt, and basically that I should be able to make it in
the military. That was so encouraging to me because is helped to set my mind
that the military is for me. At least it is the direction I will be looking and
heading until God shows me otherwise. I've heard it said that it'd better to go
and let God direct you and it's better just as it's easier to turn a moving
vehicle than one that is sitting still. Oh and I have to mention this, the
weather in Mexico. It was forecasted to be rainy all the time, but God planned
otherwise. Whenever we were working, it was either sunny or cloudy but it didn't
rain until we were almost done for the day. It rained once while we were
working, but it wasn't a long one. After that shower, there was a double rainbow
in the sky. The first one was solid and the second one was only about a 1/3. It
was neat to see. So much happened that it's going to take a while to write
everything.
See the pictures I took while I was down there... Mexico
Gallery
