So... as you may know, I was asked on late notice (four weeks or so ago) if I would be able to join the high school group at my church on a mission trip to Ensenada, Mexico, to build houses. After moving a couple of obstacles out of the way, I was free to commit to the trip, and we left town on Sunday the 17th of February.
The first thing that you should know is that the head coach of the UW Football team, Tyrone Willingham, was on our flight from Seattle to San José. Pretty awesome. We went on, of course, to San Diego, but I believe this was a crucial development for the success of our trip. Go Dawgs.
Once in San Diego, we got our vans and secured our luggage, and then made for In-n-Out Burger, a favorite California burger joint.
Being properly fueled, we then proceeded to drive across the border and into Tijuana. If you have ever made this trip you know what an amazing jump this is from wealth to poverty: there is an immediate dropoff. We experienced a moment of silent prayer as we drove through Tijuana, and then we made our way to Ensenada.
Our team worked with a ministry called Yugo. What is cool about Yugo is that they work through local ministries -- the families that we serve build relationship primarily with a local pastor and congregation, rather than with a parachurch organization or with a group of high schoolers who may never return.
We had approximately 38 students and 12 staff make the trip, and the group was divided into four teams. On our first full day there, two of the teams went to one build site, and the other two teams went to a second site. I was on Team 4 (Team BONESAW), so the first day we went with Team 3 and put in a long day of work on a house for a very needy family. Our family consisted of a mother and her four-year-old son, Angél: the dad had passed away very shortly after Angél's birth, and so they lived with the Angél's grandmother. Both of these dear women are believers, which is somewhat odd for the families typically served by Yugo, but it was a great gift to us. It is amazing to see what sweet fellowship can be shared by Christians even when there is a significant language barrier. Here is Angél:
On the second and third days there, we split up so that half of the teams went to churches and did Vacation Bible School with little kids, while half of the teams stayed on the sites to work on the houses. On day two, my team stayed and put up drywall and roofing, then on day three we played with kids all day. It was pretty cool to work as a team, and we were blown away by the generosity of our family, who provided a meal for our entire team each day. It was said that each of these meals was worth about a months' wages for the family, which I think is probably close to the truth. It is hard to understand the depth of this.
Above is Ricardo, our build leader. He was a stud, and by the fourth day we had completed the house, and we were able to present our family with a new place to live. We dedicated the home to the Lord and prayed for the family, and were able to hand the keys over. "A Father for the fatherless and a Judge for the widows is God in His holy habitation; God makes a home for the lonely..." (Psalm 68:5-6).
On our fifth day in Mexico we went to a migrant camp several miles south of Ensenada. Camps like this are for the poorest of the poor, most of whom are coming from South America looking for a better life in the North. They sign their lives away to work in the agricultural fields, trying merely to provide food for their families. They live in converted chicken coops. Still working with Yugo, we were there mainly to help local pastors try to build relationship with the locals. I snuck a couple of pictures of their homes:
I am realizing that earthly poverty is far more the norm than the exception in this life, but the down side of this realization is that stuff like this is hard to internalize. I am still not sure how I am affected by this kind of poverty, and there were several others on our trip who were struggling with the same thing. Why am I not moved to tears when I see this? It is hard, for whatever reason, to truly be affected: maybe because it is truly hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven? I feel like my heart, while softening, is hardening at the same time. I am not sure if that makes any sense, but I need to think and pray about this. A lot. No man can serve both God and wealth. Maybe Christ actually means it when He says we should use our wealth to make friends, who will then recieve us into eternal dwellings (Luke 16)? And what does He mean when He says that "none of you can be My disciple who does not give up all his own possessions" (Luke 14)?
After visiting the migrant camp we went to La Bufadora, where there is a pretty cool (natural) waterspout. Then we went back to Yugo for the last night, where we washed one another's feet. It was a neat experience. God is good.
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