A Trip in Missions, Pt. 2

I'm BACK!!!  Whew, what an adventure!!!  We didn't even get a chance to ease into our own personal epic, but we were met with issues the morning we left!  I was scheduled to leave Thursday at noon with 3 other team members; however, when we arrived at BWI Airport, we ran into ticket trouble and Whiley, one of the team members, wasn't able to get on the plane.  We had to leave without her, and ended up spending our entire layover in Dallas trying to get her to Mexico!  It was pretty stressful, especially for Daniel--her boyfriend who was with me on the plane.  It worked out and she was able to join us on Saturday, when the rest of the team arrived.

What was crazy was that we found encouragement every step of the way to Mexico.  First, I was passing through security and was stopped to have my bag searched.  The guy saw my bag full of Spanish tracts and was so excited and exhorted me to be faithful!  Then, Daniel and I ended up sitting next to a girl named Brittany, who was just returning to the States from a 10-month missions trip to Nicaragua!  Not only that, but the flight attendants would stop their work to talk with us when they found out we were going to do the work of the Lord!

Since Daniel and I arrived to Mexico 2 days ahead of the team, we spent a day promoting the camp we would be holding.  It was amazing!!!  We walked around, making balloon hats for the kids and telling them about camp, and they started following us around!  Before we knew it, we had a group of about 15 kids walking around with us, promoting the camp!  After promoting, we played some soccer with the kids....and got beat so badly....but it was fun!!!

Camp in Mezcales was a full day of work!  The kids would either go to school in the morning or the afternoon, so we'd have two camps--a morning session and an afternoon session.  During camp, we'd feed the kids, have craft time, live worship songs in Spanish, skits, sports, and a host of activities!  So you can imagine how tired we were at the end of the day!

While we worked with the kids, other members of our team did work projects for the community.  One of the men in the community had an accident at work, severely burning his hand, so he couldn't work.  We were able to give him a finished cement floor for his kitchen, so that he and his family wouldn't have to cook on a dirt floor!  Also, we were able to help finish the community center that we were sleeping and holding camp in.  I was even able to do some stucco work on the outside!!!

So many doors opened up for our team while we were in Mezcales!  For one, we were able to hold a full camp session in the school!  That was great because a lot of the kids that went to school in the morning didn't come to the camp in the afternoon.  Then, we held a parent night at the community center to let them see what their kids had been doing at camp.  THE MAYOR came out to the parent night to speak for a bit and hear what Lee Short (the full-time missionary that hosted us) had to say about the camp.  We were able to share the Lord with so many people while we were in Mezcales!!!

One of my biggest highlights of Mezcales was my experience with Cristian.  He is a 15-year-old guy who played soccer with us our first night there.  We continued to invite him out to camp each day, but he would always give us some excuse for why he couldn't come.  Then, on the next to last day of camp, he came out!  We spoke for a while and hung out, and then he returned the next day for the last day of camp, BRINGING FRIENDS WITH HIM!!!!  I left him with a Spanish Bible and some of the tracts that we gave all of the kids.

Camp in San Pancho was pretty similar to camp in Mezcales, except for two key differences:
1) There was only one camp per day in the afternoon
2) The camp was outside in the main city square

That second point was especially important to note, since San Pancho is more of a tourist location.  We actually met two Americans, while we were singing worship songs to begin our first day!  The guy said that God had led him to go walking in search of worship...and he found us!  Camp was amazing, and each day would end with a campfire on the beach.  At one of the campfires, we witnessed the release of recently hatched sea turtles into the sea!!!  God truly is amazing and showed Himself faithful throughout the whole trip!  There's so much more that could be said, but I'll end this post by quoting one of the team devotionals from the trip:
"Be WILLING to go out on a limb with God...In order to follow God wholeheartedly, you must relinquish your tendency to play it safe."