Mexico

Ok There are so many things I need to post on here.....I went to Mexico, my mom got engaged, I got my wisdom teeth out, I'm renting a house and moved in two weeks ago, and I started school on Monday. Phew! Too much to write about in one post so we'll take it one thing at a time. Here's pics and my Mexico story first:



I recently went to Mexico with my church. There were six of us from Northwest so we teamed up with a team in Fayetteville, GA that was actually made up of several churches. We went to Acuna, Mexico with YUGO ministries. The way it was set up was that teams come to the headquarters where the awesome Canote family(YUGO missionaries, 8 kids) took care of us. We had chapel there and were fed there. Everyday each church headed out to a different local church in Acuna. At the church, we provided a VBS for the kids, a sports ministry for the boys, and a women's bible study for the ladies. In the afternoon, we'd go back and have an evening service. No construction on this trip (which is good for me :-)) All relational ministry. The church we went to was Fuente de Vida and the Fayetteville team had been there for two years in a row already so they knew a lot of the people there.



Ok that's the premise, here's my story...
I had never been on a missions trip before, and I was a little nervous about it to say the least. However, I’ve always wondered if a long-term mission was something I could do and I hoped this trip would answer some questions for me. Plus, I was very excited at the opportunity to go and meet new people.
The preparation beforehand was a bit ambiguous. I’m a teacher, and I know how to think on my feet. However, I wasn’t confident of this skill in Mexico, and I like to have a set plan. I was surprised at the way things came together though. I found out while on the trip that I would basically be in charge of the children’s ministry. I would be calling the shots, so to speak, for the VBS. This involved a lesson, games, and craft in the morning, and then a lesson and games at night. I love how naïve I was in trying to organize it all. I assigned everyone on my team roles and instructed them exactly how things would go. Despite all my efforts, I learned very quickly that Mexico really is Flexico and all my plans really meant nothing.
I was teaching the lesson the first day about the lost sheep. What an important lesson for these kids to learn! I’m sure so many of these children feel unloved or unimportant and they need to know that God would search for them even if 99 others were already there. I had planned to have someone act it out, I had the visuals, I had practiced the lesson over and over, and we were even blessed to have David Rogers as part of our team who is a shepherd that owns 100 sheep! He was to talk to them about what he does to take care of them. However, the first morning, we spent the whole time just getting kids there so we pushed the lesson to the evening. Then when evening came, they had a long church service of their own and then we crammed into a very small, very hot room. This message of great importance was lost because their attention was lost. David did a great job and they listened to him, but when I spoke, I did not have their attention. I realized that teaching in Mexico was drastically different than teaching in Georgia.
At the beginning of the week I found myself pretty discouraged. We went to a church that seemed to me to be running pretty well. They had committed Christians that were providing great leadership. Their standard of living was nowhere near ours, but I wouldn’t say they were impoverished. I didn’t really understand why we were there. The language barrier was a huge struggle for me too. I know zero Spanish and it was somewhat disconcerting to be thrown in a country where no one speaks my language. I am also pretty good at managing groups of kids, but I was unable to do this when they couldn’t understand me. I just wanted to teach these kids about God and form relationships with them, but I felt like I was hitting a brick wall. Thank goodness for Jessie who could translate for me, but even then, they would respond to her, not me. I wondered why I was even there if Jessie could just talk to them. They didn’t need me.
I came to my breaking point on Wednesday evening. I felt very insignificant, my faith was being challenged by other members of our team, we hadn’t had any kids respond to the lessons, my patience was being challenged by my lack of Spanish, and Satan was really working hard to make me feel worthless. I’m sure the heat and little sleep had nothing to do with it either!
I was not very optimistic Thursday, but God had plans for that day. That morning I was sitting waiting for the morning lesson and a little girl named Fernanda came and sat next to me. I always got nervous when I was around the kids without Jessie to translate for me. However, Fernanda was so loving and patient. She knew I was a teacher and asked me about that, and she knew a few words in English. I was surprised at how much we could communicate. She was so sweet and patient with me. It felt so good to connect to a child without help from a translator. That morning we had 3 girls come forward after the lesson. Then, that evening, the kids were all over the place playing games. We were still supposed to finish the story for the evening, but I knew reining them in was going to be impossible. I told Jessie we just wouldn’t worry about it, but she had spent a lot of time translating the story and wanted to do it. So I said, fine even if we just have one child listening, that’s better than not doing it at all. So Jessie told the story to an audience of maybe 4 kids. There was an invitation built into the story and when we got to that point, Mayra raised her hand. She wanted to ask Jesus in her heart! Jessie and I were so excited! We got Erika, one of the children’s leaders at the church to pray with her. Even though it was all in Spanish, it was such a cool experience.
From there things just got better. I was teaching the lesson the next morning, and we had a lot of kids and we had their attention. They were involved in the lesson and 4 girls came forward at the invitation. Of those girls, one was Crystal. This girl really touched my heart. She was so excited about accepting Christ and having the bible we gave her. She attached herself to me, and that night when she came back, she brought me a present and didn’t leave my side. She asked me to pray with her because her mom is very sick. She was really emotional about it, and it scared me to think how grown-up she has to be at such a young age. She was so grateful to pray with us and to know we would continue to pray for her when we went back home. I was completely humbled.
In the end I realized that truly I’m not all that significant. I couldn’t understand why these children would respond to anything I said or did. These girls came forward after a very poorly delivered lesson, it didn’t make any sense. I didn’t feel like I did anything. The truth is, I didn’t. God did all the work. Somehow He used me and all my insecurities and broken faith to show His love to these children. I figured out that simply our presence at that church made a difference in these people’s lives. They were so open and loving. I will miss those children so much. They truly blessed me and touched my heart. In truth, I think I learned more from them than they did from me. As for long-term missions, I’m still not sure. However, I know that this trip will not be my last.