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What do you do during your children's Spring Break from school? As a parent of four children, ages 18, 15, 14, and 10, I have had to answer that question for many years now. And like many of you, the answer is not always the same every year. Some years we have enjoyed a relaxing trip to the beach, while in other years we have stayed home and "chilled", and yet in others we have travelled to visit out-of-town relatives. But in four of the past six years, I have taken my children on the Mexico Family Mission trip. Why, you ask, would I do that once, much less four times?
Well…let me tell you about the trip itself first, and then we'll come back to that question later.
We met at the Nashville airport early Saturday morning, passports and tickets in hand, bags packed with old clothing we knew would never look the same again, with children in tow whose faces (despite the early hour) betrayed their mixed feelings of enthusiasm, delight, and some slight apprehension about the unknowns in the week to come. Come to think of it, the adults' faces seemed to show a little apprehension too, coupled with signs of still carrying the many weights and concerns many of us too frequently carry alone.
Our itinerary took us through Houston to Harlingen, Texas, where we rented vans and drove to our Best Western motel in Weslaco. After checking in, and a brief swim in the pool coupled with a brief poolside planning session, we were off to the Golden Corral for our last "normal" meal for a week. Dinner was followed by some of our group going to the grocery to purchase the soft drinks, cold cuts, bread, chips, etc, that would sustain us during the next five day's lunch at the job site. While some of the unfortunate parents had to do this shopping, others of us had the delightful privilege of entertaining all the children back at the Best Western until the shoppers arrived back at the motel. All the children (and two dads who will remain nameless) embarked on a thoroughly enjoyable evening of games like charades and "I'm going on a trip", as we unknowingly began forging friendships that not only helped us through the week to come, but always prove much more long-lived that anyone would think.
The next morning (Sunday) held in store an awesome, cooked to order breakfast at the motel. Pancakes, eggs, bacon, sausage, cold cereal, oatmeal, fresh fruit, biscuits and gravy, and grits proved to be the perfect way to fill out "tanks" before our poolside church service. After church, we saddled up in our vans and made the drive to cross into Mexico at Nuevo Progresso, where we stopped for a delicious lunch, shopping from stores and street vendors, and a bit of sightseeing before climbing back in the vans to drive the rest of the way to our motel in Valle Hermoso. We checked into our motel, quickly discovering that "we weren't in Kansas anymore, Toto". The motel staff was as nice as they could be, but didn't speak or understand a lick of English. There was some adjustment to the differences between American motels and our motel in Mexico. And it really wasn't that difficult to remember not to put toilet paper in the toilet, was it? Except for that one time…. Or was it twice?
Anyway, that evening began our "normal" schedule for the next four days. Dinner was at local restaurants three nights (parilla – cooked on the grill – one night, seafood another night, and Italian another night) and one night it was parilla at the motel. And on that first night, we met our soon to be friends from Canyon Creek Presbyterian Church in Richardson, Texas. Like us, they brought several families and individuals on this trip. They stayed at the Quinta Condel motel with us, ate dinner and breakfast with us each day, went to church with us Wednesday night, and played and fellowshipped with us each evening.
Each evening, we would have devotional and fellowship time together as a group from First Presbyterian. Each day a different lay person in our group would lead a discussion lasting 45 minutes or so. This time quickly proved to be a very "participatory" time, as everyone (of all ages) took part in the discussions and contributed far more than anyone realized to the spiritual growth of us all. We had structured discussion topics for these devotionals (after all, we are Presbyterians!!!), but the Lord moved us to use this structure not as confining boundaries, but rather as a great way to give us a "starting point" for the ensuing discussions.
Each day after devotional and dinner, the children from both churches would play soccer, swing on the swing set, visit and get to know each other, all under the parents' supervision at the motel.
Each day began with a wonderful breakfast at the motel (got to love those refried beans with every meal), followed by packing up the coolers with our lunch foods, then off to the job site. We worked at the site all day and returned to the motel each day around 4 or 4:30pm.
The work we did this year primarily consisted of mixing and pouring concrete. One day we assembled forming and mixed and poured concrete for a floor and sidewalk at a local kindergarten that needed expansion space. The other days we were building a fence for a special needs school in the area. And surprise, surprise, building the fence involved assembling forming, mixing and pouring concrete. We also learned the recipe for rough concrete versus the recipe for fine, smooth concrete used as mortar. Some of the parents lead several of the children in a painting project (they really did look cute with bright blue paint in their hair), while other adults and children shoveled sand and gravel, hoisted buckets of same into a mixer along with just the right amount of water, and then carried full wheel barrels of concrete to wherever needed (apparently in Mexico when they say something about "a key", it means "pour the concrete right here where I'm pointing").
Thankfully, all our construction efforts were lead by two exceptionally well-qualified individuals, Julio and Fidenzio. Both are Mexican citizens employed by C.U.P.S. (the Spanish accronym for Communities United for Health), and they have lead construction efforts by churches on these C.U.P.S. trips for many, many years. While their command of the English language is quite limited, their construction skills are not limited at all. And best of all, God has touched their hearts with an endless supply of patience regarding all of us Norte Americanos who lack virtually any skill useful on a construction job site. They repeatedly demonstrated a great ability to teach us (using patience, hand motions, and humor) "how to fish", instead of "giving us the fish". And everyone, regardless of age, pulled together getting the work done.
Our evening devotional time revealed many insights into the experience we all shared. Some of these observations were:
The Mexican people in the community were genuinely glad we were there. They showed this in many different ways, including pitching in to help with the concrete work, preparing and serving us lunch on two days, and making us feel warmly welcomed in their church on Wednesday night.
The Mexican people have so little (materially) and yet they are so happy and content.
The C.U.P.S. organization really does do great job of identifying needs in the community, and a fantastic job with regard to stewardship of the funds provided to them. Louise pinches every penny and peso till it screams to make sure that the C.U.P.S. funds go as far as they can, and Julio and Fidenzio are very diligent about taking care of the C.U.P.S. tools, cleaning them thoroughly at the end of each day, and keeping up with them so none of the tools "go missing". Quite a lot of materials (short pieces of rebar, leftover wire, nails, etc.) that we would throw away at the end of a construction day in the U.S. are carefully saved by them for future use on other projects.
For an entire week, we all managed to survive, and actually have a lot of fun, with no cell phones, game boys, iPods, etc.
Mexican speed bumps are actually worse at 3 mph than at 10 mph.
Despite the many cultural, social, economic and other differences between us and the Mexican people we saw, they truly look upon us as their "Hermanos en Cristo", or "Brothers and Sisters in Christ". And that's not a bad way for us to view them, too. Come to think of it, that's not a bad way for us to view each other, too.
Even if you don't know any other Spanish, you can get by in Mexico with:
Por favor (please)
Gracias (thank you)
Mas Coca Cola, por favor! (you figure it out)
It's really a great feeling knowing that you're working hard to help other people and to serve our Lord.
As we returned on Friday, I did have one other observation worthy of note. No one from our group looked the same as when we left. Each of the children had grown (in many ways), and every adult looked a little younger, more relaxed and at peace than when we had left Nashville. Interesting how serving the Lord can do that!
Anyhow, back to the original question: Why would anyone take their children on a trip like this one year, much less four years, during spring break? Well, if you don't know yet, go on the trip one time. Then you will know.
~Todd Baker~
Other 2008 Participants: Todd Baker (son), Catherine Baker, Alice Christian, Andrew Wash, Susan Kaestner, Evie Kaestner, Jenny Noel, Alex Noel, Bob Oglesby, Matt Oglesby, Fran Peebles, Pam Prevost, Patrick Prevost, Ciny Waller, and Tripp Waller |
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