Mexico+Mission+Trip

The opening scene: a beautiful out stretched open air market that seems to go on for miles. I could hear the shop owners calling for me, asking me to look around their shop. I’d stop to be nice and look around, maybe even buying something I liked. Then when I get towards the end of the market, I see water splashing up, high enough to be seen over the tops of the shops. This blowhole was the main attraction of the market. The Spanish people in the area called it La Bufadora. But back to reality, underneath of the beautiful market, this ocean side community ofEnsenada,Baja California,Mexico was filled to the brim with poverty. This poverty isn’t like theUnited States poverty. This is beyond that; this trip inspired me in many ways and taught me to look at the world differently as well.
 * Mexico **** Mission Trip **

While on this mission trip we, as a church group, went to different “work” sights. These “work” sights were places that went from extreme poverty to what theUnited States poverty is. One of these places that are an example of extreme poverty was called theConcreteVillage. The people or villagers as they called themselves, lives in what basically looked like little concrete boxes, hence the name. This small community was so much in poverty that a lot of the time the adults would have to go hungry at night so that their children could have a full meal, even though most of the time this meal consisted of either small animals that the children caught or tortillas. The reason that our church was sent to this village was to help them build a working bathroom unit, or a more private bathroom unit. Before we came along to build that, the people of this village would just go to the bathroom where ever they felt like going. My first thoughts about this village were that this would be unbearable living conditions to live in. But as our group leaders started explaining to us that these people didn’t know anything better, I started to think a little differently about that. Especially after the group leaders had said that a lot of the villagers had came from worse places than this. This experience was just one that started to inspire me.

Another location we went to while on this mission trip was to a women’s shelter. This shelter showed a different side of the poverty issue in theEnsenada. The women’s shelter was basically what the Heartland house is here inSioux Falls. It is a place for battered women and children go to get back on their feet. At the shelter our group helped to clean up the inside of the buildings, by cleaning the walls, doors, windows, basically whatever needed to be cleaned we cleaned. Later on after we had cleaned everything up, we went and played with the children, while the mothers went and relaxed. Seeing this kind of shelter in theEnsenada community made me realize that there are some people in the area that cared about the Spanish people, even if they were already in poverty as it was.

The final “work” sight that my church group went to was called Baja 89. This small urban community was an up and raising retreat center for youth groups, but the area that it is in is an area of high poverty. The poverty in this area was much like what theUnited States poverty is like. To help this community out, our small group helped by laying a foundation for a church, build a house for one of the family’s of the community, and watch the children of the community. The group got put into three different groups, one for each project. I was assigned to the group that was helping to watch the children of the community. In doing this we got to play a little soccer with almost all the community children. Then we went back to the Baja house and had snacks and colored. While doing this, I met one of the sweetest kids out there. He was really quiet and shy, but he had a talent for drawing really well and he could speak a little English, enough to carry on a conversion with me. I believe that this single child inspired me the most because he made me think of my sister at home and how I would not want her to go through anything that these children had to go through.

The closing scene: I was sitting in a truck waiting at the border, waiting to cross back over to theUnited States. I had my passport in my hand ready to leave, but then I stopped what I was doing to entertain myself and looked around the place that had changed my life to an extent. I saw all the people who were walking up and down the lines of cars selling items or food to just barely make enough money to scrap past what they needed to live. In doing this I asked myself “Is there anything I can do to help these people?” The answer in my head as I looked back was yes there is. But by the time I had finally thought of something I could do, we had crossed over the border and back into what I thought of as a now to self involved country. This experience that I had while in Ensenada has inspired in many ways and to take action, by having fundraising events at my church to raise money for the poverty stricken families in this community.