Mexico Mission Trip 2010

I spent April 2nd-10th on Maple Valley Presbyterian Church's annual Mexico Mission Trip through Azuza Pacific University. On April 2nd I woke-up bright and early so that I could be to the Sea-tac airport by 6am. My dad and I arrived around 5:35 and walked back and fourth accross the airport searching for others from my flight group (we left the flight info at home and couldn't remember what airline I was flying on). After about 30minutes or so we finally spotted a few people from our church and got me checked in. After waiting for everyone else to show up and check in we headed through security and found our boarding gate, only to discover that our flight was delayed due to weather problems in San Francisco. Lucky for us the people working the Virgin America counter were more than prepared for us. They did a bunch of games and gave way vouchers for free food and movies on the flight. They did a contest for the oldest coin that people had and we even had a paper airplane making/ flying contest. Kayla and Gracie pulled out the playing cards, while Dan, Rick, and myself played iSketch on Dan's laptop and everyone else either got to know each other better or cought up on sleep.

Once we boarded the plane we felt pretty lucky though, the plane had blacklights and their was a touch screen on the back of every seat. The monitors let you listen to music, watch movies, play games, watch satellite TV, chat seat-to-seat, and so much more. We ended up having about a two hour delay from Sea-Tac to San Fransisco and ended up missing our connecting flight. So we switched to another flight that wasn't suppost to board until 2:55pm. And it was almost noon when we got their, so Dan payed for our lunch at a pizza place in the airport. Of course the airport was supper fogged in and only one run-way was open so we ended up loading the plane around 6:30pm. So almost everyone did all of their homework and caught up on their reading. Then we pulled out the cards and played for hours.

When we finally landed in San Diego we were really hungry so our van drivers, Brian and Dave, stoped at In-N-Out Burger for us to get some food. Then we went on a long road trip to El Centro. We arrived at the church in El Centro around midnight or 1am.

The next morning(techniqlly i was later that morning), April 3rd, we got up at 7am packed our bags and headed over to breakfast at The Golden Corral. After we finished up their we headed off for a quick 10-minute Wal-mart run, then we prayed and loaded up the vans. Advanced team crossed over the boader while the rest of us dropped off some supplies and went to a different Wal-mart we(Ruthie, Morgan, Alli, and myself) had lunch at the Taco Bell/ Pizza Hut that was inside the Wal-mart. Then we loaded up and crossed over the boarder. When we arrived in tent city the frst thing we saw was a certified dog(a really cute little pug). Ruthie, Morgan, Kristin, Laura, and myself grabbed our bags from the big pile in the middle of our camp site and set our stuff in our tent. Then Ruthie, Morgan, and myself found Alli and headed over to the vendors, where we purchased our very large Mexico blankets. Then we went back to our tent and got our hair braided. Then we had a dinner consisting of bean burritos, sharp cheddar cheese, riced, and mixed fruit. Then we had chapel and headed off to our tents for a good night's sleep.

The next morning, April 4th(Easter), I woke up around 6:15am to the people in the tent next to us screaming and laughing their heads off. At 7am Fernando's voice came over the loud speakers("Good morning Cuernavaca! Did you know that diarrea's hereterary?...it runs in your jeans") and music was blasted through out tent city to get us ready for the long day ahead of us. We got dressed and went to breakfast, then to chapel, where they discussed the ABC's of christianity(ask, believe, and celebrate)and about 15 people accepted Christ for the first time. When chapel was over we had our devotion time and then loaded up the vans and headed out to our villages.

When we arrived in our village, Chihuahua, their were many people gathered their awaiting our arrival. The children ran around laughing and playing while the adults sat talking to one another in the shade. I was really nervious because of the language barrier (my spanish consists of taco, barrito, and a few other simple words)lucky for me Morgan was in the same situation, so we kind of stood off to the side while others started to get involved with the children's games. After awhile everyone headed into the church building for chapel, which I found to be a bit of a culture shock, instead of singing they yelled into the microphones and claped as loud and out of rythmn as they possibly could. During one of the songs this littl kid, whom I call, "monkey boy", took Rick's water bottle and chugged the whole thing before we could even react to the water bottle being stolen.

They also got Steve to play the drums for one of the songs and part way through worship during one of the songs that gets repeatedly faster Danny told them to sing even faster and it was really amusing. When Lofy was interpreting the pastors sermon, the pastor kept cuttig him off. After the service we went outside and set up tables and chairs for lunch. They fed us tacos with both wheat and flour tortillas, guacamole, pico de gallo, beans, what appeared to be steak, and pineapple soda(i know it sounds a bit weird, but it was really good). I felt really bad though because we were sittig in chairs at tables, while the people in the village sat on the ground.

Then we cleaned up and while I was watching the baño door while Ruthie was in their, a little girl came up to me and said something about baños, but I didn't understand what she was saying at all. Then Morgan, Ruthie, and I hung out by the vans laughing at the young boys aggressively playful nature amoung Danny, David, Issac, Rick, and Austin. After a little bit a young girl, about five years old, named Sophia came up and started tickling me so I tickled her back. She said something that I didn't understand so I turned to ruthie, who informed me that Sophia wantd me to chase her, so I ran around chasing her and Morgan joined in. Sophia stoped running, looked at us questioningly, she pointed at us talking for a bit and then she would stop to giggle and start talking again.

Nobody understood what she was saying, but we think that she was asking the two of us ifwe were twins because both of us had our hair in french braids, we were both wearing sunglasses, and we both happened to be wearing our Mexico Outreach 2010 t-shirts. We chased Sophia and a couple of her friends around for a few more hours and ten went inside for siesta.

Shortly after siesta we were all gathered in the back room of the church. Brain had just pulled one of the party vans up right next to the door going outside so that we could quickly put away our blankets and pillows without attracting the attention of the people in Chihuahua. We heard the loud banging of the tree branches outside hitting the metal roof of the church. And the building started to shake. At first we thought it was just a strong wind or a truck passing by because of how weak the buildings are where we were. Then someone yelled, "Earthquake! Get out now!" and we all scrambled for the door. As I passed the van parked right outside the door I watched it tilt wildly from side to side and I'm surprised that neither of the vans flipped onto their side. When I got into an open spot in the field outside the church I looked around me and you could literally see the huge waves in the ground, but you could also feel the up and down and side to side motions of the earth's crust moving under your feet as you frantically moved around trying to maintain balance. It lasted for about 42 secounds, but felt more like two or three minutes becase the motion threw off your body's balance and your center of gravity. It turned out to be a 7.2 earthquake and we're lucky that nobody got injured physically, we definately shaken emotionally though. It didn't really hit me hard until a few minutes after the quake when I went to put my stuff down in one of the van and Lofy asked me if I was okay. Of course I totally lost all ontrol at this point and started balling my eyes out. For the rest of the time we were down their we had over three-hundred aftershocks. Many of which were 4 or 5 point earthquakes.

The funny thing about the quake was that the people living in one of the houses next door to the church, had been sitting outside having lunch or afternoon tea or whatever. They didn't even get up from their seats they justed started at us lke we were crazy, it was almost as nif they didn't feeli a thing. Either that or they had become so familiar with the recent quakes that it didn't effect hem anymore. oh yeah, and I forgot to mention that I was 20km away from the epicenter of the earthquake.

It's been weeks since we returned home from Mexico and I'm still nable to go much more than 20mins without thinking about earthquakes and aftershocks. My head starts spinning and I either get dizzy or get a headache everytime I go inside a building. At least I don't have to worry about port-a-potties falling over during an aftershock though(it never happened, but everytime I used a bono I would be hesitant because I thought that it might happen).

After the earthquake some people from the church dropped all their plans that they had for the day to come back and check on us, which was very kind of them. What a huge sign it was of God's love for us! Afterwords we all spread out and went around the city passing out fliers to promote our VBS.

When we arrived in tent city that evening, all of the other villages from Maple Valley had already returned safely and I was grateful to see that my sister was okay and not stuck in her village due to the bridge that had collapsed. We ever able to have dinner and chapel that eveningall thanks to the wonderful inverntion of generators. And luckily the power was back on the next morning so we didn't have to be sent back home.

The rest of the week went very smoothly between VBS, morning and evening chapel in both Chihuahua and in tent city, women's ministry, teen ministry, vendors, van rides, store runs, meeting the people in Chihuahua, doing our service project in the park, meeting a puppy named Cherry(AKA my bby), the end of the week BBQ, and saying our final goodbyes, our time spent in California(at the church, in vans, on the beach, in the hotel, and in the airports).

Please feel free to add comments about your own experience in Mexico and feel free to expand upon any and all of the things I've mentioned above.