Our family participated in a ministry trip to Mexico in late July/early August. We served for a week at a ministry location of Foundation For His Ministry. I’m slowly rolling out the blog posts about this amazing experience. You can view all posts about our trip by clicking here.  

I wrote this entry for our group’s blog at the end of our first day at the mission.

The morning began, like every morning will, at ‘Sala’, where all staff and visitors gather for a time of worship, through music and through a message shared by someone on staff. After Sala, we took a 4 hour tour of all aspects of the mission… the history, the campus, the vision, the needs, and how God has provided in all these areas over the years. We were guided by a woman from L.A. who, along with her husband and 3 kids, has lived here for the past 2 years, serving on staff. She gave us insight into the culture of this part of Mexico, and what has happened socio-economically to create such great need in the community. 

We saw the outreach center, where people can come for material help… the warehouse, where donations come in every week from the States & Canada and are organized so they can best be used… the daycare for community kids, which does their laundry every day and begins to teach them basic self-care and pre-reading skills… the orphanage, comprised of 7 houses where kids live with house parents and are taught what it means to be in a family… the wheelchair shop, which rebuilds used chairs and custom builds new ones, giving them away to those who need them in the community… the volunteer EMS & firefighter service, the only free services of their kind in the valley… the macadamia orchard, where an original variety of tree has been created to withstand the climate, in order to provide a source of income for the mission… the medical clinic, which is hopping this week… the church… the Bible school, which offers training to students over 18, often sending them to more remote areas of the country to teach people the truth about Christ… and all of this, ALL of it, is done with a clear message that Christ is the only hope for any community, anywhere.

We began a few work assignments this afternoon, scattered over the property, and will continue such assignments both morning and afternoon in the coming days. Tonight, all the visitors will be babysitting orphanage kids so the house parents can have a night off.

What has been overwhelming is the size and scope of this mission’s work. Most of us who have not been here before have been surprised by the size of the property. But what is more overwhelming is the simple, faith-driven approach to the work being done. A motto here is ‘God provides for where God guides’, and we are hearing stories constantly about how that is true. A need in a department is recognized, prayers are offered, and that very need is fulfilled by what comes in on the next truck of donations. Expertise is needed in an area, and before the need is publicized, someone in a visiting group like ours shows up with exactly the skill, experience, and connections needed. For that reason, the structure around visiting groups like ours allows us to see what happens here and participate in it as much as is culturally appropriate.

We have much more to see and much more to learn. God is present in this place in ways we don’t usually think about. We will return home changed, this much we know.

So. Turns out I was unable to post updates while in Mexico. Logistics made it impossible. I write this from a hotel room in San Diego. The post under this one was written in a similar room in the same city 7 days ago. Imagine, if you will, in that white space between the two posts, a basketful of challenge, revelation, tears, laughter, worship, prayer, questions, answers, work, sand, weariness, and joy. If you can imagine that, you will have an accurate picture of how the energy level in our family’s hotel room is different than a week ago. Our kids did very well in a schedule that was not set up for kids, and hopefully caught some things about faith and worship and culture and compassion and work and patience and self-control that they hadn’t experienced before. I know Neil and I did.

I wish I could say that over the next few days I will roll out a series of posts that attempt to capture our experience. But the truth is that in the next few days there will be laundry… there will be the reality of returning to work… there will probably be 300 emails in my inbox…. there will be actual mail in our actual mail box…. there will be 2 kids attempting to find ‘north’ in our normal surroundings… there will be lots to do just to get our feet back on the ground… and school starts in 2 weeks. Honestly, getting my online life caught up can’t be my first priority. BUT… I will write about this experience as I can. I won’t be able to help it. I think my perspective has been forever altered.

We were able to post several times to our group blog.  Go here to read some details about our first few days.

5: airplanes involved in moving our group from the middle of the country to the west coast.

2: kids gathered around 2 inch ipod nano screen watching a movie on airplane #2

1: parent who was able to sleep during above reprieve. He truly deserved the sleep.

4: vans we will be using this week for transportation, 1 used exclusively for cargo.

23: people who waited an hour after picking up luggage for the vans to arrive

4,587: the number of times Jonathan and Hallie got in some kind of skirmish.

3: vans wandering around San Diego to find gas station, Wal Mart, food for over an hour.

0: number of GPS units brought on the trip

17: the number of times Neil and I regretted having sold our ‘old’ iPhones on ebay before this trip. (They sold in 3 minutes last week.  For more than the cost of the new ones we ordered.  Which haven’t arrived yet. And yes, we are now in lame back-up phone purgatory.  And lame back-up phones offered us NO HELP today.)

2: kids who were transfixed by their first view of any part of the ocean at a great waterfront on San Diego bay. 

1: unexpected fireworks display

36: extremely tired, but extremely grateful, people

Today was great.  Today I remembered that Day 1 of a trip like this is all about logistics.  Today I realized that the only time I ever think about having a clock hanging on the exterior of my house is when I’m browsing through Sky Mall magazine. Tomorrow…. we sleep in.  Tomorrow we will worship together, guided by Psalm 100. We will talk about what it means to serve as a part of the body of Christ. We are a diverse group in many ways… age, experiences, gifts, personalities, expectations. We want to unify around the purpose of bringing glory to God by serving others.

Tomorrow we will load up our vans, cross the border and drive several hours to our home for the week.

Thank you for praying for us…. hopefully more updates will follow!