41 people from our church went to Tijuana – 5 sixth graders who were graduating from a discipleship program, 10 senior high students, and the rest were adults, most of whom were there for the sixth graders or the students. We worked with Amor Ministries. We completed two houses and had a really great trip. There were a ton of awesome things, but I'll just share my four favorites.
I’ve been on missions before, but this was the best example of the “body” operating together, as I see Paul talking about in the scriptures. We were going for a building trip, so presumably everybody would just build. But, even at the worksite people operated with different gifts (like we talked a lot about before going on the trip). At the worksite, some lead the whole thing, some lead their area, some just followed directions and worked real hard, others had a hard time with all the physical labor but found other things to do, like take water to people and play with the neighbor kids. We had a cook team that blessed everyone’s socks off with great food and tremendous help around the campsite. The sixth graders lead devotionals every day. Some of the students and one adult prepared and lead us in worship every night; that was fantastic. It was excellent to see and be part of.
One night, after everyone had gone to bed, I saw a guy up talking with one of our students. They called me over. The student was sobbing and the guy was hugging him. This guy is a quiet, strong type. But, I sat there and watched this guy share some amazingly Spirit-filled words with this young man, and showed him amazing grace. I felt so privileged to be witness to this beautiful moment. It was a moment that you realize is only possible because of Christ.
The last day, half the team stayed in Mexico, the other half went home. We went to an outreach event at a church. We were supposed to be there to help. At first it didn’t seem like they were really utilizing our help. We eventually jumped in and served food. After the food it seemed like things were wrapping up, and not feeling like we were being much help I wanted to leave. But, we stuck around and God allowed some cool stuff, really at the initiation of our students. I started to look around and our students had engaged themselves with people. Some of them were playing games with groups of kids. Several of our female students had found little girls to almost adopt, they were dancing with them, holding them, and acting affectionately. Another student was making bracelets for kids out of the leaves of a bamboo plant. One of our students who was standing back a little more, had his heart captured by a little boy, and they were rough housing. One of the male students, who just a couple days before had asked for kind of a private lesson from me in how to share the gospel, was going around using gospel bracelets to share the gospel with several men and a whole bunch of kids; that was one of the most awesome things of the whole trip for me. The whole thing was so cool. And to think, I almost ruined all of it, selfishly wanting to leave.
The senior high leaders and students stopped in San Diego for one day on the way back to have some fun and process the trip. I really had high hopes for the processing time, because I know those can be powerful. But, come on, these are high school students, so my expectations were low. They really blew me away. They told great stories and we laughed on and off. I laughed so hard one time that I fell over with my gut hurting. Each student shared something he or she learned, and they were really profound. The thing that really blew me away was, they shared significant things that they thought God wanted to change in them, which they had discovered on the trip. It was an incredible blessing to be part of.
I can’t wait to see what God is going to do next with Stone Creek and missions. I hope you will consider being on the next one.
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