trip I was excited to help others, but I wasn’t exactly thrilled. I
wasn’t sure what to expect. I was going with a disadvantage of hardly
knowing any Spanish. Almost everyone else that went had two years of
Spanish in high school, and I had decided to take French instead.
From
the beginning, we weren’t sure this trip was going to happen.
Originally, we were supposed to go to Juarez. After everything that was
happening there, the board at our school decided to cancel our missions
trip. Months later, they said we were maybe going to go to a different
country. Finally, about 3 months before we were scheduled to go
somewhere, the board made a decision to send those of us whose parents
were ok with it to AIM in Matamoros. We had 3 or 4 pre-trip meetings.
Not enough! We usually spent the 3-4 hour meetings going over rules,
doing Bible studies, and planning our VBS. Looking back, I can tell that
the devil really, really didn’t want us to go. He tried everything to
stop it. In Matamoros, hearts were touched, memories were made, and
friendships were created. None of that would have happened if we didn’t
go. The devil had one final try to try and keep us from Matamoros. We
got held up at the boarder crossing for at least an hour waiting for the
guards to decide if they were going to let us go through or not. They
finally let us through, and our missions trip finally began after much
anticipation.
We were able to do a lot of different
things while we were down there. We walked through the Colonia just
spending some time with the people, we went to the Youth Detention
Center, the orphanage, did VBS, went mud walking to go get some kids
that we were going to carry to VBS, went to a church service, ran a
church service, did random acts of kindness, and built a “house.” All of
those events have great stories built into them, but there are some
that stand out the most.
My mind-set before this trip
was that I was going to help these people and help them see Christ.
Little did I know that they were going to have such a huge impact on me.
When I saw the way the people down there live, it made me realize what
kind of life I have led. They are so selfless. They do everything to
help their family. They have next to nothing, yet they are way happier
than all the people here. It is such an eye-opener to see that. The way
they live, they only care about the things that really matter and aren’t
burdened by the things of this earth.
The Tuesday we
were there, we were scheduled to go to the Youth Detention Center. All
of us were really excited to play soccer with the guys there. When we
woke up that morning it was pouring down rain. It was still raining when
we got there, so soccer was definitely out of question. Everyone was
pretty bummed about having to sit in a dark room while it rained
outside, but no one knew what God had planned. The whole time we spent
sharing stories with the guys and one girl that were in the detention
center. They shared with us, and we shared with them. We played some
worship songs, and basically just hung out with them. Our trip leader,
Richard, started talking to the guys about asking Jesus into their
hearts and knowing where they would go if they were to die. After he was
done talking, he asked those who wanted to accept Christ into their
hearts to get up and stand in a circle and he instructed us to stand
around them and pray for them. It was so awesome to witness all most
every one of those kids go to the center of the room. Praying for them
was even more awesome. They were praying in Spanish and we were praying
in English for them. It was great. Little did we know before hand, if it
wasn’t raining, we probably wouldn’t have had that special opportunity
with those guys. It was great to be a part of that.
I learned a lot about God and how He works through people. I had a lot
of stuff going on in my life before the trip, and during it, it seemed
that every area that I was struggling in was addressed on the trip. I
grew closer to God than I had ever been before. I also got to spend a
lot of time talking with Z, our bus driver/translator. He would bring up
certain topics out of the blue, and each time it would be exactly what I
needed to hear, or an area that I was lacking in before the trip, like
spending time with God. It was a real blessing.
This trip was great and it was a major part of my life. I loved every minute of it.
