After five years of waiting we finally had the privilege of having our church from CA, Grace Bible Fellowship (GBF), visit us on a missions trip. It was with great anticipation that we waited for them.
Their trip began with the whole group attending our little Spanish church, which has grown to approximately 150 adults from 60 when we first arrived. God stepped in again so that Nancy happened to be leading worship that Sunday, in Spanish of course. This was special since Nancy was the first worship leader at GBF. The team appeared to enjoy the service, although by US standards it is very long, and they got to meet a lot of people including connecting with the pastor. Some of the team members plan to keep in contact with our pastor as an encouragement to him. This is one of the many benefits that we appreciate resulting from a team visit of this nature.
The overall trip was short and the team only had two and a half days to spend in a sports camp with the boys. The activities included basketball, ultimate Frisbee, and hockey. Yes, hockey in Mexico, although it was regulation hockey but on concrete. The boys were excited when they heard it would be a sports camp. This enthusiasm carried over to their involvement in the sports activities. The team members also had the opportunity to conduct Bible lessons with groups of the boys as well as special one-on-one times. When saying goodbye to the boys, clearly the boys would have liked to have more and took more time then scheduled to say goodbye. One of their questions, "are you coming back next year?" We definitely hope a team from GBF will be returning next year with an even much larger team and staying for a longer period of time. Here are photos of the basketball camp. Here is a video of the basketball portion of the camp.
The last night in Mexico was dinner at our house followed by a summary discussion of their visit. Here are photos of the visit. We could see that even after three days, the boys really touched the team members. A trip like this will do that to you. Several of the team also became quite attached to our church and our pastor. This really touched us. As some of the team's family members had been concerned, one of the questions we asked was "Did you feel in any danger while you were here?" The answers from essentially everyone were very enlightening and interesting. Answers like:
- "Although coming from broken and abusive homes, all the boys were cheerful and real gentlemen and we never felt any danger being alone with them whatsoever. "
- "Each evening at 9 or 10 pm we would walk down to the Ixtlahuacan plaza to get street tacos. Not only were they excellent but we survived the tacos and the walk."
- "Rodney and Kina, the local missionaries, have four little girls and they live in the center of the village and feel totally safe."
- "Another intern missionary has a little girl and they feel no danger."
- "Contrary to what some people thought, the bottled water was just fine."
Hopefully and prayerfully the team coming down and experiencing our little part of the world first hand will allay any fears for future teams. So now we are prayerfully anticipating a much larger team for a longer period of time next year.
