Our church partners with a ministry called Amor and does a trip each Memorial Day weekend called Come Build Hope. This year 300 people (some from other congregations) joined together to build 18 homes for families in Mexico who needed some help.
For those of us not able to join the camping and building crews there is a one-day bus trip to Mexico to get a tour and mini experience of Come Build Hope. I decided this would be an awesome outing for me and my Kindergartner since she is super sensitive to poverty and people in need and interested in other countries and cultures. I was so excited to watch her little mind be blown by the fact that there is another country so close to our own home.
I didn't anticipate how much MY mind was going to be blown.
I have seen and lived around poverty before, but usually I have to get on an airplane and fly far far away to get there. I am still processing the reality that all that I saw is practically "down the street" from me. The border experience alone was hard to comprehend. I have crossed country borders in Europe and Africa and the difference between one country and another isn't that striking in those continents. But crossing the border between the US and Mexico was like that scene in The Wizard of Oz where the movie goes from black and white to color. All I mean by that is that the difference in the two worlds divided by a man-made "border" is striking and dramatic and immediate. I am still processing it all.
Our first stop was at the campsite where everyone sleeps.
They served us a delicious lunch and Samantha loved her rice and beans.
Sam also loved meeting the "alarm clock" and playing in the wood pile.
Then we transferred to a smaller bus and went to visit a few of the build sites.
The roads were steep and windy and dusty, and the only time I was nervous the whole day was when I was praying the brakes wouldn't give out on the bus.
Here is one of the houses in process.
Samantha couldn't understand why they would build the families such a small house.
"You can make people happy by giving them something small and even broken, because they will know that you care." (She brought a couple small cars that she gave away to two little boys, and she felt bad that one was missing a wheel.)
"They all look sad." (She kept saying this about the kids. I think what she saw as sadness on the kids' faces was probably more confusion at seeing this bus load of white people walking around their neighborhood.)
"They all have the same face." (Her way of saying that they looked similar to each other, and different from her.)
"I don't want to live there." (An honest response from a 6 year old who now has seen with her own two eyes that the world is a lot bigger and a lot different than VERY comfortable coastal San Diego.)
As I said before there is still a lot to process from this trip. Mostly I feel a conviction and responsibility for our family to have an ongoing relationship with this country that is so close to our home. It is hard to picture what that looks like with 3 very small children, but we will keep talking about it.
One thing I know we can do is go on this trip again next year, and I am already looking forward to it. I definitely plan to recruit more friends/family/kids to come with us next year!
