I know, I know…it’s a scary picture. I look like a cross between The Terminator and Crocodile Dundee !! I was just trying to do anything to keep the sun off of me. I didn’t want to spontaneously combust !! Anyway, in the middle of 1998, I went on my first missions trip with a bunch of people from my church and some of the surrounding churches. We went to Guadalajara, Mexico for 10 days to build a church. We got down there and met up with our missionary leader Ernie , at the airport. He loaded us all up in some vans and took us to our hotel. The hotel was pretty nice. You would’ve though we were on vacation, rather than a missions trip. It was 5 floors and it had a courtyard in the middle of the hotel with a pool with a fountain in it. You could stand in the courtyard and look straight up to the sky because there was no roof. I guess it’s hard to explain, but the 4 walls of the hotel with all the rooms surrounded the courtyard in the middle, get it? Oh, we ate at some REALLY nice restaurants, too !! I was surprised. I thought I’d be sleeping in a hut and eating bugs for 10 days. The reason for the nice arrangements was because in the past, when they have tried to save money by having people stay and eat with the locals or at cheap motels, people had gotten sick and morale was very low. So they decided that in order to have people in good condition to WORK IT, we were put up with decent accommodations. Yaaaaa Hoooo !!! But we DID work it !!!!!! Actually , a bunch of people ended up getting sick anyway. Ernie said that it was the most on one trip. Figures. Not ME though !! THANK GOD !! I’m not sure what it was. Ernie told us that every place that he was taking us was ok to drink the water and have the ice. He takes people to the same places all the time. We drank only bottled water, too. On girl got REALLY sick and had to go to the hospital. They said she had parasites. EWWWWWWW!!!!!
Every morning we were awoken at about 6 AM to board the SEMI reconditioned yellow school bus that took us to the site every morning. The site was up in the hills. Guadalajara is a valley and it is surrounded by hills and mountains. The locals call the mountains the Ridge of Misery. They call it that because that is where the poor people live. As you go up the hills and away from the city, the living arrangements get poorer and poorer. We were working about halfway one of the hills. Yikes !! Whatta bus ride !! The roads were HORRIBLE !! It was the rainy season when we were there, and MAN does it rain !! All the water rushes down the mountains and with it comes all kinds of rocks, trash and debris. The roads had HUGE sink holes in them. They just leave everything the way it is because they know that it will be back that way as soon as they fix it. The thing that struck me as being the most strange was the fact that here are these poor people living in these small,…TINY stone homes with MANY people squeezed into them , and most of them are dressed NICE ! You wouldn’t really know they were poor by looking at them. Ernie said it was some sort of pride thing about not looking poor. Weird. Anyway, our mission was to build a church. Well, it was already started, but we were going to do some work on it, mainly build a wall and do the electrical work. Now, when I say a CHURCH, it was only a building to meet in. It had 4 block walls, cement floor, metal roof, and a few lights and plugs. It was just a place for the people to meet. At that time, the people would meet in small groups in different homes. Like I said, the homes were SMALL !
Since I am an electrician, I was defaulted to the ELECTRICAL TEAM which consisted of my friend Pete and I. It was QUITE a different experience from working in the States. First of all, we had to determine what needed to be done. So we go a list and then proceeded to find out WHERE we could get the parts. After driving around for a couple of HOURS, we found a place. Trying to order the stuff was an ordeal in itself. I was telling Ernie what I wanted, and he would translate to the guy behind the counter. Well, what we call different parts in the states is different than what they call them in Mexico. So the guy was bringing out pictures and different parts to try to figure out what I wanted. The stuff they use down there is lousy, too. None of it would be fit for use up here in the states. It wouldn’t pass inspection. Same with the work itself. There are no inspectors down there, so whatever you do goes. I saw speaker wire just stapled across the cement walls. It was interesting. Even after we finished with what we did for wiring at the church, down THERE, it was a TOP QUALITY job, but up here it wouldn’t have passed inspection, mainly because of the poor quality parts. Anyway, after about 2 ½ hours, we made it out of the supply house with our parts. I was sooooo mentally exhausted from trying to communicate. Oh, the OTHER thing was that they needed a nut driver to use to install the metal panels for the roof. Now, in the states, this is a very common tool. Well, NOT down there !!! We went to about 6 different hardware stores and NOONE hardly even HEARD of it, much less HAVE it !! Then we were driving by and saw a Sears. We figured they’d have it in there FOR SURE, ….NOT !!! The entire hardware section consisted of about 2 pegboard racks with a few screwdrivers. Talk about FRUSTRATING !!
So, during the day we worked on the church, and then we would go back to the room and get cleaned up and then go and get something to eat. We ate at an Italian place a couple of times, a steak house (SALAD for me, thanks !!), a Chinese food place and a burger place, but NO Mexican food !! Go figure. Actually, Ernie said that we probably wouldn’t like REAL Mexican food. After we ate, we’d usually just go back to the rooms and hang out before bed. There wasn’t much to do. Ernie didn’t think it was a good idea for us to go running around. The only place he’d let us go was to the big supermarket down the road. Dirty faced kids were always hanging out in front of that place and begging. So THAT was the extent of our NIGHTLIFE. I’m NOT complaining, though. It CERTAINLY beat eating bugs and sleeping in grass huts !!!
One night, after working at the church, Ernie told us we were going to take a ride to the other side of the city and visit the site of the last church. Well, I think Ernie had mistaken the SEMI reconditioned yellow school bus for a 4X4 HUMMER !! I could not BELIEVE where he took us !! He brought us up the side of this mountian. Halfway up, we past the local school which consisted of about 12 old busses up on cinder blocks. These were the different school rooms. As I said before, the Ridge of Misery is where the poor folks live. They just pick a spot and build, and wait for the city to catch up to them. They have no electricity up there yet, so the steal it from the bottom of the mountain. It looks like a big spider web across the mountain. There were wires EVERYWHERE !! The people would just stick branches, shovels, brooms or anything else they could find into the ground and then strung wires across them. So we FINALLY made it to the top of the Ridge of Misery. It overlooked the whole city. It was just about dusk. You could see little glows from fires burning in barrels in the streets and different sections of the city’s lights pop on all at once. It kinda looked nice from afar, and at night. So we got to the top and got out of the wreck….er…..yellow school bus. Ernie told us about the city and it’s people. About the history and what the main religious beliefs were. I guess they call themselves “Catholic”, but it is a weird, distorted version of Catholicism. They mix Catholicism with voodoo and witchcraft. They believe that there is actual power in the religious STATUES. Some people perform animal sacrifices. So after sharing for a while we all started to pray for the people and for the city. It was a very powerful time of prayer. We were up there for a few hours. So were proceeded to head back to the liability on wheels,…….er…..I mean the school bus, to head back down the mountain. Well, it was WELL dark by this time. I think it was only by GOD’S grace that we made it down alive !!!!
On the Sunday we were down there, we went to church at the LAST church that the LAST missionary team built. It was cool!! Even though we were speaking different languages , you could still feel the sense of love and community we all had in common in Jesus !! They were all so joyful. The church building is just a metal framed building with a dirt floor and a metal roof. They had a Christian school there, too. See, happens is, Ernie goes into the center of a neighborhood, and sets up a tent and has evangelistic meetings. People come and receive Jesus and then keep coming back. He keeps the tent up for a while and during this time, the new Christians have small church meetings scattered around in the different SMALL houses. If there is enough of a response , Ernie finds a place nearby to put a big enough building where everyone can meet TOGETHER instead of being all scattered around. Then the missionaries come and build it.
The second to last day we were supposed to be working down there, a few guys from the local government came down and shut the job down. They said we didn’t have the proper permits. It was a shame too. One more day and I think we could’ve finished everything. We were almost done with the electrical work, and the roof and walls looked close to being done, also. The made us bring all the tools out and then they shut and locked the doors and put a sicker about six feet by three feet across the door that said something like don’t break this seal or you go to jail. It was in Spanish so I don’t really know. Well, come to find out that about five minutes after the guys left, all the neighborhood kids that we were buying Cokes for tore the big banner down. We still couldn’t finish working, though.
The last full day we were there was a free day. Ernie was going to show us around a little bit. We were going to go to the market places. Every thing was pretty inexpensive there as far as some nice handmade stuff. I bought a nice blanket. Some people were coming out of there with TONS of stuff. All kinds of leather stuff,…..boots, bags, belts. I didn’t buy much of anything. The funniest part was that Ernie brought us through the MEAT MARKET section. Every kind of RAW animal part that you could imagine, just swingin’ in da breeze. Each on sporting it’s own, nice colony of various insects. It all looked sooooo deliciously appetizing. (It reinforced my decision to no longer partake in the eating of meat !!!) I guess a particular delicacy down there is baby goat’s heads. I noticed you could buy them already cooked and with the little horns still intact !! (I guess the horns serve as eating handles, kinda like the little stems on corn on the cob.) The fruit cart didn’t look that appetizing, either. I was about ten feet or so away, and I noticed some weird looking fruit. As I got a little closer, I noticed it was a piece of watermelon covered with flys and bees. Well, the gross part was when this girl came up next to me and bought it and then just shook all the bugs of and started munching !!! That was a wee bit yucky !!!!
So, the last day we met for breakfast before heading out to the airport. One of the guys that was with us, said he enjoyed meeting us all and gave out little gifts to some of us. He gave me a little bag of marbles because he was convinced that I had lost mine. The plane flight home was not fun though. I had to sit in the last possible seat before sitting in the bathroom. I didn’t know anyone around me. There was a couple to my left and another to my right. When we left, the first half of the flight , the lady to my left was freaking out because she was afraid of flying and the couple to my right just got married, and they were makin’ out and bein ga-ga all over each other. The second half of the flight, the lady on my left calmed down a bit, but the couple on my right started fighting and the girl was crying. Then, towards the end of the flight, the couple to my right stopped fighting, but the woman on my right started freakin’ out again because there was some turbulence while we were coming in to land. Ahhhhh,…home sweet home !!!
Well……in conclusion……it was worth the trip. I didn’t really know what to expect before I went. I thought it would be exciting , and that everyone down there would be just so excited to hear about Jesus, but that wasn’t the case. It was really no different than around here. Sure, there were people that wanted to hear about Jesus, but not nearly as many as I had thought. It made me realize that I don’t have to ge to far off places to try and share about Jesus, my mission field is my own backyard!! Right here where I live I can try to make a difference. I have a renewed appreciation for what GOD has given me as far as material poseesions. I have never seen poverty like that. I mean, you can see it on T.V., but it doesn’t compare to seeing it in person. It even looks better in the pictures I took, than it does in real life. I just than GOD for everything I have. I have a new appreciation for my country, too. Sure, it isn’t what it used to be, but I still love it. It’s not our country that went bad, it’s the people running it that are ruining it. GOD BLESS AMERICA !!!!!
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