Tijuana, trucks, and truth

Wow, where to start. My spring break down in Mexico was absolutely awesome. It was a great trip! My group was at a chruch in a lower/middle class area of Tijuana (called Lagos) called Dios Habla Hoy (God Speaks Today). We were fixing their roof for them so that it wouldn't keep leaking water into the upper rooms of the church. It was actually lots of fun! We used paint rollers to put a layer of tar down, and then before the tar dried we put down this special fabric/paper stuff, then put down another layer of tar on top of the paper. Then once the tar was dry we painted over it with a special sealing paint. It was pretty messy work and my hands were definitely very black for a day or two, but it was still great fun. Who can't love getting messy anyway? ;) Then in the afternoons we were doing VBS for the kids of the community. We didn't know ahead of time that we were going to be doing that so it was a bit of a surprise and a scramble to get things ready, but it went really well. We were able to use the resources that we had to come up with a really fun program for the kids. The first couple afternoons we walked around the neighborhood handing out flyers to invite kids to come to the VBS, which was a neat experience. We went door to door in a ton of apartment buildings inviting people to come. That was my first time ever knocking on people's door to talk to them, but it went really well. I quickly discovered that people in Mexico are a lot more open to random people knocking on their door than we are in the US. They didn't seem to have a problem with it like we do. So that made it a little less intimidating. Most days we had an average of about 15 or so kids, which turned out to be a pretty good number even though we had hoped for more than that. We were able to get to know the kids on a more personal level since there were fewer of them. That was so much fun! The kids were so cute and it was great getting to know them and talk to them. I didn't want to leave them. I miss them already . . . Our evenings were usually pretty free, so a couple nights we spent some time with the youth of the church (high school and college age group). That was awesome as well! It was just really neat to build relationships with them and to get to know them. One night they took us around Tijuana and showed us a bunch of stuff in the city. That was cool for them to show us some of their world. And it was definetely a crazy experience getting to ride through Tijuana in the back of a little, not so sturdy truck with some of them. :) Tons of fun though. So yeah, it was really neat to build those relationships with people in the church. Two people that I especially got to know were Antonio and Naome, so I am hoping to keep in touch with them. They are both very special people with huge hearts for the Lord!
Some things on the trip that I found surprising were the size of Tijuana and the border between the US and Mexico. Tijuana is huge! I had no idea it was that big. It's just really really big. Until you have actually been there and seen it it is hard to understand that. When you are driving in at night (which is when we got there) or looking at it from the coast of Coronado Isand you realize how big it really is. You can see all the lights on the hillside all glittering and spread out. It's a beautiful sight. As for the border, that's not such a beautiful sight. When I first thought of the Mexico/US border I pictured a big heavy duty wall seperating the two countries. Definitely not. There's merely a quite flimsy looking wall made of what looks like corrugated metal that goes not even 50 feet out into the ocean. It doesn't look like it would really keep anyone from crossing if they really wanted to. However, another thing that I did not expect is that there is about 100 yards of "no man's land" in between the two borders that is patrolled by helicopters and border patrols in Jeeps. So it's really not as easy as it looks . . .supposedly 2,000 people try to cross every day/night though. That's incredible to think about . . . But yeah, that was definitely not what I expected.
After our week in Mexico we spent one night in Coronado, California to debrief about what we had seen and experienced. That was a good time, but definitely very weird. You really couldn't get more a contrast. Tijuana is a somewhat run-down Mexican city, although not in all parts. And Coronado is a ritzy American tourist town where you pay an arm and a leg just for a simple souvenir. So it was really odd to be in that kind of atmosphere after just spending a week in Mexico, but it provided for some good reflection. While there we talked about what God had taught us over the trip and I realized that there wasn't really anything blatant that I felt God had challenged me with. In thinking about this more I realized that I had gone down to Mexico expecting God to work in my life, which isn't necessarily a bad thing except that it was like I was allowing Him to work at that time and not other times. It was almost as if I was saying to Him, "Okay God. Here's your week. Now impact my life and my relationship with You." And I realized that it should definitely not be like that. I thought about why I was not open to God's work in my life at other times and why I was trying to put Him into a box saying, "Ok, work now." I realized that I need to be challenging myself spiritually on a daily basis, not just waiting for mission trips or big events. I need to be truly seeking God with all of my heart. So I have begun my search for Him. I am trying to be in HIs Word on a more consistent basis and truly make Him the focus of my life and my energy. I tell you this so that you can help to keep me accountable. Feel free to check up on me and ask me how I am doing in my relationship with the Lord. As my close friends, I hope that you will feel comfortable doing that. I am eager to grow in my relationship with the Lord and see the ways that He will work in me now that I am open to Him. I am so thankful that He did not fulfill my expectations for the trip in that sense, but rather did what He knew was best. That is not to say that the trip was not awesome though. It was most definitely an incredible trip that God still used to build relationships and from which to teach me upon my return. I loved it!