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Published: April 12th 2008
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Mural
The mural we painted on a wall of the courtyard at El Salvador Iglesia de Cristo. The mural team was: (L to R, bottom row, then top) Kait Henderson, Bree Opfer, Scott Jones, Steph Ress, Scott Thraen, Jamie Smith, Me, Britt Ruttman. Another year, another missions trip, right? WRONG! Even though Christian Student Fellowship returned to Saltillo this year for our spring break missions trip, this trip was very different from the first and even better! About 45 students and 8 sponsors attended.
The trip down to Mexico this year was less eventful than last as we were lucky that we did not blow two tires. We stayed in the same church in Nuevo Laredo as last year. When we arrived in Saltillo, I was happy to note that I recognized much of the town. We went to church with the parishioners of the El Salvador Iglesia de Cristo, where we were serving. I also recognized many of the people in attendance and quite a few of the children. After church some of the neighborhood women made us dinner and we sat around chatting as well as playing with the kids in the courtyard. They especially liked it when we carried them around on our backs. Others played basketball. I think the neighborhood people were happy for the free babysitting!
On the first day I signed up to work on the mural that we painted on a wall of the courtyard.
Fireworks
The season opener fireworks display was spectacular! I also did this the second day. The mural was grapevines and two Bible verses in Spanish (Genesis 1:31 - "Y vio Dios todo lo que había hecho, y he aquí era bueno en gran manera," and Psalms 19:1 - "Los cielos cuentan la gloria de Dios, y el firmamento anuncia la obra de sus manos."). The mural team had a lot of fun painting and we were glad to help beautify the church.
The other project I worked on was mixing concrete by hand for a team that poured a roof on an older man's house. The roofing team stood on rickety 2x4-ish scaffolding (two concrete bucket lifters on the ground, two on the scaffolding, two on the roof) and lifted the concrete up in buckets to two others who poured the concrete with the help of a Mexican man who pours concrete regularly. I opted out of the scaffolding team as others wanted to do that and I'm quite content on the ground, and mixed concrete with a couple of the guys. I enjoyed the physicality of the labor, as I did last year, and how vacant my mind was while working - a nice break from
Warp speed
Very Star Wars, huh? school, certainly! Our conversation while on a wonderful Coke break (it tastes so much better in Mexico because they're not afraid of real sugar!) was also fun, learning about each other's backgrounds and talking about future plans.
There were several other teams who worked on other projects: one team poured a large concrete slab that will serve as a parking lot/basketball court/eating area or whatever they want to use it for. Another team dug a trench from the two church bathrooms to the street for a septic tank. They also dug the hole for the tank and lined with with concrete. This was a much-needed job because the church has a lot of problems with the toilets backing up. Yet another team poured footings for a building a sister church across town is building. We also held a vacation bible school, which I helped out with a couple times.
The only downer of the trip was that it was only 40 degrees or so two days and none of us really had appropriate clothing! It was also terrifically windy (we're talking gusts in excess of 60 miles an hour here) and since the roads are predominantly dirt, it
was a sandstorm for two days. The wind was so fierce it woke us up at night and when I looked out the sanctuary window, I saw a red cloud of dust moving by and I thought to myself that this is what sandstorms in the desert must be like, albeit on a smaller scale.
We made it to a baseball game when we were there (Saltillo's team is the Saraperos - pronounced Ser-rah-pear-os), and we took a bunch of the parishioners and neighborhood folk with us. It was the strangest game I've ever been to, but very amusing and a great slice of culture. It was the season-opener against Monterrey and as such it had a lot more... "entertainment" than most games. There was a GREAT fireworks show - top three ever - and scantily clad dancing girls (As Heath put it: "That's the first dance show I've been to where a baseball game broke out!") and a truly bizarre rabbit mascot who performed several strip teases throughout the game. Weird.
On our last afternoon in town we went to the market at the historic city center. I dragged Steph and Brittany down a cool (they'd say
creepy) alley where merchants were hawking fruits and spices and CDs, and we found a cute little hole-in-the-wall (literally) restaurant where we enjoyed amazing quesadillas con frijoles y queso. Yum!
We drove back to Nuevo Laredo that night and the next morning I was baptized with Steph, Scott and Bree in the Rio Grande. This was very cool for me because traveling has been such a big part of my life and I am deeply interested in missions work, and so it meant a lot to be reaffirmed in my faith in a river that acts as border, effectively putting me in two places at once.
Here's a passage from my journal: "Roosters are crowing, birds are singing, people are quietly talking, low enough to simply add cadence to morning sounds. The mountains stand ribbed against a lush blue sky. I'm filthy - haven't showered in 4 days - but I'm content, no joyful, to be alive this morning."
**I will add the rest of the photos when I get them uploaded and edited!
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