Our Mission Trip

Lately I have been thinking a lot about a missions trip I went on with my family a few years ago. We went to Mexico. I have been amazed as I realize how the LORD put all the details together. I’ve been wanting to write it all down to remember. I did keep a journal while we were there, but since we moved I have been unable to find it. So I decided it would make an interesting post here.

About 6 years ago my grandpa married a lady from Columbia. She wasn’t(and still isn’t) fluent in English. So my mom started teaching us kids Spanish. She had worked at Taco Bell years before, so she had learned a little then.

About a year later we switched churches. We had been going to a liberal sit-back type of church, and we started attending a good, independent, fundamental, Baptist Church. Now don’t pay attention to the denomination, because we aren’t like other churches with that name. We just follow the BIBLE. Anyways we had not had much to do with Missions in our former church, but this church was different. It was all about Missions. At the time they had about 8 missionaries, and Pastor was always in contact with them, sending on their emails to the rest of the church.

His son was a Missionary to Mexico, and since we were trying to learn Spanish, my parents had a real burden for Spanish-speaking people. About a year later we started discussing the possibility of visiting the Missionary family. But most people went for a couple weeks. We discussed going for a week, since we had never met them before.

Then the LORD allowed us to meet them when they came home for a short furlough for CHIRSTmas. It was like the LORD was saying “Hurry up, Go! Just GO!!!!!!!!!!!”

My dad has the whole summer off since he is a teacher, so we started planning the trip. As were looking at plane tickets, and talking to others who had been down to visit them, we were going “this is so expensive its not worth only going for a week or two.” So we went for 4. We had a wonderful time. I will re-tell it as best as I can remember.

My Grandpa lives in MA, so we visited him like we normally did each summer, and flew out from Boston. We had like 8 suitcases. One for each of us 5, and the rest were full of stuff for the missionaries.

We stayed in a hotel in Boston so we could be at the airport on time without staying up all night. That night was filled with excitement and anticipation. As we were double checking our suitcases that night, we discovered that my brother had brought along a stuffed animal dog that he had had for years. It was disgustingly dirty, since he had played with it outside, and my parents had told him not to bring it with us. Well he wasn’t trying to. He thought he would be able to leave it in the car, but he forgot that we were renting it for that day only. It was very special to him, so we finally said he could take it, as long as he kept it in a plastic bag while it was in his suitcase.

We set 5 alarms for the next morning. We set the cell-phone, the alarm on the clock, 2 watches and we had them call our room at 3:30am. I woke up to none of them, and they let me sleep for another half hour.

We made it to the airport on time, and we eventually boarded our plane. It was the first time any of us kids had flown. Thankfully I didn’t get sick!

We were met at the airport by the entire family(they had 5 children at the time and she was expecting another.) We had a great 3 hour ride to the church where we stayed, then back to their house.

One of the weeks we were there we had a day camp for the children who went to church. One day we went to the Pyramids. That was awesome. It was scarey being up soooo high, but it was fun- except for the fact that I tripped and skinned my knee.

It was sweltering hot that day, and noone had thought to bring any water, so by the time we got to the last one, we were all crawling along, dying of thirst! Then Jeremy, the missionary, went and got a box of water bottles. Each of us were allotted half of a bottle. That half was hard not to exceed!

One day we went to a zoo. It was fun, but we only got to see part of it that day because there were so many of us.

The following week we went to a childrens museum in Mexico City(after the camp ended). I was sick on the way there, and on the way home, though.(car-sick, and everything that comes with that! Ugh!) We returned to the Zoo, this time seeing what we didn’t get to see before, and riding paddle boats in a big pond.

The whole long trip ended too quickly for all of us, and before we were ready it was time to head home. We ate Dominoes pizza at the air port, but it was VERY different. There was absolutely NO Tomato Sauce on any of it. Imagine that! Pizza without sauce! Nevertheless, it was a ton better than some of the native food we had eaten. :P

We flew back into Boston, but our plane landed at 12am. We were met by my Grandpa who had brought our van. He parked in a parking ramp that was about 2 inches taller than our van(it was a TALL turtle top van). My dad was shocked that we didn’t hit the top.

On the way home I slept on the floor of the van because all of our stuff was on the seats.

And that is all the details I can remember by myself. I Praise the LORD I had the chance to go on this trip. It has been a great blessing and reminder that I could have been born in some other country where they don’t have everything as well as we do in the US. I am also greatly burdened now about Missions. I may not ever be a missionary somewhere, but I can give money, and time that will be a great encouragement.