Oh, Mexico

“To fill empty bellies, to build shelters for the homeless, and to put silver and gold in the cups of beggars without any concern for the eternal nature of their souls is an exercise of futility. Our hope should always be the gospel. Our hope should always be that people would hear, understand, and come to know God in a powerful way.”

This excerpt from Matt Chandler’s, The Explicit Gospel, seems particularly fitting this week. For those who don’t know, I just got back from a weekend Mission trip to Acuña, Mexico. The group of 18 guys built a house for an elderly woman in just 1 1/2 days (estimated to take 3). We really buckled down and got it done, and it was a great experience.

We built the house as part of Casas por Cristo, a Christian ministry that coordinates teams to build for those in need in Mexico. It is similar to the organization through which I met Juliet, Manos Juntas Mexico. Her father coordinates teams for that organization.

Both have the same end in mind. To be the hands and feet of Christ, reaching those in need, and sharing the gospel. Many times Christians use mission work as a way to simply “do a good work,” without much thought as to the state of the individual for whom they are building.

With our particular woman this week, the pastor who sponsored her was receiving criticism from other pastors because her family does not attend church regularly. She is a Christian, but has no means to get around, and has a bad leg. Her family, from my understanding are not believers.

The team leader from Casas Por Cristo who helped our team said that many times the pastors in Mexico feel like they should only be building and helping those who already believe. This is the wrong perspective.

The goal of these organizations is to spread the gospel through mission work. The teams who generally build come from churches across the United states, from various denominations.

Christians understand that through the transforming work of the Holy Spirit in our lives, we bear good fruit. That is to say that we do not do these works to somehow earn good standing with God. We are already justified by belief in Christ, and the product of that is to show his love through doing the right thing. This includes the field of mission work.

What always worried me about churches who were very mission focused is that they felt they were somehow earning better standing with God by doing it. I’m sure within the ranks, there are some Christians who are seeing it this way, and it’s a pretty common misconception within the Christian realm.

I avoided going on these trips for awhile because I wasn’t sure how it played into spreading the gospel. The trip I took with the youth group, when I met my wife, seemed normal enough. We probably sang some devotional songs and said a prayer or two, but I cannot remember the goal of any of us being to directly try to communicate the gospel to the people for whom we were building.

To be fair, few of us spoke the language. Though, there are always translators at the sites, so I suppose if the desire was strong enough, it could have happened. 

I wasn’t sure what to expect from this trip. I had joked that the last mission trip I was on I ended up just singing for the team because I was so bad at manual labor. I had decided this time to participate in the physical building as much as possible. The first day I smashed my guitar picking finger with the hammer, and somehow cut my other hand with it as well. Minor injuries to be sure, but not entirely unexpected based on my “experience” with tools and physical labor.

The men on the trip were very supportive and kept encouraging each other when trying new things, so that if there was an aspect of the house we wanted a part of, someone would show us how to do it.

The second part of the first day day on the site, I felt strongly compelled to speak with the woman for whom we were building. I mustered up the Spanish I could remember and started a conversation.

My first line in spanish to a new person is usually something about my wife being from Mexico. This allows me time to think of another phrase or two. I found out our woman’s name was Julia, which was cool since my wife is Juliet. Julia asked if we had kids and I jokingly told her we had two dogs. I showed her a picture of Juliet with the puppies and she smiled.

I didn’t know enough words to go into a full gospel presentation (at this time I did not know if she knew God or not), so I just interacted as best I could, and listened to what she had to say. It was all in Spanish so some of it was context listening. After I finished talking with her, some neighbor boys came down to the worksite to see what was going on. I began chatting a bit in Spanish with them as well. Eventually, I couldn’t remember enough Spanish to maintain the conversation so I offered them some of our snacks instead. They were very excited to get some chips and treats. They stuck around through the rest of the building of the house, and even helped with the stucco part near the end.

In the end it wasn’t some elaborate talking gospel presentation, but just simply being there and being helpful, that likely spoke the most to them. The woman’s family were there for the dedication of the house and we prayed over the house after speaking through a translator to the family about God’s love for them.

Since we had some extra time after finishing early, the final day was open ended before heading home. We decided to visit a foster home in the area with which our church has connections. I didn’t know what to expect, but I felt a stirring inside and was excited to visit these kids. We arrived and almost immediately our guys started playing a game of soccer with them. It was fun to watch, and I took some pictures and video of it. As I wandered around the grounds, I noticed a little girl was sitting alone. Using what Spanish I could recollect, I asked her name. She said it was Michelle, though she was quite shy even with that response. I told her my name is Chris. She wandered off back inside so I sat down at a desk on the patio and continued watching the game.

Eventually, Michelle wandered back outside and sat down in front of me. She still was shy, but I decided to try conversing again. Again in Spanish, I asked,

“Do you not like soccer?” She replied, “No.”
“I don’t like to play it either, I prefer to play guitar,” I said. At the mention of guitar her face lit up.

I remembered having my guitar in the van so I walked over to retrieve it, planning to play a song for her. I returned to my seat and opened the guitar case. Almost immediately, the game stopped and the boys who had been playing began coming over. Before I knew it, I had kids surrounding me. They noticed my collection of harmonicas (different keys for different song keys) and began reaching for them. I handed them out with a measure of joyful feeling, knowing they were about to have some fun. They began playing them immediately, and smiling all the while. Michelle was still sitting to the side, but the music had peaked her interest.

I took out my guitar and a harmonica for myself and began to play “La Bamba,” the only Spanish song I could think of at the time. Everyone gathered around and began singing along. The boys were blowing into harmonicas of all different keys, creating what I can only describe as “joyful noise.”

The song finished and I played a few more as the kids sat and listened. At one point, I was going to play my original tune, “South of the Border,” because it had some Spanish verses. I called our translator over to help me introduce it to the kids, but began speaking Spanish myself introducing it. Unexpected, since I was not exactly sure what to say prior to starting to speak. 

Rafael, our translator, joked that if I wanted he could translate my Spanish back into English, since I was already doing a good job of speaking fluently. A few other little girls joined the circle of kids, and presented me with a beautiful yellow rose. They had some homemade crafts as well that they passed out to our group. The rose is in my Bible now.

We finished up and got back in the vehicles to head back to Texas. My heart was heavy, and I missed the kids already. Our group leader, Stephen, had said these trips could change you. He was right. I got back to Texas longing to visit the kids one more time, or to do some other helpful work.

I kept daydreaming about the shy little girl whose face lit up when I told her I played guitar. “The guitar playing gringo,” I pictured her saying.

This past week has been packed with our church putting on Mega Sports camp. It is an outreach ministry to local kids and our church kids that want to spend a few days learning a sport and worshipping God. It’s good evangelism, as it is held in a park where there are many passers by to hear the music and the message that opens each afternoon. I just finished putting together the video for it, and that will be the final culmination of a busy, but blessed week. Last Thursday when we loaded up and drove off to Mexico, I didn’t know that a week later, I would be more excited than ever to join in our ministries throughout the church, and really get plugged in.

There will be a co-ed mission trip this fall, and I’ll do whatever I can to make it happen, so Juliet can join me this time. Her passion is missions so I know she’ll love it too.

I came home with a shirt from Casas por Cristo that says, “I need Mexico more than Mexico needs me.” In a way, that was true. I needed to unplug and just get back to basics for awhile. I got perspective, got my hands dirty, and connected with God on more than my usual intellectual level. 

Going forward, I finally feel that I am beginning to bear good fruit, as scripture says to do. I don’t want to be a casual Christian, and Mexico has given me my first steps towards living for Christ, and for those who still need to know Christ, and the transforming power of the Holy Spirit.