First Congregational Church UCC
"The Big White Church in Berlin Heights"

It won’t be long now until our Mission to Mexico.  This will be my fifth trip to Tijuana and my fifth week working at Esperanza.  My husband Steve counts this as his 10^th trip.  A decade of mission work done in Mexico.  WOW!!

At first Steve went with the group from the church in Archbold.  After the first year, he had no desire to return, then something happened…a friend stopped him at the fair and asked him to reconsider and go along again.  God speaks to us through friends.  He did and has been hooked ever since.

After 5 times of going without me, he finally convinced me to go along too.  Honestly, I rather enjoyed the week at home to myself and what could I do building houses?  I anticipated being more of a hindrance than a help but finally I gave in and agreed to see what attracted him to return every year.

The first time I crossed the border into Mexico I was stunned.  Homes made of old garage doors nailed together along with scraps of plywood and shipping crates were covered with blue tarps.  They dotted the mountainside.  The contrast of green grass and palm trees that greeted us at the San Diego airport soon gave way to scrub brush and dirt covered hills.  Shacks upon shacks lined the hillsides as far as the eye could see and garbage…garbage everywhere…old rubber tires used as foundations…old TV consoles dug into the side of hills to make stair steps…people chattering on in a tongue I couldn’t understand …everything seemed strange and alien.

Five years has passed.  It’s so different now.  I guess it really looks the same as it did the first time I entered the country but I don’t see it anymore.  Instead, I see progress made.  Such as a garbage truck picking up trash along the way.  A courtyard with pretty roses growing in a chipped flower urn.  And a stick house now replaced with an Esperanza home.  (In five years I have met 10 new families.)  Now I see faces of people I recognize.   I have learned some basic Spanish words enough to get by. 

I am anxious to return.  I can’t wait to see the familiar faces and share the smiles and hugs.  It is a good feeling to sweat from doing physically hard work and at the end of the week the tears of joy flow. 

Why do we go to Esperanza?  Because that is what Jesus is calling us to do.  As a servant of Jesus Christ we are charged by God to bring justice to all the earth.  If we look at our mission trip as working to bring justice to this corner of God’s earth , it may not seem like we make a difference (especially when you look at the millions of people who still live in the hillside shacks), but it does makes a difference to the family we work with.  We go back because in doing so God is changing us and God is bringing hope (Esperanza) to someone who otherwise might lose all hope.

Hold us in prayer February 2 – 9, 2008

In Christ we work and live,

Rev. Joyce Schroer