October 1998 was my first trip to Puerto Vallarta to help the people living in and near the dump. I could write a book about this trip and about my experiences in Puerto Vallarta, but this is only a blog. I struggle on how to put to words what this experience was for me. How to describe all that is still inside these 8 some years later.
I remember each and every detail from riding in the back of the old van on a tire trying to keep my feet out of the holes in the floor, to sitting on the loading dock at the airport waiting for more food trucks to come. Or what about that first night in the country when we went body surfing and watched the most amazing sunset.
One morning we met at the hotel buffet to have breakfast. There was the seven of us women from The Rock intermixed with about 12 Mexican women from Perdon y Amistad. We couldn’t speak Spanish and only a couple of them spoke English but we shared a meal and our hearts and we left there knowing that we knew each other and had made true friendships.
Today when we talk about Mission to Mexico we talk about ‘the compound’ and the School of Champions, on this trip none of that existed. On this trip we went into the dump. In amongst the discarded boxes, the bottles, the buzzards and dogs, you see clusters of shacks made out of what ever can be found. Boxes, crates or bedsprings anything that can be used to hold up more cardboard or tin sheets used for roof. This is where the families lived, where they had their babies. There is no fresh water source and not much protection from the summer rains. This is the look of hopelessness.
We took every chance we could to play with the children, to touch them and to love on them. One afternoon we had the chance to help give some children from the dump a shower for the first time in their lives. Shower is the rough term for it. It was cold water running from a shower head hanging on the wall in the woman’s restroom and a hose stuffed through the window in the men’s. These children didn't know how to use the soap or shampoo. The children get all cleaned and they are given something to eat and then we play a game of tag. For a moment they are children. As the van pulls away to take them back to the dump they press their faces against the window and wave, all smiles and clean. Clean they go back to the shacks in the dump.
I don’t know which of the events made a bigger impact, but what I do know is that I did not want to get on the airplane the day it was time to leave. I still do not know what it was that gave me the strength to board that flight back to Seattle and I know that I probably cried the first three hours of the flight back.
I guess I better talk about the shoes, this actually happened as we were trying to enter the country. The custom officers tried to confiscate the 300 pairs of shoes we had brought with us to give to the people living in and around the dump. We made two big mistakes, we had all these shoes in six large boxes and we tried to take them through on one luggage cart making it too obvious that we had some ‘goods’. This was a big red flag to the officials that thought they could sell them on the ‘black market’. In the end with much arguing and persistence we were allowed to enter Mexico with our shoes.
My first trip to Mexico was one that changed my life forever. Prior to that trip I had a desire in my heart to reach the nations little did I know that I was called to a Nation. Today when I return to Mexico I become whole and feel complete. I see the world in 3D, but here in Monroe my life is lived in black and white and one dimensionally. One of my friends in Mexico says that I have the heart of the Mexican.
For more information see Mission to Mexico at www.therockchurc.info.
Next M.E. – Hotel Good View and an AK47
I remember each and every detail from riding in the back of the old van on a tire trying to keep my feet out of the holes in the floor, to sitting on the loading dock at the airport waiting for more food trucks to come. Or what about that first night in the country when we went body surfing and watched the most amazing sunset.
One morning we met at the hotel buffet to have breakfast. There was the seven of us women from The Rock intermixed with about 12 Mexican women from Perdon y Amistad. We couldn’t speak Spanish and only a couple of them spoke English but we shared a meal and our hearts and we left there knowing that we knew each other and had made true friendships.
Today when we talk about Mission to Mexico we talk about ‘the compound’ and the School of Champions, on this trip none of that existed. On this trip we went into the dump. In amongst the discarded boxes, the bottles, the buzzards and dogs, you see clusters of shacks made out of what ever can be found. Boxes, crates or bedsprings anything that can be used to hold up more cardboard or tin sheets used for roof. This is where the families lived, where they had their babies. There is no fresh water source and not much protection from the summer rains. This is the look of hopelessness.
We took every chance we could to play with the children, to touch them and to love on them. One afternoon we had the chance to help give some children from the dump a shower for the first time in their lives. Shower is the rough term for it. It was cold water running from a shower head hanging on the wall in the woman’s restroom and a hose stuffed through the window in the men’s. These children didn't know how to use the soap or shampoo. The children get all cleaned and they are given something to eat and then we play a game of tag. For a moment they are children. As the van pulls away to take them back to the dump they press their faces against the window and wave, all smiles and clean. Clean they go back to the shacks in the dump.
I don’t know which of the events made a bigger impact, but what I do know is that I did not want to get on the airplane the day it was time to leave. I still do not know what it was that gave me the strength to board that flight back to Seattle and I know that I probably cried the first three hours of the flight back.
I guess I better talk about the shoes, this actually happened as we were trying to enter the country. The custom officers tried to confiscate the 300 pairs of shoes we had brought with us to give to the people living in and around the dump. We made two big mistakes, we had all these shoes in six large boxes and we tried to take them through on one luggage cart making it too obvious that we had some ‘goods’. This was a big red flag to the officials that thought they could sell them on the ‘black market’. In the end with much arguing and persistence we were allowed to enter Mexico with our shoes.
My first trip to Mexico was one that changed my life forever. Prior to that trip I had a desire in my heart to reach the nations little did I know that I was called to a Nation. Today when I return to Mexico I become whole and feel complete. I see the world in 3D, but here in Monroe my life is lived in black and white and one dimensionally. One of my friends in Mexico says that I have the heart of the Mexican.
For more information see Mission to Mexico at www.therockchurc.info.
Next M.E. – Hotel Good View and an AK47
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