As you read this you may be sitting in your air conditioned house, enjoying an ice cold drink, with the TV or a light on in the background... you might have just returned home in your car from a trip to the grocery store, Starbucks or you may have been out for a nice dinner... you might be having problems in your life with your family, your job, your school, who knows.... Life is a tough thing at times and we tend to worry about what we don't have and take the things we do have for granted...
We are all very blessed and should realize what we have and just how lucky we are.
We recently got back from a mission trip to Juarez, Mexico. We took a group of 9 to serve, including adults and youth from our church. It was an opportunity to help others and to share the love of Christ with people in need. It was an awesome and eye-opening trip for us and also for our youth group. Many of the people in our group have never had the opportunity to serve internationally and really got a lot out of the trip. They didn't really understand the conditions in which millions of people live all over the world. We saw houses made of everything from pallets to tarps to cardboard boxes. The pictures of these areas will remain in our thoughts forever...
While we were in Mexico, we worked on a local church/community center that is being built in hopes to reach out to the needy people around Juarez. We were involved in many construction projects that ranged from concrete work to stucco to shoveling rocks to raking rocks to shoveling rocks to raking rocks... needless to say we worked really hard!! It was tough work but it was all worth in for a few reasons. First, when we saw Pastor Ramone step back during the middle of a tough day of work and begin to smile as he saw his vision begin to take shape. (Pastor Ramone and his wife Delphina were the family that has the vision from God to construct the community center) We were also thankful during each night of vacation bible school (VBS) when we saw the smiling faces of the children of Juarez. Each night, we held VBS classes for all of the kids in the community and each night more and more kids came. It was quite a sight to watch the kids running to greet us as our bus pulled up and to hear them calling our names as we exited the bus. It was awesome to minister to a group of kids that we so willing to learn and hear the things we had to tell them. We had a blast with the kids at VBS and it was tough to leave them knowing we may never see them again. We had a blast in Mexico and it was a great opportunity to serve people in need. It was an amazing week in Mexico and we are all different as we return to our "normal" lives.
So remember, the next time your computer doesn't work, you drop a phone call, or you say you are "starving" because you haven't eaten for a few hours.... remember that some people have to deal with much harder problems everyday of their lives...
