We recently had the privilege of joining one of our supporting churches (Central Point Community Bible Church) on their family mission trip to Baja California. We were with them for about a week, in which time our team traveled to a little village east of Ensenada, framed in a bathroom, reroofed a large building, replaced facias of other buildings, repaired a camp go-cart, did crafts and magic tricks with the children, and served a meal to the community.
For most of the time, we were serving in a camp that is used by a Mexican church nearby. That is where the building projects took place. But we also got a little bit of time to spend up in the village, using our Spanish as we interacted with the people. This village is made up of tribal people who speak one of the Mixtecan languages from Southern Mexico. For our sake, they were all speaking Spanish most of the time, but I did catch a side conversation once, as two ladies were speaking their native tongue. What a beautiful language!
Baja is very different from Chihuahua in many ways, and we enjoyed the opportunity to know another part of this country God has given us. We are AMAZED at how different the border crossing was there. We just drove right in, as Americans don’t even need visas there! In addition, we were surprised at how many things reminded us of the USA. There were so many signs and billboards in English, and there were United States citizens all over the place. Also, many of the locals spoke a significant amount of English. Perhaps some of these things would not have seemed strange to us had we not lived in Chihuahua first.
We were so blessed by the opportunity to build stronger relationships with our friends from Central Point, and to serve with them in Baja. What a precious group of people! CPCBC is a very special church to us. In addition, we felt a little spoiled by the chance to visit Aaron’s parents and two of his siblings in Arizona on our way there (Yes, it’s on the way. Driving through the US to get to Baja is much faster and easier than driving through Mexico). Nevertheless, we are glad to be home, and back to our Spanish studies!
For pictures of our Baja trip and our time with Aaron’s family, see our photos page.
Leave a Reply