Love to All Generations

Summer is officially over at YWAM Tijuana! We had a great final two weeks of our Mission Adventures program. The last English-speaking team was from Canada. They split into two teams, a building team and a VBS team. The building team went out to one of the colonias and built a beauty salon for a Christian family so that they can have an income for their family. I went out with the Vacation Bible School team to a local church in Tijuana and we had 180 people show up, it was amazing!! I got the be the MC of the event, which was a little nervewracking with all those people and me speaking spanish, but really we had tons of fun, dancing, singing, watching dramas and listening to Bible stories. I made sure to ask the kids questsions about the stories, to make sure they paid attention...After our whole group session in the sanctuary, we split the kids into smaller classes by age and did crafts and other activities and teachings with them.We had so many people on the team, they didn't need me to help out in the classes, so I looked for something else to keep me busy...They had a sunday school class for the moms that were there as well, so I asked one of the moms if I could watch her toddler during her class, she was happy to have some help, I felt blessed to be able to take care of this little princess.
Also, one afternoon I went with the team to visit a nursing home in the colonia. This elderly community was started by someone in YWAM and is funded just by donations, so resources were scarce. Honestly, it was a very dirty place, and flies were swarming everywhere, some even resting on the residents there who were still covered in food from their lunch. All of the elderly folks were sitting out side in chairs or wheelchairs, some talking to one another, others crying, others yelling obscenities, it was quite a scene. Many of the Canadian youth were a little freaked out and didn't know how to act there, but I encouraged them just to love them and to interact with them however they could, even if it made them a little uncomfortable. Some had brought razors and soap and starting shaving the men there. Others took advantage of some nail clippers they brought and started clipping toes and fingernails. Others simple just got a bucket and began washing people's hands and feet. What started as an unpleasant and even a repulsive scene, turned into something beautiful when all stereotypes and judgments were set aside and the love of Jesus reigned above all things.

"Whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many." ~Mark 10:43-45


As the team was occupied doing those things, I tried to decide how I could minister to them in another special way. As my eyes scanned the courtyard, I just felt a spirit of loneliness over that place. Many of the people there had been abandoned by their families and left there, or brought there from off of the street where they lived homeless. (Elderly in Mexico usually live with their families and retirement homes are much less common than in the States). Click here to read more about nursing homes in Mexico.

I decided to approach them, one by one, shake their hand, look into their eyes, smile and tell them "Buenas tardes, Dios te bendiga" (Good afternoon, God bless you). I got many different reactions - some held on to my hand not wanting to let go and pulling me in closer, others began a conversation with me (some even spoke english!) and shared with me a small part of their life story, others just continued yelling or crying as they were before, and a few asked if I could pray for them. It was something really beautiful - their frowns turned to smiles, there loneliness dissipated and joy entered into their lives again - even if just for a brief moment.After a while, the youth performed a drama and song for them, which the elderly folks watched with enthusiasm, happy to have something to entertain them for a little bit that afternoon. As we prepared to leave, I walked around the courtyard once again, in the same manner - holding their hands, smiling and looking into their eyes - and told them "Adios, Dios te bendiga"(Goodbye, God bless you). When they squeezed my hand and smiled back, it touched my heart in such a different way than doing a VBS does. No dancing or shouting or jumping for the joy of the Lord, like with the kids - just a precious act of love, flowing from a heart surrendered to loving the way Jesus did.

"The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me, because the LORD has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners...to comfort all who mourn, and provide for those who grieve in Zion— to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair. "
~Isaiah 61:1-3

Tijuana DTS Promo

Just one month until DTS starts here at the base in Tijuana. Check out this awesome video about the DTS here, including videos, photos, and testimonies from students from the last school. I love this video, it really shares the heart of what this school is all about. I'm getting so excited for the students to come on September 26th!!!

GO Team to Mexicali

As a way to promote YWAM's Discipleship Training School (DTS) and recruit students for the Fall and Winter schools, our staff went as a GO team to visit churches and youth groups in another part of Baja. We left on Friday and drove about 3 hours to Mexicali, the capital of the Mexican state of Baja California Norte (quick geography lesson: the Baja peninsula is separated into two mexican states- Baja California Norte (north) and Baja California Sur (south)). We drove through mountains and desert to get to this huge city. These videos show part of our road trip...

Driving along through the mountains east towards Mexicali

Making a stop on our scenic drive to check out the desert we are about to enter

We also spent some time in a town called, San Luis Rio Colorado, which is in the Mexican state of Sonora (just south of Yuma, Arizona). This means now I've been to 12 of the 31 Mexican states and to the capital as well. :)

Our first night in Mexicali, we visited 2 megachurches there, with hundreds of youth at each church. But in Mexicali, they don't know anything about our organization, and so we spent some time talking to the pastors about YWAM, but mostly just got rejected, with them telling us that they already had opportunities for their youth to serve within their own church. They also said we would have to come back and talk to them alot more about YWAM if we were going to be able to present at one of their services. So we were kinda bummed out about that, but we knew that we were there for a purpose. So we prayed and just asked God to give us a new strategy for sharing with the city about YWAM and DTS.

The next day we spent driving around Mexicali, visiting Christian bookstores, asking them to put up our promo posters in their stores. We also drove around the neighborhoods looking for smaller churches and put our promo cards in their mailboxes. At night we had the great privilege of presenting our promo video and speaking at a Pentecostal church in Mexicali. The pastora (female pastor) was very welcoming and so happy to let us share with her church about our school and the opportunities we have for young people in missions. One of the things that YWAM Tijuana is really focusing on is bringing more nationals into the organization - we want to empower Mexicans to reach their own people and also to go into the nations with the Gospel message. That night we had several young people approach us afterwards and ask for more information and applications for the school. We even got to pray with a guy and his family as they have decided together to have him come do the DTS in September. This church was so inviting that they asked us to come back Sunday night to present everything again, in case there were different people there the next night!!

A word about the food in Mexicali - so as I may have shared before, its very rude here to refuse food that is offered to you, especially if it was made by the person offering it. So after the church service on Saturday night there was a woman selling these cucumbers, but not just any cucumbers, cucumbers filled with some kind of hot chile salsa. And as the 'honored' guests, we were given them as snacks to eat after the service. Now, there were not small cucumbers, they were big, how was I supposed to eat an entire cucumber, plus having it full of hot salsa?! It was so slimy and messy and like nothing I had ever eaten before (which makes sense because she told me that she had 'invented' this snack).

Lorena and I with our chile-stuffed cucumbers

We also at a lot of Chinese restaurants in Mexicali. Mexicali has the largest population of Chinese people in Mexico, so there are a ton of chinese restaurants. Too bad I dont like Chinese food, but the rest of our team did. It was more like Chinese food with a Mexican flare anyway...

Rob, our DTS director, eating chinese food with salsa habanera that claimed it came from the "hottest chiles in the world"

Ok so on Sunday, we were in San Luis, Sonora and had the privilege of speaking at 4 church services. We had so many invitations to present abou the DTS that we had to split our group in half to go to different churches in order to meet all of our committments. We went to churches of all different denominations and sizes. We were very well received at all the churches and had the chance to talk to many of the youth at each church about the DTS.

Amy and Sergio (right) sharing information about DTS with the youth of a church in San Luis

Oh, did I mention that it got to over 110 degrees farenheit there? Yes, that was very... special. Luckily, the place we were staying at had A/C, as did most of the churches. But seriously, as soon as we stepped out of the Air conditioned van, it was like walking into a sauna. But overall, it was a wonderful trip, and we were able to make lots of connections and hopefully will be able to go back there soon, as well as see the fruit of our labor with lots of Mexicans in the upcoming DTS!!

"A voice of one calling: "In the desert prepare the way for the LORD;
make straight in the wilderness a highway for our God.
Every valley shall be raised up, every mountain and hill made low;
the rough ground shall become level, the rugged places a plain.
And the glory of the LORD will be revealed, and all mankind together will see it.
For the mouth of the LORD has spoken."
~Isaiah 40: 3-5~

DTS News

It's August already!? Wow, can't believe it. When I first got to Mexico, the time went by very slowly, and now I feel like it just won't slow down! I've been here for 7 weeks now and full of craziness. As you probably know, my main job here at YWAM Tijuana is DTS staff. DTS stands for Discipleship Training School and a school for missionaries and the basic training you need to be on staff with Youth With A Mission (YWAM). I just completed my DTS last February in Ensenada. Now I will be working with the DTS here in Tijuana that begins in September. Before September felt like a long way away, but now I realize the start of the school is coming up quickly!

A few weeks ago, we had DTS staff training here at the Tijuana base. Rob is a really cool Canadian guy who is our school's director and he and his wife talked to us all about what it means to lead a DTS. Part of the school involves lectures, but us staff don't participate in those (other than listening intently to the speakers and maybe translating). But what we do participate in is everything else - small groups/bible studies, workshops, work duties, language classes, local outreaches, prayer sessions, outreach preparation, one-on-one meetings, and so much more!!! Most of our staff just finished their DTS so we know we love DTS and are excited about it, but we have alot to learn about what goes into running a Discipleship Training School.

Our staff is made of of 10 people from 4 different nations, 5 girls and 5 guys.

• Rob (our director), Laurena, Brodie - Canada
• Johny and Sergio - Mexico
• Elsi - Colombia
• Amy, Brooke, Andy, and me - USA

I'm really excited to have such a multicultural group as staff, people from different countries, different ages, and different life experiences. I have really enjoyed the last few weeks being able to get to know everybody a lot more here. I'm the "new girl", since everyone else on base has been serving in Tijuana (TJ) for a while, or just finished their DTS in Tijuana in February (when I did). All in all, I'm really like the community aspect here and feel like I am really going to enjoy being a part of the TJ family here at the base.

We also just learned that we will be holding another DTS in TJ in January!! So now we have to plan 2 schools (at once!) and all figure out what our roles will be in each school. Exciting!!!

Tijuana Border News

I know many people have incorrect ideas about the U.S.-border here in Tijuana... maybe some people think that illegals are just walking across the border like we walk across the street.... or swimming across the river like we swim across the pool... it's definitely NOT like that. In fact, it's quite dangerous and hundreds of people die in their attempt every year. Below is a picture that I took when driving past the border in Tijuana - more like a memorial, than a border, there are hundreds of crosses on the border fence with names of those who died in their attempt to find hope and a better life "on the other side" (as they call it here)...


I also wanted to share some news articles from signonsandiego.com about advances they are making in border control.


53-foot Tunnel Equipped with Lights

UNION-TRIBUNE
Originally published 8:07 p.m. July 2, 2009, updated 9:38 a.m., July 3, 2009

U.S. law enforcement agents investigating an incomplete cross-border tunnel west of the San Ysidro border crossing report that they have found a 53-foot passageway shored up with plywood and equipped with battery-powered lights.

The unearthed stretch was reached Thursday by officers from the Border Patrol and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said Lauren Mack, an ICE spokeswoman in San Diego. The tunnel is east of Smugglers Gulch.

The tunnel's builders entered through a manhole near the border fence in Mexico and crawled through 700 feet of sewer drain, on both sides of the border, Mack said.

The U.S. agents found an exit to the tunnel covered with an old sofa cushion within the compound of the South Bay International Wastewater Treatment Plant.

Law enforcement officials believe the tunnel was being built to smuggle humans and drugs.

http://www3.signonsandiego.com/stories/2009/jul/02/bn02tunnel-53-feet/?tijuana&zIndex=126139



Officials Celebrate Patching of Notorious Gap in Border

By Leslie Berestein, Union-Tribune Staff Writer, 2:00 a.m. July 7, 2009

An estimated 1.5‚million cubic yards of earth fill most of the canyon known as Smuggler's Gulch near the international border. A secondary fence of steel mesh lines the berm. (John R. McCutchen / Union-Tribune) -

After years of legal wrangling and tens of millions of dollars spent, federal officials gathered yesterday to celebrate the completion of a costly and controversial stretch of border fence.

Border Patrol officials held a ribbon-cutting ceremony atop an earthen berm spanning a canyon near the Pacific Ocean known as Smuggler's Gulch, at one time a steep area that was considered dangerous to patrol.

The construction project, begun last year and completed at the end of May,
required contractors to move roughly 1.5 million cubic yards of earth from surrounding hillsides, essentially filling in part of the canyon. A secondary fence of steel mesh now spans the canyon atop the berm, flanked by paved roads. An older fence sits to the south on the canyon floor.

Two decades ago, when the first fence was built, the area was rife with human- and drug-smuggling. Border enforcement efforts in the mid-1990s prompted a steep decline in arrests within the Border Patrol's San Diego sector, as smugglers moved east. However, proponents continued to push for the fence in part because it would make the area easier to patrol.

“It still took a huge number of Border Patrol,” said retired congressman Duncan L. Hunter, a longtime proponent of the fence who cut the ribbon yesterday. “The fence allows you to man the border with fewer people.”

Joshua Gough, the agent in charge of the agency's Imperial Beach station, said it would typically require five agents to oversee the canyon, where now “around 1.5” will suffice. He said that before construction began there were about 35 illegal entry attempts a month in the area, but the number has dropped significantly.

The Smuggler's Gulch contract was awarded to Omaha, Neb.-based Kiewit Corp. for $48.6 million. It was part of a $59 million contract to complete about 3½ miles of secondary fence across the canyon, in nearby Border Field State Park and in surrounding areas, according to the Border Patrol.

A 700-foot stretch of fence west of the gulch has yet to be completed, in part because the agency has encountered obstacles to building in an area known as Bunker Hill, where historic World War II-era military bunkers are located.

The gulch project met with stiff opposition. In February 2004, a lawsuit was filed against the federal government by environmental organizations, including the Sierra Club and the San Diego Audubon Society, with plaintiffs arguing there would be sediment damage to the Tijuana River Estuary.

In 2005, Congress passed legislation enabling the Department of Homeland Security to waive all laws standing in the way of building the fence. The environmental lawsuit was dismissed in December of that year.

Criticism of the project has continued, especially after a storm last fall that produced about 1.14 inches of rain flooded the river valley, leaving what some farmers and ranchers said was an unusual amount of mud.

“I think that what people experienced during that rain event was a direct consequence of the lack of best management practices,” said Oscar Romo, a UCSD researcher who coordinates the Tijuana River National Estuarine Research Reserve's coastal training program.

Yesterday, Kiewit area manager Mike Lowe said there had been erosion during the storm, but that “it was a hundred-year storm event an act of God.”

The berm has been installed with erosion-control measures including straw bales, Lowe said, and has been seeded with native grasses.

http://www3.signonsandiego.com/stories/2009/jul/07/officials-celebrate-patching-notorious-gap-border/?tijuana&zIndex=127860

Ok, that's it for now - consider yourself informed!!

Surprising....

So I realized today that I have spent more time in Mexico than anywhere else in the world (other than my home in Illinois). whoa. I've been working here with YWAM Tijuana for 2 weeks now, and I have had a few things that have surprised me...

• how the only things within walking distance from my house are an OXXO (Mexico's version of 7-11), a bakery, and a bar
  
• how the brand new town house that all the girls live in can have leaks, mold and ant infestations already....
• how with enough help from actual Mexicans, I can convince the man at the gas station that I too am Mexican. :)
• how it's July and it barely gets above 70 degrees Fahrenheit here

The transition has been awkwardly difficult... I find myself wanting to eat food that I'm used to, go shopping at Walmart, drive my own car, and be able to drive to the next town without having to explain myself to men with machine guns. And I mean, not have to share a room/bathroom/kitchen/Everything with 6 other girls wouldn't be so bad either. But oh well, adjusting is just that - taking time to adjust to new surroundings. New friends, new opportunities, new responsibilities, new everything! I'm excited to be settling into my new life here, I know it will just take some time...


"Do not call to mind the former things, or ponder things of the past. Behold, I will do something new. Now it will spring forth; will you not be aware of it?" ~Isaiah 43:18-19

Routine Military Checkpoint

Because there is a lot of drug traffiking going on right now in Baja, the military has set up checkpoint along the major highway where you have to stop and tell them who you are and where you're from and where you're going, etc. They also sometimes do a search of your car. Because we were bringing a bunch of sound equipment back from our trip to San Quintin, we got stopped and the soldiers searched our car. This is not the noteworthy thing, but instead the best part is what the people in the car in front of us got stopped for....


let's just say they had a good time freaking out the gringa with their giant snow crab... and the back of their pick up was Full of them!

Another interesting encounter I had at one of these military stops was in one of our 12-passenger YWAM vans. A motley crew full of YWAMers - germans, mexicans, americans, canadians - we got stopped, asked the routine questions about where we were and where we were going, then the soldier went around to the side door, opened it and asked, "are you guys all Family?" we all burst out laughing, thinking, "he's gotta be kidding!" our driver just calmly responded - "yes, the family of God." :)


"Do not boast about tomorrow, for you do not know what a day may bring..." Proverbs 27:1