Once Upon a Time in Mexico

At the fear of sounding like Matt McDowell, there was a moment the last time I was in Mexico that changed my life. I still have a difficult time discussing the event.

I was on a mission trip with the teens, and I walked into the room where we had been eating and scolded them for leaving so much food lying around the table. They quickly threw it all away and I quickly forgot about the incident.

That day a group from Guaymas, Mexico had traveled to Agua Prieta to talk Antonio, their former preacher, into returning to the congregation in Guaymas. After selling tamales and crafts to make money for the trip, twenty-two of them piled in a fifteen passenger van and made the six hour trip to Agua Prieta without any air conditioning (it was about 107o outside). They arrived during one of our nightly devotionals. Not knowing the circumstances of their journey, I asked them to join us at the devo. They sang with us in English (not very well) and we sang with them in Spanish (also, not very well). The look of joy on their faces as they sang and praised their God would become one of the reasons I fell to my knees in tears later that night.

After the devotional they invited me to a meeting about Antonio returning to Guaymas. They wanted some of the American’s input on the whole situation. The meeting didn’t mean a whole lot to me – I don’t speak Spanish. What I gathered from the spanglish translated to me was that Antonio had agreed to go back and everyone was generally happy with the decision. As the meeting was closing and I was walking out, Rene (my friend from Memphis) looked at me with tears welling up and said, “This is the first time they have eaten all day.” That’s when it hit me. They were eating the food from the garbage can. The food we had so casually thrown away that day had become the first meal of the day for the Christians from Guaymas. The people who had sold food and crafts to travel six hours in the Mexican heat in a van with no air conditioner and no food just to do what they thought was best for their church spent their evening praising God and eating our garbage. I will never get over it. After hearing the story several members of our group made sure they ate more than our leftovers that night.

Right now I am in middle of planning a trip to Guaymas for our teens this summer. Planning one of these trips is never fun – there are a lot of details that have to be taken care of. But, when I get bogged down one thing that keeps me motivated is what I learned about faith that night in Mexico. We say we are going down to help the Mexican people, but make no mistake. The Mexican Christians help us more than we will ever help them. Their faith that night humbles me still, it changes me still.