From July 25th through July 30th,
several of our college interns and student interns from the Leadership
Intensive summer program partnered up with members of Mercy Street Church and
went south - to Zaragoza, Mexico! We
spent a week serving alongside Rancho Dos Countries, a ministry founded by
Debra and Fernando Martinez. Although
their testimony is one you ought to hear in person, it centers on God calling
them from a life of wealth and luxury in the States and down to Fernando’s
hometown just across the border: Zaragoza.
They live on a beautiful ranch with peacocks, roosters, hens, and horses
all running free, and a cool little spring flows through their backyard – which
proved to be the perfect swimming hole after a long day of work! Rancho Dos Countries has built soup kitchens,
public schools, and churches in Zaragoza and the nearby towns of Morelos and
Nava. We were privileged to serve in
both Zaragoza and Morelos.
In the mornings, we breakfasted on local foods like fresh
eggs from the ranch, homemade tortillas, watermelon, figs, and Captain Crunch
if you weren’t feeling so adventurous. A
short devotional and a long quiet time would follow, giving everyone time to
process, pray, and sit in their thoughts.
Many of us were able to find incredible rest from the normal chaotic,
fun, jam-packed schedule of our Leadership Intensive summer.
Some sort of manual labor would consume the first half of
our workday. On Tuesday, we sorted
school supplies for local teachers in a room so hot that stepping outside into
the 95-degree weather felt fresh and cool.
We got it done, though, and used teamwork to delegate tasks and work
efficiently. Wednesday’s labor was
sorting through school supplies at the ranch to pass out to the children;
counting all kinds of backpacks, pencil boxes, shoes, and the like. On Thursday and Friday, we painted a
schoolhouse at the Zaragoza site in shades of bright yellow and peachy orange
and sky blue. A lot of paint ended up on
our faces and shirts as well; special thanks to one of our full time interns,
Shena, for that J
At noon each day, we helped serve food at the soup kitchen
to all the locals who came to eat. This
was a great platform for conversation, as we would grab a plate and sit down
beside a friendly face to say hi. Most
of our team’s Spanish was pretty elementary, but our God is not defined by
worldly things like language barriers.
We communicated through physical touch, smiles, hand gestures, and
broken words here and there. The food
was always good, and always enough – a staple for many of the families who may
not be eating on days that the soup kitchen is closed.
After lunch was many of our students’ favorite part of the
day – VBS! Kids would flock to our
location each day just to play with us.
We brought out bubbles, soccer balls, coloring supplies, the works; but
even if we had brought nothing, our loving interaction would have been
enough. To watch a kid run at you and
jump into your arms as a total stranger, with no reservations, just wanting to
be loved, is enough to make you question all the walls you’ve ever built around
yourself. For our high schoolers to see
poverty in its most raw form, accompanied hand in hand by the inexplicable joy
of a child, was a lesson that I beg them to never forget. Our student interns had many great takeaways
by the end of the week, but the two I heard the most were these:
Be grateful for what you have.
Love the kids back in West Dallas as well as we loved the
kids in Mexico.
One of our interns, Shanessa (pictured right), wrote a sweet caption about a
little boy that she formed a special connection with:
“I’ve grown
so attached to the kids in Mexico especially this boy here. Jose Antonio.
I didn’t let the language barrier hold me back from getting to know him. He was a little shy at first but he finally
warmed up. We hugged so many times
before I left and I even cried. We had
to go back to the soup kitchen for something and I said what if I see him just
one more time, and as we were leaving I saw him outside his house and his face
just lit up with happiness. And I cried
because we weren’t allowed to stop. All
the kids will have a special place in my heart.”
We were able to see the way that God is already working in
these towns in Mexico not only by providing for their needs, but also by
allowing us to be a vessel to share the free and abundant love that He offers
us with those kiddos and their families.
I would like to bottle these memories up forever for our students, so
that we might never forget the nuggets of wisdom and the truths about life that
the Lord used Mexico to reveal to us.
Special thanks to our full time interns, Shanessa, Shena,
Akilah, Destiny, Noah, and Oscar, for their hard work and their huge hearts!
