Mission Trip Find the Church in Mexico Alive & Well
By Doug Mead
By the time Chris Halvorson and I arrived at the Kingdom Builders headquarters in El Nino, Baja Mexico on Sunday evening, April 2, we were exhausted from long, separate journeys. To top it off, the massive building had a feel of the 1980 movie The Shining because of its emptiness. Fortunately for us, there was no smirking Jack Nicholson-like character lurking about the hallways with a cuchillo in hand. The place sleeps more than 150, but we were the only two people in the place. (There was an 88-year-old abuelita downstairs, but surely she was asleep.)
Chris and I started planning our Mexico Mission Trip in December, with prayer and recruiting. I had made similar trips to Tijuana in 2018 and 2019, and Chris joined me in the latter. Then the Covid Pandemic hit, and we were not able to return until this year. We tried to partner with Refuge Church in Concord, who was part of a five-church group that trekked from Concord to Mexico and back in a seven-day period in 2019. At one time, we had as many as seven commitments, but by the time our departure date arrived, it was just Chris driving up on April 2; I had flown down to Carlsbad, California the previous Thursday night to spend three days with my son, his wife, and my two granddaughters. After a two-hour flight delay on the Oakland International Airport tarmac, I arrived at my son’s house at 12:30 a.m., four hours late. Halfway through Chris’ drive, the check-engine light came on. After mulling over options, he decided to trudge through and try to get the van repaired in Mexico.
My prayer time for both of us told me that God was telling us that “patience” would be an important element of the trip, and our delays were just practice runs. I’m a high school teacher, and when I sense my students are feeling stressed, I take time out to do breathing exercises to load up the brain with good oxygen. Breathe! Cough, cough. OK, the Tijuana air is horrid. Where’s my Covid mask?
As a professor de Ingles, I would say that it was ironic that we faced certain obstacles. But at the same time, the men’s group had recently been studying “detours” in a video by prominent Dallas preacher Tony Evans, Sr. We knew God had plans for us that we weren’t aware of. By the time Day 1 of our mission trip arrived, Chris and I had faced and overcome numerous obstacles. Our original plan was to build a house for the indigent, but as our numbers dwindled, the plan changed to helping remodel a burgeoning hispanic church in nearby Tecate. Whenever Chris or I faced an obstacle, we tried to figure out what the immediate and distant plans were.
By the time Chris and I departed, we saw several short-term plans, as well as a long-term missions. The short-timers were getting a head-start on expanding a church that sat no more than 30 people on its Good Friday service, me seeing a massive mold and mildew problem (which I learned how to clean up in Louisiana in 2005 after a devastating hurricane), to the long-termer being our desire to return to Tecate to visit our new hermanas and hermanos en Christo. What kind of people did we encounter? Let me tell you about a few of them, some whose names I remember, some of whom I forget. Keep in mind that Chris and I earned our titles of friendship by first proving our carpentry skills (Chris received an A-plus for his expertise, and I earned a C-minus for effort) but more importantly by testing our faith skills on Monday night (Day 2) when the pastor, Beto, and his wife, Fabi, took us out to dinner. In Spanish, Fabi asked me if Fair Oaks teaches from the Bible. “Absolutamente.” Our deep friendship was forged.
My love for Mexico started in 1966 when my family moved to Yuma, Arizona, some 20 miles from the Mexican border. My dad was a farmer and raised cattle, and most of his laborers and caballeros were from San Luis, Sonora Mexico. Some of them had green cards; others did not. What I saw then was what I saw during my April 2-8 mission trip: a hard-working culture that values family but lacks opportunities for education. Survival is an everyday occurrence. When we drove to the job site at 8 a.m. every day, people were putting together food stands that were still going 12 hours later on our drive back to our home base. They were relentless hustlers. Taco stands, tire-changing trucks, new and used clothing sellers, car and window washers, sellers of fresh fruit and vegetables, and my favorite blaring from a loudspeaker atop the beat-up pickup trucks, “Agua, agua, agua.” I fear I will have nightmares hearing that dity. Most Mexicans work long days, six days a week. Beto drives heavy equipment and took a week of vacation to help expand his church (from one to two stories). Fabi is a cake decorator whose skills match that of any American panaderia.
Most Mexicans don’t have heating or air-conditioning, save for the breeze flowing through the mishmash of wall materials seen everywhere.
Showers are an issue. Although we have one in our bathroom, there is no hot water, so we walk downstairs to the bathroom with hot water. Bueno. When I went to Haiti in 2010 to help rebuild an orphanage, I caught a bad case of athlete’s foot fungus from the hotel (still under construction) shower. Every day in Mexico, I washed my feet carefully with soap and dried them with a towel. A week later, I’m good.
Travel in Mexico can be complicated. Those who own cars usually have old, beat-up versions that often break down on the side of the road. Mecanicos meet you there. Those who don’t own cars take the autobuses, which are often crammed. Unlike the Bay Area that has similar bus choices, you might see a dozen different bus companies in a day. The big companies, such as Toyota and Hyundai, haul their workers too and from in relative comfort. If you’re in a car, you’re playing dodgeball with massive pot holes in the road. It isn’t unusual to see cars veer from one lane to the next and back again in a few seconds.
A struggling car-washer arrived at our doorstep on Monday with an empty bucket and a few towels. I don’t think he had any soap, and he used cold water from the church. Kingdom Builders founder, Daniel Nunez, paid him a few hundred pesos to wash a car in the parking lot. I asked Daniel if I could pay the man $10 (roughly 500 pesos) to wash his dirty pick-up truck. Seguro. That $10 is probably more than he made the rest of that day and the next. Someone invited the carwasher to lunch. I asked Beto if he had a Biblio Espanol. Si. After lunch, I gave the man the Bible and told him to start reading in Juan. When he has questions, he should come back and ask Beto. He seemed stunned that someone gave him a Bible. I don’t remember his name, but I’m praying for him.
Chris is a master carpenter with 43 years under his tool belt. After five mission trips to three different countries, I am still a novice. The only skill I claim to possess is roofing, which I did with a previous church in Louisiana. Truthfully, my main skill is pulling in timid teenagers and Mexicans who earn a living in other professions and teaching them a few things. This year, I was determined to be involved with framing. Midway through our stay, I came up with a nickname for Chris, Mr. Peabody, because he had simple answers for the hundred or so questions I (and our Mexican brethren) asked him.
Chris and I are the lone “jueros,” or white guys. It’s somewhat of a term of endearment between Mexicans and anglo-Americans. I was a juero way back in high school and my best friend was Mex. I can be a slang term between the two races when they don’t know each other, but that was not the case with us. We wore it proudly.
On Wednesday night, we visited Pastor Luis and his wife Raquel at the church Chris and I helped build four years ago. It has chairs for 40 and a stage for preaching and praise music. It was built on the side of a small cliff, but it has been expanded to have a couple of Sunday school classrooms and a large kitchen. Across the street, Erica still lives with her family. We met her four years ago, when a boy from her group befriended her and built her a doghouse out of scraps of wood lying around. She is 15 years old now and is still quite friendly, with two dogs nipping at our heals. Pastor Daniel asked her if she was going to church, and she said no. That would have made a great mission story even better.
After taco dinner one night, Beto and his wife took us to the local panaderia (bakery), which equaled any place I’ve been to in the Bay Area. Pan means bread in Spanish, so I exchanged a nifty picture of a loaf of sourdough bread I made the weekend before with my 4-year-old granddaughter. I was stuffed from a massive quesadilla I couldn’t finished, so I saved my mini-chocolate cake for breakfast. Before the eggs (second breakfast. Next year, when we go back next year, I want to make a fancy cake with Fabi.
I am a lover of all-things ice cream, so when I saw a soft-serve ice cream machine across the street in front of the super mercado, I couldn’t resist. I bought ice creams for everyone, twice. It was fun to watch the teenagers giggle as they scarfed their tasty vanilla, chocolate or mixed cones. Each cone about $1.80. What a bargain.
Waiting is a way of life in Mexico. Virtually every day, we waited an hour or two for materials to be delivered. In America, we don’t worry much about theft of materials, but in Mexico, it’s how people build fences and garage doors. When I worked in the food services industry, we called it “hurry, hurry … wait, wait.” The wait times gave us a few minutes to take a gander at the countryside to the north. Over the mountaintop is Chula Vista, California and a different world.
No internet? No big deal. I can’t say I missed the internet much, other than longing for scores from the Giants and Warriors. I knew I needed to make a call to my service provider to get cell phone access ahead of time, but I really didn’t care. I had planned to write at the end of each day, but I was too tuckered out.
A cerveza (Tecate, naturally) never tasted so good. I asked Beto if he minded if Chris and I had a beer with dinner. Si. When we arrived at the restaurant, he pointed to the mini-market across the street, where I bought two beers for about 200 pesos, about $2. I was given a slice of limon, a custom in Mexico that gravitated to America. Stories of the purpose of a lime in a beer are many. My favorite? It keeps the flies out! Verdad.
After a 17-year-career in catering, I love to thank people by cooking something for them. On Thursday, I was making one of my specialties, chile verde, when I casually looked up -- and saw massive amounts of black mold and mildew. “Lucy, we got a problem.” I could see the spores, but my two trips to rural Louisiana after Hurricane Rita devastated the area, taught me how to handle the situation. First, safety in the way of masks and disposable gloves are vital. Then, wash with hot water, soap, and rinse with hot water. Finally, a solution of bleach and water and let it air dry. Chris and I came up with a plan on how to clean and pull the drywall ceiling down with claw hammers. The next morning at 8, the women were beaming, proud that the kitchen was already cleaned. I was steaming on the inside, but on the outside, “Senoras, fantastico!” After all, this was not a man’s job in Mexico. I prayed that God would keep everyone healthy. They were innocent.I kept my mouth shut, and told Daniel what needed to be done later. People need to keep their pride and not be told how the gringos would do it.
That night, we went to Pastor Daniel’s church right next door to our compound. Outside and inside, it looks like any mega-church in America, but the building is surrounded by slums. Inside, it seats 300 , double what it sat at the compound we stayed in, and there are plenty of Sunday school rooms. Daniel’s son, Turry, is the pastor now, and he is boisterous and engaging. At the end of the service on Maudy Thursday, he washed the feet of his mom and dad and then everyone was invited to come forward and wash someone’s feet. I looked at Chris and said, “I’ll do yours, you do mine?” Of course! So we washed each other’s feet. And then, they served coffee, something Mexicans do at all hours of the day. No caffeine for me after 8 a.m., something the locals could not understand.
I am afraid of heights. No foolin’. Have been for as long as I can remember. I can handle roofing on one-story buildings, but the two-story jobs are another issue. I learned to somewhat overcome my fears from words of wisdom I received in 2005 from two master roofers I worked with in Louisiana. “Don’t look down. Move slowly, and pray, maybe even sing a hymn or two.” The first time I was on a two-story house, it was without a safety harness, and I learned to step gingerly. As I get older (I’m sixty-something), my muscles don’t move the way they used to. I’m not Gumby, dang it! Bending over becomes more problematic every year. I do yoga 2-3 times a week, but I did maybe only two 10-minute stretching sessions during our five days in Mexico. I had to make tough choices every day: stretch or go to bed. Fatigue won over. Five days after returning, my back and knee are loosening up a little bit.
At 3:30 on Friday, we finished our last project, shingling the roof, with a mix of maroon and gray color schemes, which would never happen in Ustados Unidos. We tried to teach a thing or two to our hispanic brethren. In the afternoon, the wind kicked up, and I wanted to skeedaddle. We drove the 30 minutes back to the compound to rest for 90 minutes before heading back to the Good Friday service at Beto’s church. For 30 minutes we sang lively hymns in Spanish, with no one looking at a hymnal. Beto played bass, two women sang, and a talented teenage guitar player stole the show. Then a few men and women read scriptures and preached briefly. Most of the congregation had Bibles. I forgot my Bible in my room, but I could tell where they were reading from and what they were talking about. “Ah-mens” were plentiful.
After the service no one went home. My back hurt, and I was exhausted, but I would not be begging to go back to the compound. I smiled as I watched the teenagers play a combination of soccer and volleyball. Hearty laughter filled the air. Chris was entertaining nearby with lively gestures and Spanglish, and I smiled admiringly. When a man off the street approached me, I did my best to invite him him. In broken Spanish, I told him I would be returning home the next day but I would introduce him to the pastor or his wife. He declined. He just wanted to have a conversation with a foreigner from hundreds of miles away, so I told him about teaching high school in Walnut Creek, and coming to Tecate to build an adition to the church, while pointing proudly to our work. Perhaps he will think again about the friendliness of the people and return one day. “Padre, abre el corazon del hombre.” Do I get two white pingpong balls for my efforts?
The 5 a.m. alarm clock came much too soon, but I forced myself to get up and take a hot shower to loosen up my body, only to squeeze into the van seat and force it to sit for 13 hours. I did not long for eggs, beans, and tortillas. I just wanted to go home and sleep in my own bed, and watch the Giants on TV while napping on the couch. Our bumpy trip to the border turned into an interesting excursion when our GPS went on the fritz. I kept thinking, “We’re heading North!” and that’s all that matters. Eventually we found our way. Because we started late and didn’t know how to get into the right line, we had a 90-minute wait. We contemplated which one of us would buy a ceramic donkey from the peddlers for our front porch. After we entered California, my cell phone suddenly kicked in, albeit still with Spanish advertising for most of the way home. I took over the driving after we stopped at a Starbucks in Mission Viejo, because Chris had driven 16 hours already. We stopped a few more times for pottie breaks and gas stops. While eating at a Popeyes somewhere on I-5 (Taco Bell was next door, and I didin’t even want to cross the line), and I learned more about Chris the softball player. The man had wheels, hit for lefty power, and had a gun in the outfield. I arrived at home at 7:30 and still had clean out my stuff from the van. I ate a light dinner with few carbs and went to bed at 9.
I will always miss Mexico when I leave her. Mazatlan is as low as I’ve traveled as a tourist, but I have ventured into Tijuana three times now and spent a little time near my home in Yuma in Mexicali and San Luis. My heart always aches when I leave. What I am most proud to say is that the Christian church in Mexico is alive and well. In many ways, they shame American churches. They deeply care for each other and help each other through struggles that would floor most Americans. Life is 10 times more difficult in third-world countries such as Mexico, but these people never give up.
Fair Oaks Church should also be proud for raising more than $6,000 to support our new sister church in Tecate. They are able to grow and do things it wouldn't have otherwise been able to do. Chris and I thank you from the bottom of our hearts.
Chris and I can’t wait to go again next year and visit our iglesia segunda. Mark your calendars: tentatively March 31-April 6, 2024. Join us. No carpentry or Spanish-speaking skills necessary. You provide the will; God provides whatever you need to do his will.