Tessa's first missions trip to Mexico!
June 15 to June 24, 1998

We traveled from Moses Lake to Spokane by car and then flew from Spokane to Seattle and then on to Los Angeles, CA on June 15. In Los Angeles we went through intense training before heading down into to Mexico.

In LA we learned how to do skits and about the culture in Mexico. One of the skits we learned was called "The Cage". In this skit five of us show that we are in a cage by miming. One of the members finds a Bible and sees that Jesus is the key and he grabs the key, unlocks the cage and gets out. The other four of us plead for him to help us be free too. At first he says no and then God tell him to help us and he hands us the Bible. We all look in the Bible and get our keys. All four of us at the same time unlock our cage door and get out and then all five of us present the Bible to the people in the audience to get their keys and be set free.

There were other skits too...one was "Ashton" revealing the power of prayer and another one was "Demon on assignment" revealing how the demons will try to lead people astray and the power of the Lord to help us in every situation.

In LA we watched videos each morning that were a lead in to something they were going to be teaching us that day. In one of them, a guy had committed suicide and some of the kids from another youth group were crying and got ministered to by the staff because one of their youth had just committed suicide and wasn't there with them. This boy had gone on this type of missions outreach just last year with them. That was sad to see.

The Staff at LA were great! As soon as the youth get off the bus they try to pick a few of the youth that they commit to praying for during the time they are there at the training center.

While we were there in LA, our speaker was talking about the persecuted church. At the end of his speaking a guy came running in saying that people had broken the border and taken the President hostage. We thought this all was a joke and then people busted in the door wearing military uniforms and carrying (fake) weapons. They were all yelling at us, telling us we had a curfew of 8 PM and it was past that. SO...We all ran back to our dorms and some of the soldiers came in our dorms and found a Bible. They took a couple of the girls to prison. While this was happening a lady ran in the back door and asked two girls and I what our names were. We told her and she said to follow her. We were taken to a location that they were having a secret prayer meeting. We went in and more and more people kept coming in. Some people did get caught on their way there and were taken to prison. We could hear people outside screaming. The soldiers kept coming to the door and pounding on it, yelling at us that they knew we were in there. After a while they were able to break in and we were all taken to prison in single file with our hands on our head. On the way to prison there were people telling us that Buddha was the only God and we started singing songs. They locked us in where the dumpsters were and left us with one guard guarding us. We undid the gate and all of us busted out in different directions. Then they announced that it was over and we all went to a big grassy area (fields). It made an impact on me that this kind of stuff is really happening in other countries and will be happening all over the world...even in the US soon. People that believe in Jesus Christ are dying for their faith and beliefs in Him.

Then we went to Mexico after the 4 days of training in LA. We lodged in the dorms of the Youth With A Mission base in Tijuana.

In Mexico, the first day we went to some hills over looking Tijuana and prayed for the city. The next morning we got up at 6 am and left to go to a Foursquare church, "New Earth"(English translation). This church was built on a hillside and the foundation was made of tires and really soft dirt. We were able to collect $200 for the pastor to be able to put in a real foundation. There had been some houses that were washed away last Winter and the pastor was concerned that the church would get washed away with the foundation it had. The pastor and his wife were so blessed by our financial gift to them and they cried. While we were there at their church we also painted the church. The church was made out of pieces of wood and press board that they could find. Pictured below is me, Nancy and another girl that Nancy knew in front of the church with the foundation of tires on the hill side. This was also after we had painted the outside of the church, it used to be brown. You can also see in the background on the hillside some of the houses next to the church.

At one time we went to a basket ball court and traveled to another site where we did our skits. At that location there were 12 people that accepted Jesus for the first time. Included in them people was the ice cream man!! We also ministered to a man that had a big cup filled full of vodka.

We also worked in a soup kitchen and all the little kids would come there to eat. Some of the kids were excited about getting to eat on a day that the soup kitchen usually wasn't open. The day we were there the kids had stew and rice. There was a little boy that really took to me and grabbed my hand and wouldn't let me go. He loved it when I gave him piggy back rides. I have a picture of him below. He was pretty camera shy and I finally got a good picture of him. The little boy didn't want me to leave and I had a hard time leaving him there also. That was a sad part of my trip.

Everywhere we went we would do puppets and 2 to 3 times a day we would preform the skits we learned in LA. The little kids just loved the puppets and would sit still and look at them. But with the skits to music some of the kids would be interested and others would get up and walk around.

At the Church, there was a little girl named Nancy that helped us out and was so sweet. She would tell the other kids that we had puppets and more kids would come to see the puppets. All the sound for the puppets was recorded and played back in Spanish. She has a special place in my heart.

In the next pic, just Nancy is in front of the church and you can see the window. If you stood next to the window you could stick your hand out through a gap in between the wall and the bottom of the window frame. On the right hand side of the window and by Nancy's shoulder you can see a black spot where the window and wall have a gap in it.

We were able to play soccer with the little kids all the places we went. One of places was the park. Pictured below with me are some of the boys that came to the Park. These boys in the next picture were really good at soccer!

We also got to spend some time on the Tijuana and Rosarita beach. The Rosarita beach was cleaner than the Tijuana beach.

Right before we got to the Mexico/US Border there was a fence coming off of the border perpendicularly on the Mexico side. At the corner of the fences there was a man who was living in a make shift cardboard house.

When we were coming back into the States, at the border we didn't have any time to spare to get back to LA to catch our plane. We know people were praying because the border patrol just opened the van door, looked around and then waved us on through!

I arrived back at home on the 24th about 11:30 PM without injury or sickness. Praise Him for His protection!

Some of us on our team learned more Spanish than others. I learned how to say "goodbye", "Yes" and "One minute" in Spanish but would like to learn more.

I want to thank everyone for helping me financially to go and in prayer support while I was gone. I have already decided I want to go again next year and also want to enroll in a Spanish class to learn more of the language.

Thank YOU for sending me!

Tessa

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