MISSION TRIP TO ROCKY POINT, MEXICO

The team!

What an amazing weekend! We just returned from a 4-day trip to Rocky Point (Puerto Penasco), Mexico with One Mission.....an organization who builds homes & community for impoverished families. This was my first mission trip ever, and I don't know why I waited so long. I had a vague idea of what to expect but the trip was nothing like I expected.

5 of us from our church were meeting up with 22 from another church in Phoenix at the base camp. We had no problems on the drive from Tucson to Rocky Point. No fake checkpoints along the way or hitches of any kind (that we kept hearing from everyone). It's a 3 hr drive to the border, then 1 more hr to Rocky Point.

We drove into the One Mission camp and set up our tents on the sandy dirt lot. There were hot showers, bathrooms, a community kitchen and even a place to do laundry so we were set! I didn't sleep well the first night...mainly because it was windy & the tent made weird noises. Then someone's alarm went off at 2:45am....but my cell phone said 3:45am so I had no idea what that was about. I found out soon enough when we woke up & not a single person was stirring at 7am (according to my cell). Come to find out, there are 2 different mayors in Rocky Point. One mayor declared one side on daylight savings time, the other on Arizona time. Turns out, the cell tower happens to be on the side that didn't "fall back". ha!

We met the people from the other church, had a good breakfast burrito & headed out to the family's place where we would build their house. The area is called the barrios (or the San Rafael subdivision). Basically, you drive down and endless maze of sandy dirt roads (soft, deep sand, not packed dirt), passing various "homes" made out of....well, anything they could find. Turns out, the place used to be a landfill. But the govt didn't clear it out. They just dumped a big pile of dirt on top of the trash and sold the land lots. As we were digging out the area for the foundation, we were digging up trash too. Not to mention the flies were horrendous. (I have a vague idea of the infamous 7 plagues, now). Very sad. Poverty in Mexico is very different from the U.S. We are fortunate to have some resources like shelters, food banks, welfare, etc. But in Mexico, if you are down & out, too bad. There's nothing & no one to help you, so you find food where you can get it (like the trash), friends or family. This was a hard working family whose father lost his job. (But man, he could stucco a building like no one's business!).

The family's home was a variety of boards and whatever else they could find, nailed together, with a cut out hole for a window. 4 kids & 2 parents made their home there. Another smaller shack became their outhouse. This was the only bathroom for the day so I only drank enough water to keep me hydrated (and very little coffee the entire weekend). ha. We met the family (who were the nicest, kindest people BTW), and began laying out the groundwork to pour the foundation. Many of the locals showed up and put in more muscle than I could even muster. I've never seen such hard working people. Seriously, they would work very hard for a long time, and finally take a break.

We had 2-1/2 days with 27+ people to build a double-wide (40'x20'). I started off mixing cement. Holy cow, what a workout! My arms & abs were burning. Nate had the job of putting a handful of fiberglass in the dirt/cement mix. Without it the mix wouldn't bond. By the end of the day, we had the foundation laid and some of the framework finished.

Day 2 we put up all of the framework, tar paper, chicken wire, tarred the roof & the first coat of stucco! Day 3, 2nd coat of stucco and finishing touches. Somehow we finished...all by 12pm! Then it was time to dedicate the house to the family. I've never seen such grateful faces.

We were blessed to get to know many of the locals and Nate had an awesome time playing with their kids. He couldn't speak Spanish & they couldn't speak English but it didn't matter.

I will never forget this experience & can't wait for the next trip! Here's all the photos:

ONE MISSION HOUSE BUILD LINK