Youth groups help Baptists in Mexico, learn life lessons

Alabama’s youth did their part this summer to reach out to the people of Matamoros, Mexico.  Two different missions trips ventured to the impoverished town that sits directly across the border from Brownsville, Texas.
   
Thirty-five members of First Baptist Church, Hoover, 28 of whom were youth, traveled to the poverty-stricken area June 17-24 where they assisted members of Iglesia Bautista Ammi (First Baptist Ammi) on church repairs. The youth ranged in age from seventh grade through college.
   
A month after the First Baptist delegation returned home, a missions team, made up of 65 members of Jasper’s Blooming Grove Baptist Church, arrived in Matamoros to conduct Bible School, hold church services and send out witnessing teams.
   
Bo Brown, youth pastor at First Baptist Church, Hoover, said the church hooked up with the Rio Grande Valley Baptist Association which organizes missions trips for areas in Mexico. 
   
“I’ve always wanted to go out of the country on a missions trip, but the cost was always too high,” Brown said, explaining that the weeklong trip only cost $175 per person — including transportation and food.
   
Brown said the primary focus of the trip was to do construction on the Baptist church in Ammi. The team laid 1,800 square feet of tile on the concrete floor in the sanctuary and painted the entire upstairs and downstairs of the church.
   
While the group was there, someone from a nearby medical mission asked if they would help them repair their roof. So the group also ended up roofing half of the mission.
   
Although communication was difficult, the team was still able to relate on some levels with the local church members.
   
“We still laughed and fellowshiped with the people in the church even though they didn’t speak a word of English,” Brown said. “We were especially touched by church members who brought us a meal to eat. It probably cost them a month’s salary.”
   
“Lucky” Teague, director of missions for Walker Baptist Association, was invited to go on the Blooming Grove missions trip, which in addition to the adults, was comprised of 40 youth, ranging in age from 12 to 18.
   
“I cannot adequately describe the experience of being on mission with this group of incredible young people and leaders.  I laughed, I cried, I witnessed, I sang, I passed out tracts, I prayed — I had the time of my life,” he said in reflection of the experience.  “I saw real, Holy Spirit empowered boldness.  I felt the power of God at work in my heart and in the hearts of people who heard the gospel for perhaps the first time.”
   
Both missions teams experienced challenges with the language barrier.
   
Ashley Matherson, a recent Hoover High School graduate, explained, “I’ve taken Spanish and was able to do some translating. I could feel God giving me words and helping me understand. I felt like I an instrument and servant of God. It was a better feeling than you could ever imagine,” she said.
   
Describing Blooming Grove’s youth group, Teague said, “What a genuine blessing it was to see the compassion of young people trying to witness in a language they didn’t know, to a people they had never met and in childlike faith — expecting God to do the rest.”
   
Matherson said the pastor at the Mexican church couldn’t believe a group of believers would come from so far away to help his church.
   
“You could tell it really impacted him. He explained that he was crying because he could tell that God loved him so much,” she said.
   
The poverty and living conditions in Mexico had an impact on both groups.
   
“I’ve never seen poverty like this,” said Brown. “It really touched our group. We all came back with an appreciation of what God’s given us.
   
“We were told the area where  we worked was considered middle class by Mexican standards,” he noted. There was no air conditioning, running water or garbage pickup. It was below our standard poverty level. We watched a local man chase and kill a possum for his dinner. We also saw that happiness doesn’t depend on possessions,” he said.
   
Both groups agree that what they experienced has made a lasting impression on them.
   
“I’ve been on a lot of missions trips but this was the best one I’ve ever been on,” Matherson said.
   
This life-changing experience made Brown decide to return to Mexico again next summer for the church’s missions trip. “There is so much need there,” he added. (Sue Ann Miller contributed)