I woke up in darkness
Surrounded by silence
Oh where, where have I gone?
So begins the song Alive Again, by Newfoundland-born songwriter, Matt Maher. It comes to my mind because I am — along with 47 others from our church and community — preparing for a trip during spring break that will see us build some houses for people who need help. Our destination is Puerto Penasco, a city of about 55,000 people in the northern part of the state of Sonora in Mexico.
A decade ago our youth minister asked if I would support sending a small group to Mexico to build a house for people living under very difficult conditions. This would be done under the guidance of a parachurch organization called Amor Ministries (I encourage a trip to www.amor.org). I agreed with some gentle enthusiasm, but without fully realizing what a subversive move this really was.
It was only upon the return of the first team we had sent that it began to dawn on me how this would be a game-changer in the lives of those involved. They had indeed built a house, but the world looked a bit different to them when they came home. In fact, they — and subsequent team members — have helped to positively change the larger work of our church.
A few years ago I was able to take the plunge myself … which brings me to Alive Again. We live quite simply while in Mexico and tenting is our mode of accommodation. Our day begins quite early by my standards, just before the dawn. As we indeed, “wake up in darkness,” I and others have found there is a moment of disorientation, a feeling that things might be shifting, and a rising sense of vulnerability.
As we work together in a place that is very much in the grip of poverty, as we meet and spend time with the families for whom we are building homes and the neighbourhood children who inevitably drop by, and as we get to know each other a bit better, eventually the penny drops.
We are waking up and discovering a vibrancy to life that we often miss in our regular setting.
It’s as if we are alive again.
I ask for your prayers for all whom we will have the honour of serving, and prayers for all those setting off on similar trips to Mexico and numerous other places around the world, that we might all have a fresh awakening to what is real and to what this world is meant to be.
The Rev. Phillip Spencer is at St. Stephen’s United Church, Qualicum Beach.
