By Melissa Matz
On March 8, an intergenerational team of 28 people started a journey from the Cariboo Christian Life Fellowship at 108 Mile to Ensenada, Mexico for a short-term mission trip.
After arriving and settling in, we started serving by working at a recently opened orphanage for disabled children. This orphanage was started by, and is run by, a full-time missionary family and some volunteers.
Part of what our team was doing at the orphanage was helping build a team house, which will be used in the future for teams like ours to stay in while serving in Ensenada.
This will also be a place for orphanage volunteers to relax and training events can also be hosted there.
We also served at two other orphanages, where we played and did crafts with the children, filled empty kitchen pantries with groceries, and cleaned.
The trip wasn’t all hard work. In the middle of the week, we had a day to go sightseeing, do some shopping, and spent time at the beach, where two team members were baptized in the pounding Pacific surf.
There are many poor people in Ensenada and we spent one day preparing 80 food hampers to give out to people living in Las Rocas, one of the poorest communities. The people of Las Rocas live in small shacks made of whatever materials can be found.
Our goal was to go door-to-door to visit them and provide some physical and spiritual needs. The people who received the hampers were very thankful for the food and supplies, and were very open to being prayed for and hearing the good news of Jesus.
One of the last places we served was at a women’s shelter for a dozen women with many young children. It is a home for the women who are hiding from abusive men.
While we were at the women’s shelter, we found out it was a little girl’s birthday, so we were able to surprise her with a birthday cake. She was so happy.
We doubt her special day would have been remembered in any other way if we had not heard about it and responded.
I learned a lot from this opportunity. For example, when we were at one of the orphanages, it became so real to me that I didn’t need to speak the same language to love others and to show God’s love.
The children, even though we didn’t speak the same language, loved to play with everyone, and they just wanted to be with us and play with us.
One little girl even tried teaching me some Spanish, which didn’t work so well, but was a lot of fun.
It is really very simple. They wanted to be loved, and in return, showed me what real love is.
This trip wasn’t like anything I was expecting, but it was really incredible and life changing. God stretched me in a lot of ways. God and His love became very real and vivid to me during those 11 days.
I am so thankful I was able to be a part of this opportunity to serve the people in Mexico. As a team, we were also blessed by the generosity and prayers of the churches and people who supported us.
Melissa Matz is a 100 Mile House youth.
