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Each year members and clergy from First Presbyterian Church, as well as
members from other churches in our area, undertake a mission trip to This ministry is not limited to members of First Presbyterian Church, or
to the Presbyterian Church itself. We invite all who seek to serve our Lord
by reaching out to others to join us. Either by joining next year's mission
team or by contributing in other ways. Of course, we always covet your
prayers for those who make the journey and especially for those we serve in You can also learn more about the work of Faith Minsitry/Minsiterio de Fe by visiting their web site at www.faithminsitry.org |
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2009 MISSION TRIP
CLICK HERE FOR PICTURES FROM THIS YEAR'S TRIP Journal Entry Day 1 Hello
from your missionaries in In We
arrived fairly early Sunday afternoon, and were welcomed by Kay and Dick
Gibson, who had already agreed to prepare our dinner for the evening.
In a change from the past few years, one of our first orders of business,
after unloading our stuff, was to make a group shopping trip to get our
groceries, water, and tools. (Those of you who traveled on this mission
trip might remember that this how we handled getting our food items pre-
Carol Copeland; she has been our gracious
“go-ahead-of-the-troops” person for the past few years, taking
care of all of this before we even arrived in Weslaco.) You would have
been impressed with the efficiency of these 13 missionaries when given a shopping
list at WalMart; I think we were all back in less than 20 minutes with our
portion of the shopping list completed and ready to check out. The
clerk was so gracious scanning all our items, while half of us put the items
on the conveyor belt and half of us bagged and loaded the grocery carts, all
eight of them! Imagine Diane’s surprise when the church credit
card was declined! Someone else stepped up and put their credit card in
so we could complete our purchase. (By the way, Duane has “fixed”
that minor problem for us.) The greeter then patiently spot-checked our
lists, and we formed a line to load up the new bus. Almost more quickly
than the groceries were loaded, the items were unloaded and put away in the
kitchen. We then set up our rooms, finishing just in time to sit down
to a wonderful meal of ham, sweet potatoes, baked pineapple, and salad, with
chocolate cake for dessert. Not only did we get a great meal, but we
also had an opportunity to visit with Dick and Kay during our dinner
time. David Rodriguez with Ministerio de Fe brought us their 12
passenger van to use as our work travel vehicle each day. As is our
practice, we concluded with our Eventide and a wrap-up of the important info
necessary for a successful work day. Unbelievably, almost all of us were
already on our air mattresses by the time lights were turned out at Today,
many of us were up and rolling by 4:30 a.m.; some had volunteered to help
Diane with breakfast and lunch prep every day; others just like to be ahead
of the curve, allowing for a little quiet time before getting our lunches
ready and eating our breakfast. We had our Morning devotional and were
in the parking lot, ready to roll by We are
working in the same colonia as last year, fairly close to the houses we built
last year. Our family’s mother was waiting for us when we
unloaded at her home, as well as a few of her friends who had volunteered to
work with her on her home. The mother’s name is Victoria Sars
Hernandez, and she has five children, two of whom live away. They are
Maricela (20) and Raul (19). The other three children, Eduardo (16),
Barbara (14), and Emanuel (10), were all at school, and so we did not get to
meet them, or their father, today. There was only one child, a
young boy named Danny, at our site today, but I expect we will see a few
more before the week is over. Francesca, who has befriended us over the
past few years, continues to work with MDF and always seeks us out when we
are in her neighborhood; so, she worked with us today, too. As I
already mentioned, we had two summer interns from the So,
today, these are the tasks that we accomplished: we moved enough
concrete block into the house to complete the ten rows of block; we made
several batches of mortar, (by the way using sand that had already been
pre-sifted before we got there!); we formed teams of two and three to lay the
block, successfully completing seven rows on three walls. (As always,
we stopped around Once we
arrived at the church, we had a little down time to eat some of our lunches,
distributing the rest of them to our co-workers there. We were glad to
get together and compare notes with the other group working in the colonias
this week. They are from a coastal community in Worship
was lead by Pastor Alfredo, who recently lost his mother-in-law, and one of
the volunteers who translated for him. He had us raise our hands to
indicate how many of these trips we had made, and as you already know, some
in our group have been part of this mission trip for many years. Even
Pastor Alfredo was impressed!! The
new pastor at the church there accompanied us with his guitar; Pastor Alfredo
commented that the guitar weeps under this man’s hand. We left
the colonia a little early for us, and we were back at Weslaco First
Presbyterian Church by On
another note, Daniel did not feel too well this afternoon, and so he and his
dad are at the local “Doc-in-a-Box” to have him checked out. I have
been typing two hours, now, compliments of the Please
keep us in your prayers, as well as our family who has waited so long for this
home. (I will try to tell you a little more about them as we learn more about
them.) We are blessed to be your missionaries in Randi Journal Entry Day 2 Hola from
your missionaries in Let me
take a minute to update you on last evening’s activities. First,
Daniel was treated at the Doc-in-a-Box for what the medical personnel were
fairly certain was strep throat. (By the way, the medical facility
received rave reviews for prompt and efficient care.) Daniel received a
couple of shots and returned with prescriptions, as well. Needless to
say, he stayed back with Diane today, taking it easy and helping her with
some of her “stay-back” activities. Because
of our immense task for Tuesday, the leadership decided that we should leave
for the colonia an hour earlier ( And so,
after preparing lunches, eating breakfast, and loading the coolers, we
departed at We
finally arrived at our home to find our volunteer David and our Mexican
co-workers already hard at it. Because they had finished our
block-laying and poured the columns, (it was close to 7:00 p.m. when they
finished at our home site last night), by the time we showed up, they had
already pulled down the wood frames and were beginning to start the forms for
the ring. Before beginning our tasks, we enjoyed a light breakfast
prepared by Victoria, for whom we are building a house. I do not know
the name of the dish, but we likened it to Fritos with cheese and
salsa. It was thin, crisp tortilla strips, with a red sauce, cilantro,
and Mexican cheese, along with hot coffee with lots of cream, sugar, and
perhaps cinnamon. Almost all of us loved it! Our work
today included all of the following: playing with Danny; (Both Theo and
Karen did mini puppet shows with Danny, using some finger puppets that we
brought.) filling the holes of the top layer of blocks with rocks; placing
the rebar ring forms on the top layer of blocks and tying it to the other
rebar already there; pulling and driving nails into the boards used for the
form; nailing the forms in place; shoveling and mixing 19 wheelbarrows each
of sand and gravel, (which was supposed to be enough for both the ring and
the floor,) with 7 bags of cement and buckets of water; fill buckets (with
“two scoops” of concrete, which Micah, Robin, and I have down to
a science), pass them up to the guys who were pouring the concrete in the
form, toss the empty buckets back down, and repeat until finished; (Our
one-armed missionary was exceptional in troweling the concrete in the forms!)
continue the same process using many “scoops” in a wheelbarrow,
which then was pushed into the house for the floor to be poured. (We did
run short of concrete and had to add 4 more wheelbarrows of sand and gravel,
along with a couple more bags of cement and the necessary water.) It
was very difficult work, and we all worked very hard. Previous
missionaries will realize that this was a deviation from what we have done in
the past, and a lot of work to do in one day, so they will remember that just
about 11:00 a.m. on these days, we were almost stopped in our tracks.
It was at this point that David, our volunteer, did something with us that he
does not regularly do with his groups. We had what he called an
attitude readjustment, maybe to help focus us on why we are here, and it went
like this: David, in his Marine drill sergeant voice: “Attitude
Adjustment!” FPC, in a loud voice: “Praise the Lord!” David: “En Espanol!” FPC: “Gloria a Dios!” Today, as
yesterday, David was our personal cheerleader, offering encouragement, as
well as instruction where needed, and even giving us unscheduled “break
time” when we needed that, too. (Previous
missionaries will also be interested in learning that making the rebar forms,
as well as tying rebar, are no longer done at the home work sites.
Instead, they are done by a Mexican rebar team at the church. It is
something that can be done on a regular basis, and that way, the rebar is
always ready when it is needed.) (Inquiring
minds will want to know that we continued to ask the questions, and so we now
know a little more about our volunteer, including that he will be spending
the first semester of his senior year in Peru with his Latin American Studies
professor and about a dozen other fellow students, including Katie, another
volunteer, with whom everyone is smitten. One book David has read this
summer is The Same Kind of Different As Me, and he heartily
recommended it to all of us. [Coincidentally, both After
cleaning our tools, we ate lunch next door again, eating food prepared by
Victoria, her daughter, and the next-door neighbor. Today it was some
kind of chicken dish, accompanied by that delicious, but very spicy green
sauce, tortillas, pico de gallo, and a banana-pineapple drink. Again,
very good, and we will try to get the recipe for the green sauce. We tried
to hurry, but were held up by lunchtime and business traffic in the colonia;
consequently, we were just a tad late arriving at the church for worship
service. Deantin was there, as is his practice, already warming up the
crowd with songs as they waited for us to get there. Deantin looked
great, and recognized us immediately as we entered the church, stopping to
come forward and shake a few of our hands, and commenting that it was FPC
from Athens, Alabama, but where was Franco, and where was Bill. (By the
way, Deantin bragged on his cake from Miss Virginia, and shared some of his
cake with the volunteers; Miss Virginia, we also gifted our cake from
you to Pastor Alfredo, who said he would share his with his church members at
their worship service this afternoon.) We sang lots, and Deantin also
preached his Tuesday sermon where he talks about the current work of
Ministerio de Fe. You will not be surprised that his topic today was
the “violence” in the colonias, and he talked about his recent
visit to three churches in Our Tomorrow
will also be a hard day, as we are pouring a roof. Contrary to what was
told before, the Please continue
to pray for us! We are honored to be your missionaries, serving in
another country . . . In
Christ’s love, Randi Journal Entry Day 3 Hello, Friends! We had a great day in the colonia today! Lots and lots of buckets, shovels, and concrete!! We were even down three missionaries, as Don
and David W. both came down with a version of “Montezuma’s Revenge,” and Daniel
is still not quite up to par. (Don and
David are on the mend, by the way!) Still,
we made our quota for the day with time to spare, which included a Joya field
trip on the way back to the church, arriving there by a little after Fortunately, we had a
slightly later wake-up call, but we still wanted to be at the church in the
colonia by Here is a recap of what we
did today at our work site: filled 28
wheelbarrows with sand; filled 28 wheelbarrows with gravel;(Karryl was our
accountant, using pieces of gravel as it is very difficult to keep up with the
count while shoveling gravel and sand); spread about 12 bags of cement; mixed it with water and turned it with a
shovel until it was the right consistency; bucketed the concrete up to the
roof, where it was spread; mixed another small batch of concrete, since the
first batch was not quite enough; and cleaned up the work area. For those who are
interested, we learned a slightly different method of getting the concrete to
the roof. For starters, the wheelbarrow
was placed on the roof. (Imagine that!)
Then, using a scaffold, there was a “bucket up” line and a “bucket return”
line, with one person each on two different levels. The “bucket placer” caught the empty buckets
and placed them (all 14 of them!) in a row of about 8 with the rest balanced on
the first row. Two “fillers” would then
fill all the buckets at once with two scoops of concrete. When all 14 buckets were filled, the “bucket
thrower,” (most of the time it was either David or Miguel,) actually threw the
bucket with concrete to the person on the second level, who threw it to the
person on the roof. There were about 4
or 5 on the roof who emptied the concrete into the wheelbarrow and then poured
from that, sending the empty buckets down the return line. The process then began all over. The beauty of this system is that each worker
could select his or her own difficulty level, and there was some built-in rest
time for all of us. It was not exactly
the way we had done this in the past, but it worked really well for all of us,
especially once we got the hang of it.
For the most part, all of us did as much as we could do, and then a
little more, knowing that we had someone watching our backs if we needed a
break or a different job. (Karen was a life-savor for both Robin and me as we
placed buckets and shoveled. As usual,
Theo and Micah were always ready to step in if we needed any help, from helping
us up and down the scaffold to “tidying up” the concrete mess around our
feet. Miss Myra was one of the first to
volunteer to pass buckets down from the scaffold.) It was hard, but it was good,
productive work, and everyone stepped up and met the challenge. The owner of the home had prepared a meal for
all of the workers, so after we finished pouring the roof, we enjoyed a lunch
of rice, refried beans, a hamburger-vegetable hash, and of course,
tortillas. We, in turn, emptied our
coolers of both our lunches our extra lunches, giving all of them to our
co-workers from the roof-pouring. Karen
was a life-savor for both Robin and me as we placed buckets and shoveled. As soon as we returned to
the church, almost all the Mexican workers formed a rebar line and went back to
work forming and tying rebar, as well as cutting both the thick and the thin
rebar wire. David Rodriguez also came
today, and was very glad to see us, remembering most of us by face, if not by
name. He, of course, like many of the
Mexicans, wanted to know where Frank was this year. David R. has something wrong with his ankle,
but at this point, the doctors are not quite sure what it is. Still, it was very good to see him, as well
as talk to him about what is happening with Faith Ministry. We have been trying to
decide upon an appropriate housewarming gift for Vicki and her family. Although she really did not want to request
anything, she reluctantly expressed a desire for a bed, as the entire family
sleeps in the same bed. Today, she also
said that she had no way to cook food. With
the help of our volunteer David, we are trying to work out what best to do for
her. Interestingly, a few members of the
North Carolina group, who did not pour any roof today, (one of their members
said that they were not usually called upon to pour a roof because they were
not strong enough,) explained their unusual cleanliness to me by saying that
they had not worked at their home site today; they had gone on a shopping trip
for their family, which is what they usually did each year. This year, their family also requested a bed
for some of their children, as well as a stove, and so that is what the While we worked in the heat
of the Our volunteer David is our
hero every day with his encouraging words, kind instruction, and especially for
his patience in providing Spanish translation for our requests and answering
all our many questions. So for the
inquiring minds, David was ready this morning with his answer to the
“deal-breaker” question; he said, “The deal-breaker for me would be if the
significant other did not like his family.”
Pimiento cheese is still the front-runner in the “what food do you wish
you could have that is not currently available to you,” especially since he
knows there is a special recipe involved.
Other interesting info we learned from David is that he has not decided
on a medical specialty . . . maybe orthopedics, cardiology, or pediatrics. His parents also will be here next week with
a group of volunteers and will get to work with David, building a home for a
family. We cannot say enough about
our at-home missionaries from the I have rattled on for two
hours now, and dinner is just about ready.
Please continue to pray for us as we do God’s work. Tomorrow, we think we will be digging a
footing and mixing the concrete for that foundation, which Francesca says is
easier than what we did today. In addition to “Praise the
Lord,” our rally cry all week, no matter the task, has been “Si se Puede!” (Yes, we can!!!) In Christ’s Love . . . Randi Journal Entry Day 4
Greetings
from your missionaries in First, here
is an update on last night’s activities.
Wednesday has traditionally been a “meet and greet” with our friends
here at the Weslaco First Presbyterian Church, with them hosting an ice cream
social for us and us telling about Faith Ministry and our mission across the
border. Last night, we were joined for
the dinner hour and eventide by a handful of the members from our host
church. This gave us another opportunity
to get to know them better, as well as to tell them about what we are doing in
the colonias of This
morning, we awoke to the news that both Don and David W. had recovered from
their 24 hour bug, and they would be joining us as we crossed the border.
Daniel, though, had been advised to stay “home” for two or three days, and so
he was confined to the home church for one more day. Because we were digging a foundation today,
we were scheduled to meet our volunteer David and our Mexican brothers and
sisters at the church around (I was
curious as to how many paid staff Faith Ministry had, and David counted in his
brain and came up with a total of 17, and that does not include the summer
volunteers. And as we have already said,
because so many groups have decided to either stay home or do another mission
project, the number of houses which will be built this year has dropped by
2/3. Last year during this week of June,
seven houses were built; this year, only three have been built. One group did send their money to MDF, and
the Mexican brothers and sisters, as well as the summer volunteers, were
working on that house. The most common
question from all the Mexicans is “When are you coming back?” They all realize that it is the work groups
who make their homes a reality, and with so few groups coming this summer, some
will not get houses until next year. No
wonder that is the question that pervades their thoughts each and every day!) David gave
us a basic lesson in how the footing would be blocked out using a string and
what looked like a teeny-tiny level. The
width of the trench would be about the width of the shovel, and the depth of
the trench depended on the distance from the string, and not necessarily the
actual distance from the top of the ground.
A pick axe, or another special tool, was used to break up the dirt
initially; then a shovel could be used to dig out the dirt. (That process also uncovered a fair amount of
old trash and lots of fire ants.) The really long rebar cages and rebar squares
were then placed in the trenches, as well as in the corners and midpoints of
the walls. That was followed by the concrete, which would be wheel-barrowed
into the house outline and poured into the footing to make the foundation. Simple, don’t you think? So, here are the tasks we performed
today: dug a foundation; moved dirt by
shovel; filled wheelbarrows with sand and gravel; mixed in cement and water;
shoveled concrete into wheelbarrows; pushed those wheelbarrows into the house
outline; and poured the foundation. As
Francesca promised, it really was not as hard as we thought it would be, and
she was there to help! And it was all
followed by a big lunch of rice and a real mole, which was quite spicy. Several
other interesting things were happening as this foundation was being created
for a house to be built next week. Francesca,
as already mentioned, was working today, as well as our family members and
several of the Mexican volunteers. She
brought one of her children and one of her grandchildren with her to the work
site today, and so some of us did have the opportunity to play with the kids in
our “break time,” something we have not done much this week. The mother of the house where we were digging
this foundation was very eager to share her brand new grandchild with us, and
so we were invited into the back bedroom to meet her daughter Karen and her 11
day old grandchild. (By the way, while we were digging, Francesca pierced the
baby’s ears! We never heard a
thing!) Also, today, Francesca brought
each of us a hand-stitched linen used to cover tortillas. It is something she works on all year when
she has free time. It was quite humbling
to receive this handmade needlework, and a true gift from the heart. We were all honored to be gifted in such a
way by one of our Mexican sisters. A
short while later, several of us witnessed what appeared to be a near-miss in
the skies overhead when a small commercial airplane and a helicopter seemed to
just miss crashing above us. (Needless
to say, we all gasped!!!) As
mentioned yesterday, we have been working out how to get At the
church today, the families’ homes were dedicated, as has been the custom for
the past few years. (We took I continue
to be amazed at what your 13 mostly senior missionaries have accomplished this
week in the colonias! What a powerful
group of Christ’s disciples this group is!
I think you would be proud of the construction this group has built and
of the message they have sent to all their brothers and sisters, Mexican and
American. As David Rodriguez said today,
“The only thing that separates us is a different language, which can be
overcome with Christian love.” And so we
will conclude our mission here with laying two more rows of block tomorrow
morning, presenting our family with their gifts, having Communion with our
extended family across the border, and sharing our meal with them. Tomorrow,
we are departing after our day’s work in We hope and
pray that we have represented you well in this ministry, a ministry that each
of us loves and one to which we are dedicated.
What can you really say to all of these Mexican brothers and sisters,
these dear, dear friends when they ask, “Can you come next year?” That question begs the answer, “Si se
puede! See you next year!” Yours in
Christ . . . Randi Journal Entry Day 5 It is now Sunday evening, and all of your
Friday was another one of those early morning days on
our Mexico Mission. Most of us were up
at As you can probably guess, as soon as we
got out of the van, Vicki came and pulled us into her home. The bunk beds had arrived and were set up on
one side of the room in her current house.
It was obvious that Vicki, as well as her three children, were beside
themselves; all were beaming, and we were, too!
In the blink of an eye, we had made an entire family delighted and elated
with the purchase of just three bunk beds.
Vicki tried to explain to us why her stove was not there, yet; we think
it was because there was not enough space, and Vicki would have to do some
rearranging in her small home to make room for her new
appliance. There was really not a lot of work for us to do on
Friday. Basically, here is what we
did: sifted sand; mixed in cement and
water to make mortar; set up a scaffold for all four walls; took down the forms
for the ring; and laid the last two rows of block for the house. Once the mortar
was ready, there was not a lot of work for those not involved in the
block-laying, so there was lots of time to visit with our brothers and sisters
in Over the years, it has become our custom
to let the home-owner lay the last block; so Felix climbed up on the scaffold,
and Vicki stood under where he was placing the block, allowing us to get both in
a photo. A plaque was formed next to the
door, and Vicki asked that we write a Bible verse on it for her . . .the one
that says “I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength.” Then all who had worked on her home signed
their names on the plaque. Sometime during the morning, David B. realized that a
few of the volunteers had borrowed the Jimmy without realizing that the
Communion elements and our lunch were both in the back seat. Both David and Kate spent the rest of the
morning trying to locate the Jimmy and direct it back to our worksite. We used the time to present our family with
the few other small gifts we had purchased for them: a set of pots and pans; sheet sets for the
three new beds, and a set of Rubbermaid containers. Also during this time, we tried valiantly to
put up a tarp over the home to provide some shade. Micah scaled the wall of the home, much like
Spiderman, and struggled to attach the tarp to the top of the house. With the help of Felix, the tarp was
tentatively tied in place to shelter most of us from the Pastor Alfredo arrived at We acted as the host at the church,
serving brisket, potato salad, bread, chips and salsa, lemonade or water, and a
few desserts, most of which were some kind of chocolate cake. It was a much smaller crowd than last year,
so we had some leftovers which we gave to the Pastor to use as he saw fit. The time we had been dreading finally
arrived; it was time to say our farewells and bid goodbye to our new friends.
Again, they phrased the question, “Next year?”
Of course, we replied, “Yes, we will see you next
year!” The American volunteers followed us to Nuevo
Progresso, so they could take back the van which they had loaned to us for the
week. We were on the road to South Padre
by By Thank you for sending us to do God’s
work in a foreign country, and thank you for providing us with our wonderful
church bus in which to travel. It turned
out that this small group of four young adults and nine senior adults made a
pretty good team of travelers and workers; we spent our week making friends,
changing lives, building homes, spreading God’s word, and making a difference
one person at a time. For me, it was one
of the best weeks I’ve spent, (made even better by the hospitality of our home
church, First Presbyterian of Weslaco), and I would go again tomorrow, if I had
the opportunity. That’s just how good it
was! Please ask us about our mission work in
the colonias; we would love to tell you all about what we did and the friends we
made! So until next year, vaya con Dios! Go with God, dear brothers and sisters in
Christ . . . Randi
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