MEXICO 1997
Welcome to the Oroville Church of the Nazarene's annual journey to Tecate, Mexico. Tecate is located on the northern boarder of Baja California. Each year, for the past seven years, a group travels from Oroville to Tecate for a week of work and witness. This summer sixty-two adults and teenagers made the unforgetable journey. We left at six in the morning and began the twelve hour trip to San Diego. The caravan comprised a bus, church van with a trailer, car, and a suburban with a trailer. The question was WHICH vehicle would have the mechanical malfunction this year. Within a few miles the van had a major blowout. We all sighed with relief, the breakdown was now behind us.... At least that is what we thought! The twelve hour trip turned into a twenty-four hour marathon with breakdown after breakdown, including being stranded for six hours on the Grapevine. The next day a two hour drive became a nine hour repeat of the previous day, including the bus needing to be pushed by a police car and having two fires, while the kids were on the bus!!
God was working a miracle!! He took sixty-two people who were mostly strangers, with their own agendas and plans, and caused them to become dependant on Him and follow, not lead!! The teens and adults became dependant on prayer. When you ask those who made this journey about the high points, they all will tell you that they would never trade the trip down there for anything. Their hearts had been touched. While we were there, we visited Rincon, a suburb of Tecete, and did three days of Vacation Bible School. The children sang, heard a story, made crafts, learned memory verses and played games each day. Three of our teens presented the stories.
The first day, Maya, told the story of the "Three Trees", if you have never heard this wonderful tale I strongly encourage you to rush to a bookstore and read it. The second day, Chris, relayed his original story, explaining the unique love that God has for us, while using Baseball cards to illustrate. The final day, Jennifer, presented the "Wordless book". The children made bracelets with beads that reminded them of the important message. The time of bonding was very special for all. The Americans received the greatest blessing. We even had the chance to have a deaf local, and an American, bridge the language barrier using Sign Language. There were many tears when we left, mostly from us! God had joined our hearts even though most of us could not communicate with spoken language.
One of the main purposes of these trips is to do practical manual labor. Last year we layed about seventy-five yards of concrete. This year we helped build on that foundation. Some walls and the metal beams that support the ceiling were in place when we arrived.
While we were there we dug a six foot deep hole that was eight by ten feet(this will be the church's septic tank), we placed the joists and layed most of the plywood for the roof, hand poured twenty-eight yards of concrete, painted the parsonage, sheet-rocked most of the inside walls, and built and raised the front of the church. This was all done with mostly untrained teenagers.
God had worked in their hearts during the remarkable trip and made them a real team. It was incedible to watch how God had taken the trip right out of our hands. He had taken all of the difficulties and problems, weaved them together into a beautiful masterpeice. We had a very special honor on the final night we were there. We had a peek at the work God had been doing. We were able to attend the first service in the church building of the Second Nazarene Church of Tecate.
This day had been dreamed of for years. There were not many dry eyes. We prayed for them, they prayed for us, we all prayed together. We are one body. And for those of you who are interested, the trip home was uneventful, only a couple of minor stops. We arrived right on time. This trip was one that will be remembered for many years. It was THE TRIP OF '97!
Home page
This page hosted by
Get your own Free Home Page