Trip changes perspectives for local students

The most sand 11 local students experienced over spring break was in a pile next to a concrete mixer that sputtered its drum around intermittently.

The mixer’s dependability and the amount of work to be done forced the students to use shovels to mix concrete on the hard ground of Piedras Negras, Mexico.

The concrete was used to build an island next to a lone utility pole in the middle of a parking lot near the community center and kitchen in a gated community operated by Louisville-based Crossroads Missions.

The concrete island was more for protection than aesthetics. The utility pole’s lonely stature in the midst of a flat parking lot seemed to make it a magnet for collisions. Collisions that would knock the power out to the community and in the poverty-stricken city, this could mean days without power.

Most of the projects for the six days spent in the special gated community were of the same backbreaking and seemingly mundane variety. Trimming trees and vicious thorn bushes (think honey locust), painting houses and cabinets, resurfacing flat rooftops and breaking up a lot of rock.

But, the work was necessary to support Crossroads Missions, a group that in turn supports churches and other Christian organizations in the city of about 150,000 just across the border of Texas.

“There is more poverty there than in most places in the United States,” said Christian Church of Jasper’s youth minister Corey Andry. “These groups don’t have a congregation of 1,600 that supports their ministries like we are blessed with here.”

Crossroads Missions supports the ministers and Kingdom workers in the small, poverty-stricken congregations in the city. They provide them with safe, affordable homes inside a gated community using a program similar to Habitat for Humanity. Through the use of at-cost construction materials and volunteer labor, they build homes for those families working in the Christian fields in the city. The community also provides a safe meeting area for them to hold events and build their ministries.

Since money and equipment are scarce — hence the manual concrete work — Crossroads Missions relies on missionary groups from the United States for support. Those groups usually have individuals with construction skills who help lead the volunteer laborers in the many projects in the community.

In his second year leading the youth ministry at the Christian Church of Jasper, this is Andry’s second spring break trip for the students that attend The Well; the church’s Wednesday evening service for teens.

Last year, students, including several that went to Piedras Negras, traveled to Nashville, Tenn. to work with the homeless in the city and in some large homeless camps.

“I believe it is important for these kids to see the Kingdom of God is bigger than their church, their town and even their country,” Andry said. “I saw, at least in a couple of our students, them looking forward to the opportunity to dive into the culture and interact with other people in that culture.”

For Megan Berg, a sophomore at Jasper High School, the Tennessee trip was more intense.

“In Nashville, you saw how everyone was homeless, I mean they were everywhere,” she explained.

She explained that many of the residents of the camps and shelters they visited were closed off from other people and some suffered from mental illness. They weren’t always welcoming to the missionaries. The work there was necessary and emotionally draining, however, Mexico was different.

“I really liked Mexico because everyone was so nice. Wherever you went, they would come up to you to help you out, and they were all so sweet,” she said.

Jasper sophomore Nolan Harmon agreed that the friendliness of the Mexican community was inspiring. “They were always willing to have a conversation with you,” he said. “When we were working, they were always there helping.”

Additionally, the culture’s openness was a new concept compared to the relative privacy Americans seek. On one of the days in the community, the residents opened their homes to the missionaries to visit. “They had their doors open and the groups were able to just come in and talk with them,” Jasper sophomore Stef Wood said about the refreshing experience. “Here we don’t do that at all.”

Harmon agreed, adding that one house had three full size couches. “You don’t see that here,” he said. “That just shows how willing they are and how much they like people there to just have conversations.”

The students were surprised by the joy found in many of the children they encountered. “It was really touching,” Jasper freshman Riley Sample said. “Even though they have the bare minimum, they just always had a smile on their faces and were really happy.”

Some favorite moments during the short term trip included visiting Case Bethesda, a home providing services to residents with special needs, and a local orphanage as well as holding a vacation bible school.

“Going to The Well every week has given me more of a purpose to go out and serve others,” Jasper sophomore Kelsey Thomas said. “I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to have a conversation with them, but you really didn’t have to be able to have a speaking conversation to interact and build relationships with them.

The students may not have seen the direct impact of their labors over the week in the city, but Andry says he saw them open up to the community and take moments to share why they were there.

“You can lose sight of why you are there when you are just building a curb to keep vans from hitting a pole, ” Andry explained. “But, ultimately, it still comes back to loving God and loving people. You are enabling people on the mission or pastors that are living there to love their people. They are in a better position to love their people than we are. We are in a position to help them do that.”