We built a house. Big deal!
It is amazing and incredibly rewarding that a family in need has a clean new place to move into, and their lives will be improved because of it. And it is satisfying to realize we built it. It is a big deal for groups from all over North America to travel to Mexico and successfully build a house in four or five days. Yet that pales in comparison to the true meaning of a mission trip week in the desert surrounding Ciudad Juárez, Mexico.
For 28 of the past 30 years the youth and a few adults from Trinity Lutheran Church have made the annual trek from Centralia, Illinois to El Paso and Ciudad Juárez to help build churches and houses, install roofs, and even construct a few outhouses. We have returned home in our colorful new T-shirts, shared our experiences with our friends and family, and shown videos and pictures to our congregation.
Look at us. See what we did. And people always asked us if we had fun on our vacation.
The Bible clearly tells us servanthood is required of all of us. But without knowing it, pride can slowly and quietly creep into that servanthood. As we were approaching our 25th year, I was diagnosed with cancer, and I spent the week of the cancelled mission trip in the hospital having surgery. The following year COVID struck, and we had to cancel once again. I was suddenly slapped in the face with the realization these trips were not about me, about our team, or about the house.
The trips were about sharing the love of Christ with the people of an isolated little part of northern Mexico.
The next year God allowed our newly humbled team to return for year 25, and on to year 28. I am an old man now, and I know the number of years I will be able to make these trips is limited. But if it is God’s will, teams from our church, and from countless other churches across the United States and Canada, will continue to make the trek to Ysleta Lutheran Mission Human Care (YLM) and across the border for many more years to come, not just to build a house, but to spread the Gospel.
Our team members crawled out of bed every morning at 4:30 and traveled across the border to build a bright blue house for a single mother with several small children. They worked hard, interacted with the children and adults of the neighborhood, and laughed and smiled through it all.
They returned to YLM each evening to shower, eat, and have nightly devotions. And on Friday, as they have done for years, they walked door to door passing out Bibles and children’s Christian books and inviting the people of Kilómetro 30 to church.
Other than the 4:30 AM start to the day, we may not have been much different than countless other teams that have passed through the gates of YLM and crossed into Mexico to do what God had called them to do. The theme of our week was “In All Things,” and during each night’s devotions we shared our God Sightings and how we had seen God’s hand in everything throughout the day.
Not surprisingly, the youth and adults shared very little about the details of building the house. The God Sightings were all about the people and the relationships, and how they felt God’s presence in everything they did.
Lesson learned once again. It is not about the house.
Written by Bert Griffin, helping lead Trinity Lutheran Church for 28 years
If you are interested in serving through YLM’s Servant Event Ministry, give us a call at (915) 858-2588
or send an email to luz.soto@ylm.org.
