NEW PALESTINE — The kite was fashioned from a plastic water bottle, some string and a piece of fabric.
Laura Hall noticed how much pleasure the boy, living in an area where children don’t have many playthings, received from it. She said it was one of the lessons of a recent mission trip to Mexico: to be thankful for what she has.
Hall was one of about 40 people from Brookville Road Community Church in New Palestine who traveled to Mazatlan, Mexico, from March 18-25. They built three homes through Youth With a Mission’s Homes for Hope program and gave away Bibles in the community.
Families in the house program buy the land and pay to have a foundation laid, upon which volunteer groups build and paint the house. Each house costs $7,500 to build; Brookville Road youth raised enough money to pay for one, church mission funds paid for another, and other donations paid for the third.
[sc:text-divider text-divider-title=”Story continues below gallery” ]Click here to purchase photos from this gallery
The New Palestine group split into three smaller teams. At each house site, the team assembled a frame, hung and sanded drywall, and painted and cut strips of siding to complete the house — in three days.
“I definitely learned a lot,” said Hall, a junior at New Palestine High School. “There was so much that we had to get done in three days.”
There was usually a group of children around during the building, and Hall said when they could team members tried to teach them simple games that didn’t require a lot of equipment. There was a little pickup soccer, games of tag, and amid it all a joy that made an impression on her.
“God’s love poured out of them and onto us,” Hall said, and she and fellow team members hoped to pour that love right back into the children, she added.
Through building a house, giving away Bibles and trying to remember enough Spanish words to communicate, Hall admits at times she was out of her comfort zone, but that held a lesson, too. “I think the biggest thing I learned was how to fully rely on God for everything,” she said.
This was Hall’s first mission trip, something she’d been interested in since her older sister made the journey on the last Brookville Road trip to Mazatlan two years ago.
Jenna (Woody) Lopez made such a trip for the first time years ago as a high school senior, then returned to Mazatlan for a discipleship training school with Youth With a Mission, later serving on the mission base for a year and a half. This time, she traveled with the team along with husband Miguel and their 6-month-old daughter, Elenna.
Woody said the group had quite a few first-timers. She recognizes how eye-opening the journey can be.
She said it’s good “just to see how they’re affected by building a home for someone — how much passion and joy it brings to their life by accomplishing that.
“They’re definitely overwhelmed by how much they have.”
Lopez said it’s a life lesson to remember to be grateful for everyday blessings, to have clothes in one’s closet and a roof over one’s head. During group devotions, she urged younger team members to hold onto that: “I really hope you guys can take this back with you and not forget it.”
Staff at the Youth with a Mission base in Mazatlan said they have something to remember from the week, too. On the group’s Facebook page, they posted photos of the three houses — one purple, one green, one aqua — built by team members and commended the students’ work.
“A youth group from Indiana blew us away with their love for these families and their hard-working spirit!” the post reads. “It’s been such a blessing to partner with them, and they will be dearly missed as they go.”
