This past weekend, some 40 of us from Life Christian Fellowship and Life Baptist Church visited Centro Shalom, a church in Tijuana, Mexico, ministering to the poorest in the region. Additional photos from the trip here.
The church is located right on the edge of the largest of the shanty towns (called Alamar) in Tijuana, where over 4,000 families, many with small children, have settled in unincorporated portion of the city (no running water or any other public utility & services) in makeshift homes made of whatever scrap material they could find — leftover construction material, tarp, scrap wood, tires, packing material…
Each morning, we hosted Vacation Bible School — with songs (we actually sang in Spanish!), entertaining skits, and a message from the Bible, along with a time for crafts and games. The many nights of preparation for VBS were well worth it when I saw many kids really getting into it — a rare treat for them, I’m sure. While the sheer destitution of the surrounding area was overwhelming, none of it was evident in the kids’ smiles.
And kids are kids, no matter where you go — though I barely spoke few phrases in Spanish, we still played together, ate together, made stuff together — they’d easily break out in wide smiles when I played tricks on them. I only wished there were more we could have done for them… The kids there were robbed of “normal” childhood. At the same time, I see their hope lies firmly in Christ as I witnessed firsthand that Jesus is the best thing they could and do have — and I was reminded that for us in the States, the same is true, and we often forget this truth because there is so much more distraction & noise north of the border.
Friday afternoon, after VBS was over, we went out to the town, hand-delivering clean water for drinking. Had to walk for about 3 hours because cars cannot access the narrow dirt roads nor the rickety bridge (one of the guys tripped and caused slight damage to it). I was amazed at the dedication and the love of the local church members (mostly teenagers) who do this on a regular basis. The 40+ of us carried about 90 one-gallon bottles (and those bottles got heavier by the minute under the scorching sun). I could not imagine how the 15-or so of the local kids do this, carrying 5-6 bottles each, when additional visitors aren’t there to help most of the time.
The looks on the families when we showed up at the door was priceless. Many were in tears in gratitude, and the kids who were at VBS earlier (and some of them walked quite far…) were happy to see us again. We prayed with the families and moved on to the next of 20-or so houses on that day’s route.
It certainly was an eye-opening trip — on one hand, the squalid living conditions (one of our youths exclaimed, “How could anyone live like this?”), the smell and the sights of Alamar are indescribable and unforgettable. But what made even a greater impression on me was the genuine, steadfast examples of love of Christ being lived out by the good folks at Centro Shalom. Surely anyone who meets them would say God is living. I aspire to embody God’s love as they have.
