Here’s video of the mission trip I made recently to Juarez, Mexico, with a team of volunteers from Suncreek United Methodist in Allen, Tx. (And a couple folks from other UM churches.)
You’ll recall from prior postings that we built a cinder-block house for a couple and their five children who were living in a cardboard house. The video inside the new brick house shows the husband and wife with three of their children during our dedication and blessing of the new house.
Living in a small cinder-brick house with five kids may not sound very good to you, but it stays warm in winter and cool in summer and sure beats a cardboard house.
In the video of us singing in the dedication, you see Jose Louis Portillo–the Juarez native and Methodist pastor who hosts mission teams from UM churches all over the U.S. to build these houses. Jose Louis drives through the slums outside Juarez and finds people living in the cardboard houses. His ministry, Projecto Abrigo (Project Shelter), hires local help for much of the work, but the American church teams do much of the hard labor. It is hard work, but very rewarding.
(proyectoabrigo.org)
And, it’s as much about building relationships and good will, in the name of Christ, with the families we build homes for, and their loved ones and neighbors–and building relationships with Jose Luis’s church members at his church, as anything else.
In the indoor vid you see Jose Luis first, then the family and my fellow mission team members. You see Pastor Martin in the black jacket with the Nike insignia. Martin is co-pastor at Jose Luis’s church and is involved with Projecto Abrigo.
If you’ve never been on a church mission trip to help the poor and to spread the gospel, you’ll find that it will challenge you and most likely change you forever. Working with the poor on a mission–working beside them and getting to know them firsthand and seeing the conditions they live in–is a life-changing experience for people. And, it’s a way of living the gospel–being the hands and feet of Christ.
Here’s the video, and I’ll be showing others here soon.
Grace & peace,
Pastor Paul
