APU students headed down to the annual Mexico Outreach trip
Azusa Pacific University carried on their Thanksgiving tradition, as hundreds of students traveled to Mexicali for the Mexico Outreach trip.
Prior to driving down, students were able to choose to be a part of different teams, such as Team Noah, Team Getsemani and Team Luke.
Professor Ismael Medel, director of the public relations department, went on this trip for the first time and was a part of the team for children’s ministry.
“Being from Spain, I was always on the other end of mission trips, so I was the one hearing from the missionaries,” Medel said. “I really enjoyed being able to be with the kids and help them learn more about who Jesus Christ is.”
Medel originally went with the intentions of being an interpreter, but he said he ended up making a very special memory.
“While working with the kids, someone from the church asked me to preach a 30-minute sermon only a couple minutes beforehand,” Medel said. “I literally wrote my sermon on a styrofoam cup and a small piece of notepad paper. It was the first time I had ever preached in my life, and I will never forget it.”
While other teams primarily worked with people, Team Noah worked with construction and operations. Daniel Madrigal, a junior business finance major, was on that team.
“Our ministry work was repairing a home for Pastor Jimenez, who lived in Mexicali. His roof was blown off by a tornado and structurally his house was damaged,” Madrigal said. “We built a wall with doorways, a connecting roof, and poured concrete to finish his floor. We also did some patio work cleaning and constructed some benches.”
Madrigal felt a connection to the story of Jimenez and his family life in Mexicali.
“Being a first generation born citizen of the U.S., seeing him and his family made me realize how close I was to living that type of life. My parents and grandparents lived in the same conditions and moved to the U.S. to give my family a better life,” Madrigal said. “I connected very strongly with him and knew the hardships he was going through. I feel blessed to have given him at least something, but wished I could have given more. It made me believe in never taking another day or gift I have for granted.”
Michelle Cuaresma, a junior kinesiology major, was a part of Team Getsemani, the children’s ministry group. She recognized the appreciation that the people of Mexicali had for them.
“It meant as much to us to be in their presence as it meant to them,” Cuauresma said. “Together as a site, we just shared every day activities by playing with the kids and eating lunch with the women of their church. They truly helped us grow in our faith maybe even more than we helped them.”
The trip itself can be physically demanding to most, but there was an emotional reward that many felt from the duties that they were doing.
“It was very emotionally hard to get so attached to the family and then have to leave them. Being the translator of the group, I connected very strongly with him and his family and we shared much of our own stories,” Madrigal said. “It was hard to see the conditions he was living in and then having to come home. It made me very grateful for what I have and it was special to connect with the group and how we can all share God’s experience with him.”
Medel felt the same way when seeing the poverty and depression of the surrounding neighborhoods to the church they ministered at.
“In my sermon, I posed two questions: What do I do in my life? And do I know and recognize everything that I have? These people had such a strong urgency about the importance of church, and it was just so refreshing,” Medel said. “They would go into their neighborhoods and tell people to come. It made me think twice about how here it might almost be a strange concept to go to your neighbor’s house and tell them to come to church.”
With the conclusion of the trip only being a few days before Thanksgiving, many students reflected on how this trip impacted the way they viewed the holiday season.
“The trip made me more grateful to be at home, though I had missed being in Mexico the second we exited Citrus to head back to campus,” Cuaresma said. “It made me aware of how much I have spent on unnecessary things because I had realized how much happiness was brought to their hearts when they received something as simple as a notebook and a couple pencils. Even though they do not celebrate Thanksgiving, it was amazing to have received their gift of presence, as it relates to our Mexico Outreach theme: ‘A Perfect Gift.’”