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About Keizertimes. (Salem, Or.) 1979-current | View Entire Issue (Aug. 2, 2019)
PAGE A4, KEIZERTIMES, AUGUST 2, 2019 KeizerCommunity KEIZERTIMES.COM Student ministry spends week in Mexico BY LAUREN MURPHY Of the Keizertimes After 20 hours of driving, two border check points and what felt like a thousand bath- room breaks, we fi nally made it. The Overfl ow Student Ministries short-term mis- sion team was in Mexico’s San Quintín, Baja California. Our hosts, Mike Fink and his family, the founders of Go Missions to Mexico, wel- comed us when we arrived; we got our dorm assignments, unpacked the trailer and got ready for the best part of the day, dinner. After dinner we had an orientation about basic do’s and don’ts: do burn every- thing that’s not food scraps or metal, don’t fl ush the toilet paper. The fi rst full day that we were there we had two more orientations: one about the culture and another about the rules of ministry. We met the church we’d be serving with, C apilla Calvario (Calvary Chapel) and joined them for their service. It was a particularly ten- der moment; two years ago our youth group took a team down to San Quintín; they helped build the building the church meets in for service. There were a lot of tears and excitement walking into the service. Everyday at least two of our team members would give their testimonies which were translated into Span- ish; either at Vacation Bible School (VBS) or during the church service. Myself and Isabel Lopez, an incoming se- nior at McNary High School, were the fi rst of our team to give our testimonies on Sun- Submitted Members of Salem Evangelical’s Overfl ow Student Ministries break for a photo between teach- ing VBS classes and helping build a new church. day morning before the con- gregation. “While I was giving my testimony I was nervous. In my soul I knew that what I was saying was going to touch the hearts of some people, maybe only a few, so I wanted for my words to do it justice,” Isabel said. “The beautiful thing is they were God’s words through me. Nonetheless it was the ner- vousness you have when you know with absolute certainty that you are doing something right. Something you are meant to do.” We blitzed the communi- ty after service to invite the neighborhood to the VBS. The second full day was when we started work. Our group of 25 was split in two; half of us stayed at the church to help build their multipur- pose rooms and the other half evangelized in the neighbor- hoods. Despite the fact that I go to Salem Evangelical Church, evangelism was defi nitely a challenge. Throw in the lan- guage barrier and I was way out of my depth. Thankfully between our guide’s broken English, our broken Spanish and the grace of God we were able to com- municate. One of the coolest parts was when we’d pray for the community members. One of the leaders in our evangelism team, Jon Troncoso, is fl uent in Spanish. “God understands all the languages,” he would say. “But I’ll translate what they say so you can understand, too.” Our teams switched every other day so that each group did two days of evangelism and two days of work. The next day my team stayed at the church to work. The church had hired con- tractors and they taught us how to mix cement and plas- ter walls. The head pastor of the church taught us how to fi nish the walls. After the ce- ment was mostly dry, we’d take a damp sponge and rub the sand off the wall, which would smooth out any cracks or bumps in the wall. Each team would do their assigned task until about noon when we’d break for lunch. Some of the women in the church made lunch for us and the other workers; which was the closest to heaven I’ve ever been. In our cultural orienta- tion, they told us everything in Mexico has a low level of chaos, which is exactly how VBS felt. During the week, the number of students grew from 20 to 100 kids. We taught VBS students after lunch. That was the one place that didn’t feel new or different; whether you’re in America or Mexico kids want to play with you because you’re older, which automati- cally makes you cool. “The best part for me was there was this little boy who didn’t want to go down the slide, despite not speaking any Spanish I was able to encour- age him and by the end he was fl ying down that thing,” said Sarah Zemanek said, a re- cent high school graduate and team member. Mia Troncoso, a team member who gave her testi- mony on the church service on Wednesday night said, “I’ve never shared my testimony in front of that many people before. 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