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. It was defi nitely nerve
wracking, but once I took
a deep breath and thought
about what I was doing there
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