On February 5th, 2011 a team of men set out from Riverview headed for El Limon, Mexico by way of Monterrey. Back 2 Back does not send many teams to El Limon, so as part of this team I was thinking we had an excellent opportunity to do something HUGE for the kids this week. I had no clue that God was pretty much planning on the opposite: doing something HUGE for us men.
The work of this trip was pretty comparable to many of the other work missions I’d been on before. Dust, sweat, bad jokes, and good friends passed the work hours till the evening came, when we were able to play with the kids. Laughing, running and playing with the forty-two children that call Casa Hogar Mama Paulito home began to work on the hearts of the seventeen gringos that were there to stay with them that week.
I’m a hobbyist photographer, so I naturally started taking photos and showing the kids themselves on the camera. They all loved having their picture taken, but when the young boys would get bored and scamper off, a couple of girls kept coming back with sheepish grins and kept after me to shoot photos of them and their friends. My camera became a tool to reach out and attempt to talk, play, and show attention to these kids.
The interactions that have stuck with me the most are those I had with a 12-year-old girl named Valeria.* One particular evening I sat holding on to the end of a bunch of string she was using to make a bracelet, with her patiently enduring my attempts at speaking Spanish, and in turn she was working diligently on her English. That night is when God really started painting the picture of what he was doing through us in El Limon. While Valeria was making her bracelet and my other little friends where busy at work making bead bracelets and playing games with the guys, it occurred to me that at this moment not one of us wealthy, educated, privileged gringos brought a single thing to the table that these kids needed…. Each kid there has a story locked in their heart, stories of being abandoned, neglected, and abused. All God wanted was for this team of men to have the faith to show up. Time and time again, God works despite our faults, and this time God was using us to show these kiddos that they are special and important to Him. That He would send a bunch of guys from Michigan to play with and be their friends. That though some might have shortchanged them in life, HE NEVER would.
The interesting thing though was that while God was using us to show love to them, he was using the kids to perform heart surgery on our team. The last evening with the kids, we were flat out schooled on what it means to love, what it means to worship, and what it feels like to be completely humbled. I’d never witnessed worship like this. Though I didn’t understand the words, I do understand the precepts of what that they were singing out to their creator, dancing and jumping the whole time. The difference is these kids KNOW what it means to be set free by the saving grace of God. They know how it felt when their chains fell off. They understand that every good and perfect gift comes from God.
At the end of the evening the leaders of the home asked us to gather in the center of the room so they could pray for us. I expected the head of the home, Fernando, to pray and we’d call it a night. Fernando started praying, and then each of the kids started as well, praying that God would bless our team, that God would provide for us and our families; they prayed for the friends they had made, they thanked God for loving them through us, they prayed and prayed and prayed. It’s a humbling thing to stand before 42 abandoned children, each of whom is praying that God would PROVIDE for your needs, PROTECT your family, BLESS your friends…
Valeria sought me out at the end of all of the excitement on the last evening to tell me in her beautiful broken English that she would remember me, and she gave me a note that she had written in English. In that note she asked if I would be her friend, and told me she couldn’t wait for me to learn Spanish. The following morning when the group was loading up and saying our final goodbyes to the home leaders a few of the young girls stuck their head out of the doorway – one was Valeria, and she shouted HOLA MIGUEL!!! HASTA LUEGO! She took a piece of my heart that I didn’t know I had. I’m certain each of the guys could also rattle off a list of kiddos there that impacted them in ways they never expected.
Riverview has encouraged each of us to consider going to Mexico on one of these trips. God is using the people on these trips to reaffirm to these kids that He is a loving God, that He is willing to send people from all over to come and play with them. If you are a goer, then go well. If you are a sender, then send generously. As for me, thank you for sending me.
*Name has been changed.
Back 2 Back Ministries – Feb 2011 from Mike Lilly on Vimeo.