Live Generously

My first trip to Mexico was during my sophomore year of high school. Since then I’ve visited our neighbor to the south probably around 10 times, with just about all of those visits being church-related. Going into this weekend, I had never gotten sick in Mexico. I’d seen plenty of other people get sick, but I myself had never had any problems.

That streak has officially come to an end.

As I woke up yesterday morning, it appeared that this visit to Mexico would be somewhat similar to previous visits from a health standpoint. I was worn out from the previous three days (this time even more so since building a house is slightly more physically demanding than playing with kids), I was ready for a shower, but for the most part the trip had been a very positive experience. I was able to actually participate in the construction of a real live house with some great people from our college ministry (Brett wrote a short reflection on the trip and the community aspect of it that I wholeheartedly agree with), and the result of that was that a family of five had an extra 200 square feet of living space that they didn’t have before. It was a great thing to be able to be a part of.

I left our site a little bit early yesterday afternoon with hopes of making it up to Irvine for class at 6:30. It was during our drive to the border that my stomach started churning. I should say at this point that Mike had gotten sick the day before and was still feeling pretty bad, but other than that the group had stayed pretty healthy. We got to the border crossing line, and the stomach churning continued. I’ll spare you the details, but let’s just say that stuff went ‘out the in hole’ a total of six times between 4:00 p.m. and 10:00 p.m., including once in the border line, once on the side of the freeway in Carlsbad, and once within two minutes of walking into my apartment (greeting my wife went something like this: “Hi love, I missed you, it’s good to see you, I need to throw up”…walk to bathroom…”blaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhh.”) Now having read those last few sentences I realized I didn’t really spare you many details. Sorry.

I was able to sleep last night, and I even made it in to work this morning for our staff meeting, but I’m still not feeling great. I’ve been able to hold down a few Gatorades, but I haven’t dared tried solid food yet. I knew my time would come eventually, and I now most definitely have a ‘getting sick in Mexico’ story. I’m just glad that I got to suffer through the worst of it at home. Other than the sickness, it was a great trip, and it was really cool getting to be a part of building a house for somebody else. I’d imagine we’ll probably have other trips like this in the future, and I look forward to being a part of them…and hopefully staying healthy the whole time.

So there is this great scene in the movie Dirty Work (a delightfully tacky comedy, by the way) where Mitch and Sam (played by Norm MacDonald and some other guy), in an effort to raise money to fund a heart transplant for their father, apply for jobs as construction workers.  On their first day on the job the foreman is walking them around the construction site while using all sorts of construction lingo to describe to Mitch and Sam their tasks for the morning.  Upon completion of the foreman’s explanation, Mitch informs him that “that is going to be a problem,” and then goes on to explain that he and Sam lied on their applications and they know nothing about construction.  Sam seals their fate by asking “when is lunch,” and Mitch and Sam are left to devise another means of raising the money that they needed, which eventually leads them to open a revenge-for-hire business. This movie is not for those with a low tolerance for dumb humor, but when I first saw it as a 17-year-old, I thought it was hilarious.  Anyhoo…

Tomorrow I am heading down to Mexico with a group of high schoolers, college students, and a few adults from New Song to build houses in Tijuana.  I am bringing to this venture a knowledge of construction comparable to that of Mitch and Sam from the movie. I am confident in my lunch eating skills and my tool belt wearing skills, but that is where my construction abilities end. That was confirmed by my inability to identify basic tools that I needed for the trip during a only mildly embarrassing shopping excursion at Lowe’s this afternoon.  They say that these house builds are easy, but I remain slightly intimidated by the prospect of attempting to piece together a structure that will actually serve as the home for other human beings.  I’m not even very good at jigsaw puzzles, and my few attempts at making model anythings as a child mostly ended in disaster.

That being said, I am excited about the trip, and the opportunity to work towards something that will hopefully make a lasting difference in the lives of a family or two.  Too often with previous trips I’ve been on to Mexico I have left somewhat disillusioned at the whole process, seeing that the children in villages often just tolerate us because they know we’ll give them toys and candy at the end of the week.  This trip seems like it is going to be different. This isn’t short-term Christian tourism, this is something that will actually make a lasting impact.  We’ll work for four days, and at the end of that time we’ll be able to bless a family with a place to live (whether or not they’ll actually want it remains to be seen…haha).  That seems a lot better than candy.  We’ll also have the joy of being able to work together as a church family in order to accomplish something for somebody else. For me personally it will be a much needed break from business as usual, where I find my lifestyle is obnoxiously self-centered.  We’ll be down there from Friday-Tuesday, and I would appreciate your prayers.  For those of you who are a part of the New Song community but won’t be on the trip, I just want to remind you that we’ll still be having Overdrive at 10:45, but Seven24 will be off for the week.