I'm back from the Baja!

RANDOM thoughts about my trip...because you all know that's how I roll...

I arrived at around 8:15pm yesterday, and had a smooth day, with nary an issue to worry about on the way home. It was a joyous, and sad occasion.  I thoroughly enjoyed being in the Tijuana/Tecate area of Baja, Mexico.  I only wish I slept better through the night later in my stay, but I wouldn't have changed anything else.  I had exactly what I needed, anytime I needed it.  The people I was with all got along amazingly, and always had a smile on their faces.  The people at the Rancho Alamo Bonito were fabulous in their organizing and planning, as well as their performing and caring.  The people we served in the community were gracious hosts who did all they could for us, and there was never an issue about safety or uneasiness because of the harsh areas we visited.  The trip to and back across the border was not an unpleasant ordeal.  The authentic food I had in Mexico was absolutely outstanding.  The weather during the day gave me full insight to the whole "it may be hot temperature-wise, but it's a dry-heat", and I have decided that I LOVE dry-heat!  The poverty in the area is some of the worst you could ever imagine, but the spirit in the people is some of the highest you could ever imagine.  I fully understand why immigrants want to come over to work, but stay back in Mexico.  The culture is different.  A good salary is EIGHT dollars a week (12.5 pesos = $1), so the average Mexican in that area survives on THIRTY-TWO(ish) dollars a MONTH!  I could blow that in a meal for the fam at McD's.  Puts it into perspective a little more how blessed we are doesn't it?  Teen Mania was the ministry we partnered with, and their Global Expeditions team was the group on site.  It has a few adults, but each site is ran by 18-22 year olds and they ran it WELL!  Awesome to see some youth rocking it like that!  Their band, School of Worship, is like a Hillsong United group, where they're thrown together for a trip.  They were absolutely amazing!  I bought their cd on pre-release and can't wait to download the five free tracks and for the rest to come out in a month!  We ate PB&J everyday for lunch, and it was the perfect meal!  I love PB&J and can't believe I forgot that!  My lunch is already planned for tomorrow when I go back to work!  San Diego is a GORGEOUS town, and I had always heard it was the perfect weather year round.  I could definitely see us moving to Cali at some point if God directs us there!  I hated leaving my family, but I thank my wife and children so much for allowing me to go, and thank God that my dog didn't die while I was gone.  

I see how people get addicted to going on missions trips.  You're working on carrying out the Great Commission.  You feel like you're making an ETERNAL significance.  So much so, that I want to go back to the exact region, with the exact people, doing the exact thing, except I want to DO more the next time, instead of film/documenting it.  And also, another thing I would change about the trip would be to include my wife and any of my children that would be old enough to go.  It killed me after seeing what I saw, that they couldn't be there to witness it.  Pictures/videos/stories/etc can only do so much.  We've all seen the pics and videos.  Put yourselves right next to the people in the picture in real life and things change drastically for your perspective.

My spiritual batteries were totally recharged, and I prayed and thank God they are!  I needed a boost.  I have a yearning to get in the Word, and am excited to digest what I can, when I can!  I found myself looking around at the Teen Mania staff on their off-time, not goofing around all that often, but reading their Bibles as much as they could.  

 

I don't know what my top 5 priorities in life are right now off the top of my head, but learning Spanish is definitely in that group now.  It was beautiful hearing those people speak it all day, and with it being America's 2nd language, and being this close to the border, it only makes sense to learn it as soon as I can.

That's all I have for now.  I'm sure I'll ramble on, because as I said at the top...that's what I do.

Reflecting before the Newsboys arrive.

Today is our last real day here in Tecate, Baja California, Mexico. Tomorrow morning we head to the airport bright and early, because we don’t know how long getting across the border will take. It’s a brisk morning, and one that this boy from the Heartland can equate to a morning in the Fall back home. The temperature is around 58 degrees, which is about perfect for writing a morning blog post.
Yesterday we went around to all the new sites for the group that is here. Each site is split into two parts…one where they obviously build the house…the other is where they hold VBS for the local children. At first thought, and a long that at that, you would think the homes we are building are the big impact of us being here. Putting up the home and giving the people a strong structure to keep them safe and from the elements. A home that has working electricity, is clean, and free of graffiti. A home that may not be as big as what us Americans are accustomed to, but that has three four rooms where they can spread out and have their own little space. Yes, the home is huge that is for sure, and these people are forever changed because of it, but the real impact though, is stories these people have to live each day and joy they have. The faith they have in Jesus is what we should all aspire to reach. The joy they have while going through their trials is one I cannot imagine. The song by Hillsong called “Yahweh” says in the chorus “We look to Yahweh, Yahweh. Forever Yahweh, Yahweh. Our hope is Yahweh, Yahweh”. You see that in these people who we are coming to help. It’s a passion I see few and far between in the States. Sure, the passion may seem to be there, but when the hard times come (and they always do), where do we turn? I know personally I try to do it all myself, dealing with it all, internalizing it, instead of looking up to the Heavens and asking God to have my back. He’s there anyway, so why are we not asking him more, going to him more, praying to him more? Because we’re “too” blessed in the US. Think about that for awhile.

Trip around the Rancho Alamo Bonito campus

Day 2 thoughts and ramblings

Yesterday turned into the day of filming people arrive to Rancho Alamo Bonito, and to just take in the arrival experience with the new group of missionaries. When the first bus came, the staff lined up outside the bus door and made a human tunnel for them to go through, where we clapped and high-fived them all. As each successive bus came throughout the day, the missionaries who had already arrived would join that tunnel to make it longer and longer. By the time the sixth bus had arrived, you can imagine how long the tunnel was! Besides that, it was a very leisurely day. We helped out with various registration duties for everyone, and kept busy uploading pics and video for the station website…that is, until the internet crashed at around 2pm. From then on, we had no internet, and data output grinded to a stop. Luckily, we have some Verizon wireless cards that we could use for emergencies. So, we fired one up, connected a few computers to it, one for email/status updates, and one to upload some pictures. Video would take way too long (hours vs. minutes) on these things, so we decided to hold off on that and just focus on the picture updates for now. I was able to hop on a few times and talk with Belinda, only to find out that our poor dog Sprinkles is very very sick. So on top of B having to be a single mother for five days, she and my mom have to take care of a very sick little puppy. At least they care for her and will give her what she needs. I think part of it is she misses daddy and her insides don’t know what to do. Just kidding!



This morning, with my air mattress not as full, combined with some minor-but-enough-to-wake-me back pain, woke me up just before 5am. I’m not sure if I said this in my audio post or not, but with the amount of people here and needing to take showers, if you don’t get one in at a certain time, you’re taking an ice shower basically. Now, this wouldn’t be bad if you’re coming back from working that day, where it’s been hot and you’ve sweated, but this is early AM and it’s chilly-willy right now. So, I decided to get up for a shower and pray that enough staff hadn’t gotten up yet and used the hot water. I think I used the last of it in my four minute shower because it started to get cool really soon after I started, but hey, at least I started out warm. That woke me up enough that I’m just going to stay up for the day. Figured I’d write this blog post, update some pics/video on the web, and get in some Bible reading. I started reading Acts while I’m here, since that’s basically what it’s about…getting out there and being the church…spreading God’s love.



Today we will be shooting the missionaries going through the training they will need to learn how to talk to these people, maybe some do/do not do type of things, how they will be building the homes, how they will be doing VBS for the children down here, as well as other duties that are planned for them. After that, the KSBJ staff plan to head and do site visits of where homes were built last week and where we plan to build this week. Today seems to be the first real day where we’ll be hitting the ground running fast. If breakfast was anything like yesterday, we should be good to go! They have a bunch of cereal and fruit for breakfast, and the cereal I chose yesterday was just your normal Raisin Bran with milk. While that may not sound like anything special, both the cereal and milk were sweeter than the US brand and therefore was AMAZING in flavor! The milk here is out of this world! Since we’re staying on a dairy farm and all, there has to be standards, right?! HA! Either way, I’ll cut this off for now. Hope you’re all doing well.



God bless,

E

Baja Audioblog 1

I had wrote a really long blog that took me about 45 minutes, but when I went to post the blog, I didn't copy it like I normally did in case issues arise, and wouldn't you know it....issues arose.  It lost my post and I couldn't get it back.  SO, forget the writing for now, and here is an audioblog.  It's a little long, so I apologize for that, but ten minutes isn't THAT bad.  Here ya go...

(I'm sorry, I'm having the world's worst time at uploading the audio, so this post might just be abandoned for now.  If I end up getting the audio to work, I'll update my blog stating it.  If not, I'll just delete this post at a later time.)

Baja Pics

Here is a link to my Flickr with pics from the trip so far...

http://www.flickr.com/photos/10784841@N02/

The day before I leave

This time tomorrow morning, I will be getting ready and making sure I have everything to head to the station, to get in one of the vans and head to the IAH (Bush Intercontinental Airport).  I only have a few things left to pack...pants, Alieve, my iPhone charger, and if I can find a certain Flip camera and firewire cable.  After that I'll just run through my checklist again to see if there's anything I can leave behind, because my suitcase is busting at the scenes, like it almost WANTS me to pay the luggage fee!  Good thing I know I'll get reimbursed for that though.  Carry-on luggage will consist of my laptop bag, and the digital video cams I'll be using on the trip.  I think I'm good to go though, so I'm not worried.  I usually never worry about this stuff anyway...just ask Belinda, as I know this part of me drives her nuts at how calm I am.  I always feel that I do a good job of planning, but if I forget something, I either live without it or run up the street to a local store and get what I need. Another reason that she is the ying-to-my-yang.  When she packs, we forget something 0.00001% of the time.  When I pack, I usually forget something about 5% of the time.  Better odds to go with her plan!  HA!

I was thinking yesterday about the trip, and a few things came to mind.  From what I've heard, this is the cheapest missions trip K S B J has ever done.  I didn't understand what that meant until I found that since employees were staying in TENTS, that there was a huge cost not being incurred for them...LODGING!  I then did research and found that most time when they would go on these sponsored missions trips, they would stay at a local hotel with the company they partnered with.  The last trip they went on, they were upgraded to a 4 star hotel because of various conditions.  At first when I signed up to go on this trip and found out we were staying in tents and on air mattresses I was worried, because with my bad back, and my usual nights of tossing and turning on a bed, how would I handle sleeping on an air mattress that will be flat by the time I wake up...let alone the noises and other things that I'll have to fight with to keep me from getting any sleep?  I usually only get around 4 hrs of sleep a night before I start the tossing and turning from back pain.  So you can see my frustration.  Then, like I said, yesterday I was thinking about the trip and felt God gave me some insight.  This is a REAL missions trip.  I'm not going on a vacation.  I'm working 14-15 hr days, documenting people going through hardships...REAL hardships...and when I go back to where I sleep, I won't be sleeping in any cushiony place with a pool....I'll basically be living closer to what these people are going through.  With that, my view totally changed to one where I am even more excited about this trip, and am looking forward to relating more with these people, and seeing what God will do through us.

If you want to see the videos I'll be uploading of the missions trip, be sure to check the station's YouTube channel located at: http://www.youtube.com/893KSBJ.  I'll also upload videos that I do of my own views and experiences here on my blog as long as I have the connection to the interwebz!

Okay, well, it's time to continue studying for my Net+ exam, while I enjoy a Venti Bold Blend...which today is their "Gazebo" blend.  Yummmmmmy!

Getting ready to head to the mission field.

This coming Friday morning, I board a plane headed to San Diego, CA, along with seven other fellow K S B J coworkers. From there we will take a bus South, across the Mexican border to the city of Tijuana. For the next five days I will be producing video of the staff working alongside the Newsboys, the local missions staff of  Global Expeditions team that we partnered with, and a bunch of the station's listeners. This is the first missions trip I've ever gone on, so I'm nervous about what to expect, but I'm leaving it all in God's hands. Originally, we had tried to get Belinda to come, and were able to secure some discounted rates and what not, but then found out that there were too many of her coworkers on vacation at the time, which meant she had to stay. By no means will this be a vacation for me since I'm just doing audio/video. My days will be probably 15-16 hr days from what I've put together, so I'm sure I will sleep hard each night.

The purpose of the trip is to help spread the word about the poverty in this region of the world, and how we can all help. The area is beautiful, that's for sure, but the poverty level is some of the worst in Mexico. People living in cardboard houses, no clean water, no electricity, and daily just trying to find food to eat. As well as trying to help spread the word about how to help these people, we will also assist in building houses, running some VBS classes for local children, and just showing them the love of Jesus. I hope I can capture this well enough in video.

I also plan to record some personal video blogs if I can find enough time, and post them back here! Internet access is very limited, so I'll most likely only be able to upload video early in the morning or late at night.  We'll have to see. I'll be gone from July 23rd, through the 27th, so five days. I know I'll miss Belinda and the kids terribly. Please feel free to pray as you feel led, but also please pray for safety for me, and for nothing to happen to any of us or my family while we're on the trip. From what I hear it's a pretty dangerous area of Mexico, but the group we're going with has been in the area for close to 25 years and haven't had any issues ever. Nice to know!

Below is a video the Newsboys put together late last year when they were in Baja (the area we'll be working), with footage from when they were working, as well as using clips from their new hit single "Born Again" (which I recommend you pickup from iTunes!).  The video shows probably only a small taste of what I'll see.  Regardless, the video is powerful, and the song is a perfect match.  Enjoy...