Many of my friends and acquaintances have asked me what
brought me to live in Mexico all these years.
When I first started following Jesus, I prayed about
serving on the mission field. I applied to Youth With A Mission (YWAM) and the
Mercy Hospital Ship Anastasis, but with both ministries, was turned down
because I was a single mother. They only took married couples so the husband
could work while the wife home-schooled the children.
As I continued to pray for God to open the doors in missions,
my church, Heart Ministries in Sacramento, was making trips, bringing clothes
and food to Mexico every few months to families and churches there.
My friends invited me to go on these short-term trips
to Baja, and on a few occasions, I actually paid for the chance to go, but
cancelled at the last minute with excuses of nobody to watch my children, signs
to paint, etc. (I was a self-employed sign-painter at the time.)
Finally, my friends, who agreed I was called to serve
in the mission field, took away all my excuses, made plans to keep my three
children and put me in the van headed south of the border.
This was President’s Day weekend in 1994. I went in the
rented van the church had procured, and all along the way, prayed for what the
Lord had for me and for all of us on this 3-day weekend.
We arrived in Emiliano Zapata at the Puerta Abierta
Church (Open Door Church) and when I got out of the van in the church parking
lot, I heard that still, small voice, telling me, “This is where you will raise
your children.” I knew the Lord was directing my steps to serve there in
Mexico.
We met Pastor
Fernando Quijano Andrade and his wife, Felicitas (Licha) and their family. They
were so gracious and welcoming. I immediately fell in love with them, and we
became fast friends.
It was an eye-opening experience for me, as well as for
some of the others, I’m sure. We went to visit a campo (field-worker housing)
and it was a shock, to say the least.
The shacks at Aguaje del Burro were made of wood, about
10’ by 10’ each residence, with dirt floors. Most families living in one room
were multi-generational, with grandparents, grandchildren and aunts and uncles living
together, sleeping on rags and blankets on the dirt floors.
There were outhouses but most of the Trique Indians
living there used the area outside their huts to relieve themselves as there
were clumps of toilet paper all around the camp. There was a community area
with wash boards made of cement for doing laundry and a little company store
where they purchased their groceries.
I had limited Spanish at the time, most of it coming from
watching Sesame Street with my children, so my ability to communicate was
almost nil. The women would invite me with hand signals and Spanish mixed with
their dialects to sit down on a 5-gallon bucket covered with an old shirt or
similar rags. They told their children to go to the store and buy me a soda
pop. It was so humbling, but I sat there in wonder, seeing people who could
barely afford their own food, giving me a cold drink while the whole family
looked on. I was overwhelmed with their kindness toward me. As we visited, I
was in tears at this whole experience.
We left the campo and went to a nearby strawberry field
that the workers had been harvesting from, and we picked strawberries galore.
Taking them back to the church, we made strawberry shortcake and Pete McCarthy
was able to find a can of whipped cream in the grocery store so we were in
seventh heaven with our treat containing fruit from our labors in the fields.
While at the pastor’s home, we ate and drank with their
family, and slept in the church, women in the nursery and men in the sanctuary.
It was amazing fellowship and I enjoyed every minute of the weekend.
On our way home, I started to feel sick, and asked the
driver to stop several times so I could vomit. As I did, I heard the enemy tell
me,
“So THIS is what you want for your children!” I knew that it was from the enemy
and continued to pray and trust the Lord to have His will in my life.
When I got home, I had to talk to Amber’s dad about
taking her and moving to Mexico. When I shared with him about all that had
happened, I was in tears, and so was he. His response was, “I guess you have to
go.”
I also was in the middle of my arrangements with Todd. When
I called him, the social worker told me I could live wherever I wanted, and the
Aid to Adopt would still be mine even if I moved out of the country.
The end of April, the house we lived in was condemned
by the City of Sacramento due to the man upstairs being arrested for the third
time for drug charges. So we moved in with Bill and Peggy Sopher until we moved
to Mexico in September. That summer, we house-sat for a friend in Wilton and
Todd had a hernia operation and I had gall-bladder surgery.
We left for Mexico that September and arrived in
Zapata, staying in the Sunday School room at Puerta Abierta. I was delighted at
being where God had called me to be, after so long awaiting His promise. Bill
and Peggy dropped us off and I was so grateful for their help in getting us
there.
We all got sick within a few days, and learned that
purchasing purified water was a requirement after all of us got salmonella, e-coli
and giardia. It was a hard first few months. Eventually, we rented a house and
lived in our own place. It was almost a year later when we met American friends
and moved to Zarahemla. God directed our steps and I am forever grateful for
how He used me and my children in Mexico during those 7 years in Baja,
California.
“All things work together for good for those that love
God, to them who are called according to His purpose.” Romans 8:28
