Eagle Ridge group serves in Mexico

Twenty-three people from Eagle Ridge Bible Fellowship in Coquitlam, B.C. experienced more of Mexico than beautiful beaches and tourist hotels this past June.

Eleven adults and 12 children, ranging in age from four to 61, helped build a house for a family in the tiny village of Santa Fe near Baja California Norte.

Pastor Dan Cody had been on four previous Mexico mission trips as a youth pastor and “fell in love with” the Baja area and people. When he broached the idea to Eagle Ridge Bible Fellowship, the response was positive. The trip was planned through International Discipleship Training Missionaries, an interdenominational ministry based in Baja where individuals, families or church groups can assist local people and gain mission experience.

The church enthusiastically supported fundraising efforts like car washes, candy sales, language lessons and Mexican luncheons. The results exceeded budget requirements.

The family that the team assisted consisted of Raul Garcia Lopez, his wife, and two young children. Lopez works at picking and grading rocks for a building supply company. He suffers from diabetes. The family has two plots of land, intending to build their own church mission on one of them.

Lopez had a 15 by 15 foot concrete slab already in place. The house took three mornings to build. The younger people swept the floor and hammered nails. The team also built a bed, some bunk beds and a table. They began the arduous task of digging the outhouse.

One participant, who had been to Mexico before, said, “I knew I would enjoy the visit, but the opportunity to serve made it the most rewarding trip of all.”

The cross-cultural experience also changed perspectives. Nicole Harris noted, “The Mexicans we saw seemed poor to our way of thinking. [But] they are thankful for their daily provisions, and if they have a Christian faith, they trust God to provide for them the way He always has. What more do they need! We could ask ourselves, ‘What more do we need?’ ”

—from report by Sue Heller