August 2000-Adult/Youth Servant Trip
VOLUNTEERS TEACH BIBLE SCHOOL IN ZARAGOSA,
MEXICO
For five days the cinder block walls of Santisima
Trinidad (Holy Trinity Lutheran Church) in Zaragosa, Mexico, rang
with the words "Sonríe que Jesús te ama (Smile,
that Jesus loves you)" and "Jesús, El vive y por
siempre vivirá (Jesus, He lives and will live forever)".
From July 31 through August 4, twenty-eight volunteers
(17 teenagers and 11 adults) from St. Matthew Lutheran Church, Barrington,
taught Bible school for the children in this area of Juarez, Mexico.
The City of Juarez is growing at the rate of more than 30,000 new
residents a year. Many come into the Zaragosa area on the eastern
edge of the city. NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement) has
ignited a building boom in Zaragosa. Well-paying jobs in American,
Japanese, and European-owned manufacturing plants have drawn people
to this area.
In 1998 an Adult/Youth Servant Team from St. Matthew
taught its first Bible School in Zaragosa as an outreach ministry
to the children of this neighborhood. Despite the team's limited
Spanish-language skills, they taught songs and Bible verses and
helped the children complete craft projects related to each day's
Bible story. To teach the Bible lessons, the team used animated
videos which had been dubbed in Spanish. With the assistance of
the women of the Santisima Trinidad congregation, the team served
all the children a hot meal at lunch time.
On the first day of Bible school, 140 children
attended. By Friday, the last day of the program, attendance had
grown to 223. The building became so crowded that children had to
sit on the floor because there was no more room in the church pews.
The program was designed for children ages 5 through 12, but children
as young as 2 and as old as 14 took part in Bible school. In order
to attend Bible school, many older children had to bring their younger
siblings because they care for them while their parents work in
the local factories.
The neighborhood around Santisima Trinidad is
not poor by Mexican standards. While some homes are small stuccoed
townhouses, others are built of cardboard, packing crates, and shipping
pallets. Streets throughout the neighborhood are all dirt. The servant
team used Ysleta Lutheran Mission in El Paso, Texas, as its home
base during the mission trip.
This is the ninth servant team sponsored by St.
Matthew since 1995. In addition to teaching Bible school, servant
teams have completed construction projects and provided medical
care. Since St. Matthew started sending servant teams to Mexico,
the program has had three goals. Team members are given the opportunity
to experience the faith in another culture, to assist in ministry
projects which could not be accomplished without their help, and
to live as a Christian community of faith. The 1997 and 1998 Adult
Servant Teams from St. Matthew helped to build the church building
at Santisima Trinidad.
On October 7, St. Matthew will be sending a team
of 18 adults to Mexico to work on construction and medical projects.
