July 2008 - Adult/Youth Servant Trip
Two Churches Partner to Send Mission Team to Mexico
On July 19, a 41-person mission team, sponsored by St. Matthew Lutheran Church (Barrington, Ill.) and St. Lukes Lutheran Church (Montgomery, Ill.), embarked on a weeklong mission trip to Mexico. The team was housed at Ysleta Lutheran Mission in El Paso, Texas and crossed the border daily to teach Bible School at Santisima Trinidad, the Lutheran congregation in Zaragosa, Mexico, a community on the eastern edge of Ciudad Juarez.
The team used skits, songs, crafts, a quiz show and Bible verses to teach the daily Bible school lessons which were based on four of Jesus’ parables. More than 240 children from the Zaragosa area attended at least one day of the Bible school.
One of the highlights of the week occurred during the Sunday afternoon worship service at Santisima Trinidad when 15 Linda Ritchey Memorial Scholarships were awarded to children from the church. These scholarships enable the recipients to continue their education beyond 6th grade. The scholarships are named in memory of Linda Ritchey, a member of St. Matthew for whom these mission trips were very special.
This marked the 25th time that St. Matthew has deployed a mission team to Mexico and the first year of its partnership with St. Lukes. Of the 41 team members, 29 were high school or college-aged.
