Local Outreach

Hello again my fellow wanderers,

During my studies at YWAM in Baja California, Mexico, we have local outreach once a week. What is local outreach? Once a week we get in our campus vans and we drive about 20 minutes away. My team is in charge of visiting people who have received a Homes of Hope house recently. We go in and ask them how their life has changed since receiving a home. Just about every weekend, there’s a new team building a couple houses.

We get to know the family and ask them a series of questions and finish by taking pictures of them and printing them out for their family to keep.

A lot of families in Tijuana don’t necessarily have homes to live in. Some have built makeshift home out of metal, wood and some tarps. Some have too many people in them. Many of them dont even have a bathroom or a toilet nor running water. Receiving a house helps them in a lot of ways. It provides a safe place for the family to rest, play, study, eat and so much more. It gives them hope for a brighter future. It helps them draw nearer to God in seeing just how much He cares for them. It does so much!

About two or three weeks ago, on one of my local outreach days, we met the Mendez-Lopez family. It was a lady, her daughter, her sister and her sister’s daughter. Her husband was still at work. I’d been praying the whole way to their house because I didn’t feel very good and I had no energy.

After 25 minutes of driving into what seemed to be the middle of nowhere in the dusty hills of Tijuana, we arrived at their home. We sat down to get to know them and one of my team members and I were asked to translate between English and Spanish. While they were talking, I felt drawn to spend some time with the lady’s daughter. I usually get along much better with adults but this time was different.

I sat down beside the little girl on their couch while several flies landed on me every other minute. She was colouring so in her language I asked her if I could colour with her. She nodded so I picked up a crayon and began to draw things that we found in her kids bible. I asked her questions but she was very shy and quiet. She was 7 years old and she didn’t speak any English. We stopped colouring and stepped outside into the dirt mountains that surrounded them and she took my hand to show me this little plastic kitchen set she had. She didn’t have any plastic food or silverware, just the little kitchen. I remembered when I was a little girl, I had the whole kitchen set, food, silverware, plates, cashier station and more. This little girl was so content making me fake dirt pasta with a huge smile on her face. 

I have so much more and I was still struggling to be content with where I was at that day. I gave her such a big hug and she folded up the drawing and made an envelope out of another paper and stuck in it. She drew a heart on top and went to pick a flower from around her house and gave them to me. She had so little and she went out of her way to bless my life that day and she reminded me just how much more could I bless other people around me if I leaned in and had faith like this child that everything would be okay and I could enjoy the present moment without letting anything get in the way. 

Till next time,

Mel Wandering