So, here’s how a mission trip by bus works:
-leave Friday evening, drive though the night
-arrive in Bakersfield, CA on a Sat night and stay at a motel
-leave at 6-7am on Sunday morning and drive until we reach Mexico that evening
Once you arrive in Mexico, it’s a busy week. Every morning, we would meet as a group and prepare for the day to come. We painted the whole church that week, worked on interior fixes, and anything else that they needed help with. Painting filled the mornings. In the afternoons, we had Vacation Bible School – also known as VBS. We would go to the apartments about 5 minutes from the church and invite the kids to VBS. We would run outdoor games, crafts inside the church, and snacks at the end. After VBS, our mission team would all come together for dinner. The people from the church in Mexico would make our meals for us – which we really enjoyed and appreciated. To this day I still love fish tacos – Mexican food is the best.
At night, we stayed with people from the church in Mexico. I stayed at an apartment with several other girls. I had met Carolina on this trip, and her parents owned that apartment. Fun fact: later on, she would be a bridemaid at my wedding. Outside our third floor apartment window, bats would fly by about every half an hour and the kids on the street would still be up and tell us that la cucarchas were climbing the building to get us – probably just trying to scare us girls.
By the end of the week we’re exhausted, but we loved every moment of the trip.
On Friday evening, we take off driving through the night until we reach a northern CA town and sleep in a motel on Saturday night. On Sunday, we make it back home and start developing our pictures to start missing all the great people we meet in Mexico.
I strongly recommend going on mission trips to anyone; it’s a great way to meet great people, to help others, to realize the lengths of which you are capable of, and really immerse yourself in a culture. Mission trips really show you the culture and the people of a country, if you really want to experience a country, then get to know the locals.
My Travel Addicted Life 