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Wednesday, July 2, 2008
Holy Spirit Youth Mission Trip 2008
Participants on the high school mission trip to Tijuana, Mexico share their experiences. During their week in Mexico, they assisted with home improvement projects, helped with children's programs and deepened their personal faith.
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To our Fellow Holy Spirit Parishioners: Please pray for our most esteemed brothers and sisters in the Tijuana community of whom we've had the opportunity to serve this past week. We really want to extend our heartfelt thanks to this community for welcoming us to Tijuana with open arms, allowing us to interact with their beautiful children, and enjoying the fellowship of two cultures without borders. We came to Tijuana with the intent of teaching their children about Jesus and helping to construct homes; yet, we have received 100-fold times more in return by witnessing their abounding joy, their vibrant faith, and their tremendous love for Christ together with all their brothers and sisters separated by arbitrary borders. !Gloria a Dios! !Con mucho amor en JesuChristo!
Departure Day: Saturday, June 28 Seven high-school students, including graduating seniors, plus two chaperones met in the Holy Spirit parking lot to embark upon a life-changing journey to a country where the average worker earns only about $40 - $50 a week. As we were waiting to divide up into different vehicles for carpooling to the airport in Minneapolis / St. Paul, a storm was beginning to brew. Eight participants quickly made it into the vehicles. The ninth participant was unable to dodge the downpour and became drenched. As we traveled towards Minneapolis, the skies settled and serenity surrounded us. Our flight departed and after 3 hours and 45 minutes of a fantastic flight, we arrived in San Diego for an awesome adventure.
Traveling now by taxi, we arrived at Old Town within minutes and checked in to the La Quinta motel for an overnight stay. Sunday, June 29th, we attended the 10:00 AM mass at the Church of the Immaculate Conception on the feast day of Saints Peter and Paul. It was a great way to start the morning om the day upon which we would meet up with two other churches and be transported to Tijuana via van.
My name is Katie Schmidt and I had the wonderful opportunity to be one of the chaperones on the mission trip to Tijuana, Mexico. I can not speak for everyone, but I'm comfortable saying we had an amazing trip! We were blessed with a wonderful YouthWorks staff (Jason, Kristi, Mark and Julio) and also two other church groups to serve with. I am so thankful God sent our group to serve in Tijuana with the group of people we were priviledged to serve with. Our church group was split into two groups. My group served through the works project first. We built onto, with Marks guidance, a brick wall for Sunday School classrooms at La Montana Chuch (this is also were we stayed). We built the wall on the second floor and had a beautiful view of the ocean from our work site. God's creation is wonderful! After two days of building we switched with the other group and served at the Kids Club (Club de Nino). With Julio's guidance we build relationships with children through playing, laughing, reading, singing, and dancing! The children simply stole out hearts! The are so cute and happy having somewhere safe to go and having cool role-models to look up to! We sang fun bible songs and acted out a skit to the story of Esther. We also served along side Flor, a woman in the community that takes children into her home for free and provides a safe place for them to be during the summer while their parents are working. We put on a party and had carnival games for the children the last day and of course we played futbol (soccer)! The staff also provided us meaningful and fun evening activities: went on a community walk, attended a church service, ate an authentic Mexican meal with a walk to get ice cream:) and visited the beach to see the border, the fence that separates the U.S and Mexico. The students participated in devotion time each morning and CLUB each night. Devo time was about 1 hour to spend reading scripture and praying alone, CLUB included praise and worship songs, discussion and a short talk by Kristi (and announcements from Jason). To end our days we had church group time where we gathered together Rick, Ryan, Ruby, Allison, Maria, Sophie, Taylor, Leah and I to debrief the day. I am so thankful to be apart of our group from Holy Spirit, Catholic Church and to get to know the youth on our trip! I look forward to sharing more stories and pictures with all of you about our trip!
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5 comments:
To our Fellow Holy Spirit Parishioners:
Please pray for our most esteemed brothers and sisters in the Tijuana community of whom we've had the opportunity to serve this past week. We really want to extend our heartfelt thanks to this community for welcoming us to Tijuana with open arms, allowing us to interact with their beautiful children, and enjoying the fellowship of two cultures without borders. We came to Tijuana with the intent of teaching their children about Jesus and helping to construct homes; yet, we have received 100-fold times more in return by witnessing their abounding joy, their vibrant faith, and their tremendous love for Christ together with all their brothers and sisters separated by arbitrary borders. !Gloria a Dios!
!Con mucho amor en JesuChristo!
Departure Day: Saturday, June 28
Seven high-school students, including graduating seniors, plus two chaperones met in the Holy Spirit parking lot to embark upon a life-changing journey to a country where the average worker earns only about $40 - $50 a week. As we were waiting to divide up into different vehicles for carpooling to the airport in Minneapolis / St. Paul, a storm was beginning to brew. Eight participants quickly made it into the vehicles. The ninth participant was unable to dodge the downpour and became drenched. As we traveled towards Minneapolis, the skies settled and serenity surrounded us. Our flight departed and after 3 hours and 45 minutes of a fantastic flight, we arrived in San Diego for an awesome adventure.
Traveling now by taxi, we arrived at Old Town within minutes and checked in to the La Quinta motel for an overnight stay. Sunday, June 29th, we attended the 10:00 AM mass at the Church of the Immaculate Conception on the feast day of Saints Peter and Paul. It was a great way to start the morning om the day upon which we would meet up with two other churches and be transported to Tijuana via van.
Hello All,
My name is Katie Schmidt and I had the wonderful opportunity to be one of the chaperones on the mission trip to Tijuana, Mexico. I can not speak for everyone, but I'm comfortable saying we had an amazing trip! We were blessed with a wonderful YouthWorks staff (Jason, Kristi, Mark and Julio) and also two other church groups to serve with. I am so thankful God sent our group to serve in Tijuana with the group of people we were priviledged to serve with. Our church group was split into two groups. My group served through the works project first. We built onto, with Marks guidance, a brick wall for Sunday School classrooms at La Montana Chuch (this is also were we stayed). We built the wall on the second floor and had a beautiful view of the ocean from our work site. God's creation is wonderful! After two days of building we switched with the other group and served at the Kids Club (Club de Nino). With Julio's guidance we build relationships with children through playing, laughing, reading, singing, and dancing! The children simply stole out hearts! The are so cute and happy having somewhere safe to go and having cool role-models to look up to! We sang fun bible songs and acted out a skit to the story of Esther. We also served along side Flor, a woman in the community that takes children into her home for free and provides a safe place for them to be during the summer while their parents are working. We put on a party and had carnival games for the children the last day and of course we played futbol (soccer)! The staff also provided us meaningful and fun evening activities: went on a community walk, attended a church service, ate an authentic Mexican meal with a walk to get ice cream:) and visited the beach to see the border, the fence that separates the U.S and Mexico. The students participated in devotion time each morning and CLUB each night. Devo time was about 1 hour to spend reading scripture and praying alone, CLUB included praise and worship songs, discussion and a short talk by Kristi (and announcements from Jason). To end our days we had church group time where we gathered together Rick, Ryan, Ruby, Allison, Maria, Sophie, Taylor, Leah and I to debrief the day. I am so thankful to be apart of our group from Holy Spirit, Catholic Church and to get to know the youth on our trip! I look forward to sharing more stories and pictures with all of you about our trip!
Dios le Bendiga! (God Bless)
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