Mooreover / Blog

As Kami posted in my absence, I just returned from a missions trip in Mexico. We originally joined Mill Creek Four Square Church because of their heart for missions and their partnership with the Rancho de Sus Ninos Orphanage. Our church organizes two groups for missions work at the orphanage - one composed mostly of teenagers to put on soccer clinics and another group to take on the construction of new buildings. I don’t play soccer (and I’m not longer a teenager), so construction it was.

I’ve never been to Mexico before - in fact, until a couple of months ago I hadn’t been out of the U.S. at all (including Canada), so driving across the border was quite an eye-opening experience. We went through the Tijuana border crossing, and for those that haven’t been there, Tijuana isn’t a resort town. We didn’t have a chance to walk through any of the barrios, but we drove through thousands of dwellings composed of scrap metal, scrap lumber, billboards, and cardboard. To see such a stark contrast within minutes of San Diego was a little unexpected.

The orphanage itself is located between Tijuana and Tecate, and sits on 30 acres. The property is surrounded by a concrete wall, with someone posted at the main gate to interrogate visitors. We were told that we weren’t able to interact with the children - partly because of the abuse that some of the children had suffered and to make their job safeguarding the children easier. Our job was to work on the construction of a hospice - a safe, more comfortable place for people to pass on under the care and supervision of a loving staff. We were only there five days, but we tried to get in about ten hours of work a day, and we managed to get a lot done. It was neat to be around people of different skills, different trades, getting together out of a desire to help others.

I would encourage others to look into helping out at Rancho de Sus Ninos (His Kid’s Ranch). You can fly into San Diego and make a short drive to the ranch, so it’s as economical of a missions trip as you can make. It’s pretty amazing to hear the story of how the orphanage came into being, and the director would be happy to tell it to you or your group if given the opportunity. You can get more information at THEIR WEBSITE, and you can see of few of the pics I took HERE.

I also had some of the best Mexican food ever - both at the orphanage itself and at a little taco stand in Tecate. I took a short video with my camera just to show you how fast they can put a taco together.