The Traveler

In the month of January I wrote a check for some three hundred dollars to seal the deal on my and Aubrey's participation to build a house in Mexico in the month of July. The bitter chill of a New Jersey winter was a far cry to the dead heat of a Mexican summer. That first check was just a step toward the completion of a work that God had called me to do. What does this work entail? For such a novice as myself I was told that for four days a team that I would be a part of would build a house for a poor family in Mexico through Amor ministries. We would travel to San Diego, then into Mexico where we would set up camp at the Amor campgrounds and from there travel into a town and build a house. Words sound easier than the experience.

On July 5th Aubrey and myself woke early in the morning to meet up with our Mexico team, comprising of members of the First Presbyterian Church of Dunellen, to head out to Newark airport to fly to San Diego. Upon our arrival in San Diego, soaking up the sun and feeling the breeze of the port or San Diego, I was approached by Stephen Geiger. In a manner that only fits Stephen he asked me, "How do you feel about driving a 15 passenger van?" What I thought would be a burden at the time became a simple, "Ok." Harkening back to my Bound Brook Ford driving days I knew I could handle the van, what I couldn't manage was the traffic patterns of the state of California's road system. Many wrong turns and narrow misses later we found our way to the In and Out Burger. (Which I find to be an odd name for a food joint, think about it.)

Driving the streets of San Diego proved manageable after a while, though I'm still confused over a traffic light that I saw. Two lights were red and two lights were green at the same time. I chose to go. Once we left San Diego the desert came alive. American sprawl in the middle of an arid landscape was a peculiar sight but as the Mexican border approached mountains came into view and somehow inside I knew everything was about to change. 

Going into Mexico was a breeze. Traveling through Tijuana and seeing people begging on the median of the highway proved that I wasn't in the wonderful land of Oz anymore. As I drove out of Tijuana and went into the mountains and rocky landscape everything felt different. The dirt roads into camp would provide a weeks worth of enjoyment for myself and those who road in the back of the van. As we entered the camp-sight the surroundings were very simple. Just a flat piece of ground and one building for a type of canteena, a concrete structure known as the showers and of course the baños. 

Stepping out onto the dirtiest, hardest  ground in the world the immediate sensory invasion was through the nose. The row of port-a-potties was emitting a putrid smell that welcomed all of our spoiled bathroom senses. To stand in a small, dark space, with fly's buzzing about and looking into the toilet hole and seeing a trough of human excrement proved that a life changing experience was in store this week. Being a runner and useing many a port-a-pottie before races I thought I had smelled everything that could come from a port-a-pottie. But these bathrooms, that will now be known as what they are, the baños, would be the bane of many people throughout the week. But there was something more to the baños, there was life and landscape all around. At night, the stars shone bright and the moon would light the way for those who needed to use the baños. After finding some manageable baños in the row (In the picture I looked the blue ones in the center) the bathroom became just a thing. 

I can't help but think of the countless number of times that I've taken extreme care over the bathroom in my house. As if for some reason that the bathroom was sacred ground. There's even a thought in my mind that Jesus would come back and find me cleaning my toilet bowl and then asking me, "Why are you doing this?" A lesson of simplicity runs its' course in Mexico.