My Story: A Dirt Road Down to Mexico

I suppose since this blog is my story, to make sense of it to my readers, I should briefly explain my life from the beginning. My testimony, at least the very beginning, isn’t exactly an interesting story. It’s actually pretty typical. I’ve grown up in church my whole entire life and I officially accepted Jesus into my heart when I was 4 and a half years old. I was baptized when I was 5. Both of my parents are strong Christians and have set good examples in their faith for me and my siblings. They have always encouraged us to not live off of their faith, but to have our own faith and pursue our own relationships with Christ. When I was 7 and a half, my dad accepted a job as a children’s pastor at a church in Georgia. We lived there for a year and a half and then moved again to the good old Franklinton, NC because my dad had accepted another children’s pastor role at a church in Youngsville. One thing that I am most thankful for is that everywhere we have gone, my parents have greatly involved us in different types of service as a family. They have taught me and my siblings how to leverage every aspect of life for the Gospel.

One of the biggest and also weirdest parts of my life thus far, has been the Latino community. No matter where we go, God seems to place us in situations where we are ministering to Latino people and especially Latino children. I don’t even really know Spanish, but I want to learn. The first really big thing that happened was when I lived in Franklinton and we attended the church in Youngsville. Somehow some people at our church had discovered information about a migrant camp nearby.

I cannot even begin to explain how shocking it was when we took that dirt road through the tobacco fields and woods and came out to what looked like a 3rd world country. And when I say this, I am not exaggerating. A dirt road down to Mexico. If only I had taken more pictures of their living conditions the first summer that we went! I will try my best to depict a picture for you:

~ Imagine coming out of a wooded area, and there is a tobacco field down the slight hill to your left. There is one condemned trailer at the top of the hill on the left, and on the other side of the dusty end of the dirt road, there are two more condemned trailers, one beside the other. Insulation hangs from the bottom of the trailers that are lifted up on cement blocks high enough for kids to crawl underneath. Occasionally, you will see a young child sitting underneath eating the insulation. Since the trailers are condemned, only a few people are living in them.

(This picture is the only one that I have with part of a tent in it. This is also when we didn't know that it wasn't safe for us to be there when the men were there.)

Since they can’t live in them, they are living in dirty tents. Across from you, past the opening, the woods start again. Under two of the trees on the edge, a tarp hangs over a couple of cribs with crying babies left in them.

The second thing that you notice is that every inch of ground seems to be covered in all types of trash, even some dirty diapers and rotten cucumbers. To your right, there is a GIANT pile of trash that mainly consists of beer bottles, both metal and glass, which you then also notice are all over the ground as well.

Shards of glass are strewn all over the lawn. You may even find a large butcher knife on the ground, and a child may be playing with it. All of the kids are covered in dirt with clothes that all seem to be either way too small or way too big. You give them all of the clothes that you can find that will fit, maybe it will help. If you are there in the morning or in the middle of the afternoon, most likely the men and some women, even some of the kids, are all out working in the fields and tobacco barns. The kids are left to watch themselves with maybe two teenagers or one-two women watching. But there are too many babies and little kids to be watched all at once.

If you have been here before, they run to you! In fact, they swarm like a mad ant hill. If you have not been here before, they watch you intensely and possibly cry because they are scared.

 

The older ones might even have a scowl on their face. But they will warm up to you quickly once you get out the food. Oh! The food! They may not have eaten all day, unless they have rummaged through the trash from the adult’s mealtime. You spread out picnic blankets on the ground to sit on and hand out the food.

It’s not food they are used to. They aren’t used to food in general. So they most likely inspect their food before eating, and some of the youngest kids do not eat. They love pizza and chicken sandwiches, but ham sandwiches and PB&Js with white bread are weird alien foods to them, and even make them laugh.

Some think of their siblings who are out in the field and ask for extra food to save for them for when they come back. Maybe they take a little more for themselves as well.

The kids love to play with you, any kind of game. They aren't used to people being so interested in them. How could an adult be interested in a young child? Is that even normal? You run around playing hide and go seek and soccer (futbol) with them in the trees.

                    You let them sit in your lap and you read them the books that you loved as a kid.

                         They climb on your back, cling to your legs, sit on your lap, and don’t let go.

You teach them Bible stories about Jesus, Adam and Eve, Noah, and Moses, in which they’ve never heard before, and probably their parents haven’t heard before, and maybe even generations after that.

Most older kids know English almost fluently by now because they’ve attended school a couple of times in their lives, maybe a year or two in total, and their “babysitters” aren’t Latino. You find out that their babysitters are the local prostitutes. The rest of the women return home to cook lunch for their men. They find you there, and so they smile and play with their kids like its normal, but since the kids don’t like it, you can tell it’s not.

You also notice after some time that the kids scratch their head a lot. They are always scratching their heads. The older ones tell you that they have had lice for a while, so you hope that you don’t get lice too. The men arrive home to eat their lunch, drink some (lots) of beer, and take a short break. It’s time to leave because they will get rough. They stare at you like you are from another planet. The kids scream and cry and you probably have to rip them off of you. Some say “Mama!” with arms open to you as they sit on the dusty ground weeping for you to just hold them one more time. Your heart hurts heavily as you drive away and see them running after the car, and you realize that maybe, just maybe, you have fallen in love with those kids. ~

This was just what we experienced the first summer we went out there, and only once a week. The next summer, we went daily because we realized the need. Eventually, we realized just how dangerous it was out there, and had to stop. The second summer, the tents were gone because apparently not as many people were living there, and one of the trailers was so bad, that (if I remember correctly) it was removed. So they were all living in the two condemned trailers that were left. We began to notice the bruises and gashes and huge scars on the kids from when they were beaten by their drunk (at least I hope they were drunk) parents. One time, a little girl fell on a cooking stove that was lying on the ground and was burned horribly, and all they did was put toothpaste on it. We took her to the hospital. She was only two years old, sitting on the hospital bed crying, while the mom sat on the chair next to her paying no attention. I wasn't there because I wasn't allowed to go in anyways, but my mom said that she sat in the bed and held her.

(My Mom and the little girl who was burned)

Honestly, all of those kids should have been taken away from that place. Long story short, we tried, we along with another family who went out there with us were even fully open to adopting some of the kids, but nothing happened. We weren't able to find any hope for those kids. Trapped in the migrant’s unending cycle of high-school dropout teenage mothers, child labor, women labor, man labor, EVERYONE laboring for not enough pay, hungry children, drunk parents, abuse, prostitution, and the kids grow up and do the same thing. Because there was literally nothing else we could do to get them out of that cycle, I always wonder why God placed me, my family, and everyone else involved out there. I know one thing’s for sure, I DID fall in love with those kids and I miss them all the time. Since then, I have grown to love Latino people in general, along with their culture… and the food. Who knows? God may have used that experience to prepare me for something in the future. To open my eyes to the darkness in the world, even in the U.S. To show those kids the love they had never seen before. Or maybe even all of the above. I refuse to believe that the poverty they are in is what God wants for them, and I look at their pictures every so often so I will always remember to pray for a miracle.

A lot of times in my life, I have seen that God uses my greatest struggles and heartbreaks to grow me closer to Him. I would be a different person if I had never experienced this. My heart has grown ten-fold for missions, and has broken for the beautiful children out there somewhere; both the children that I have met, and the children that I hope to meet in the future. I've learned that He responds to our deep pain with a deep love and understanding that washes over us. 
Psalm 42:7 "Deep calls to deep in the roar of your waterfalls; all your waves and breakers have swept over me."
Our pain is meaningful, and He uses it to make us beautiful.