To Go or Not To Go....

Anyone who knows me or even reads my blog can tell that I am a huge missions person. I became a Christ Follower on a house building trip to Mexico and have done everything I can to go on more each year. This year we were set to take over 200 high school students and leaders to Mexico over Spring Break when chaos broke out. The media decided to begin showing stories of violence in the California/Mexico border towns and warning people to not go near Mexico. Now, as Christians we are called to live on the edge through faith, right? We are called to go into places no one else wants to go into. Well, that is not exactly how the parents of minors see it.

One Wednesday night one of the top news stories was about how people are getting killed all over Mexico. (Now, let's be realistic here...it's not happening ALL OVER Mexico. It's kind of like when there are huge wildfires in Southern California and I live at least 6 driving hours away from them I get calls from family that live on the East Coast asking if our house is burning down. Lesson 1: before going crazy pull a map up from Google and take a look at the areas of violence and the areas of travel.) So, news story airs on Wednesday night and thus begins the frenzy. Thursday the church office gets swamped with parents saying their child is not going, the Church is being irresponsible in taking kids to die...because clearly that was our goal all along, Mexicans may need homes but their child is not going to die for THAT...and on and on. We decide to hold a parent meeting in which we could address these issues all at once rather than one by one and even have a representative from the organization we are working with fly up from San Diego.

Here is a brief recap of the meeting:
Matt (Pastor of Student Ministries and my husband) and Jon (Amor Rep.) begin by speaking for about 35-45 minutes about our safety precautions, what we know as fact, what are rumors, how we handle everything, yada, yada, yada....they do a GREAT job by the way.

And this happens....

Parents begin asking questions:
some are valid questions-
can my child at least call to let me know they are OK? (We usually don't allow contact with family/friends at home for many reasons but that is another post for another time!)
How far away from the violence will you be....
Is there a fence around the area where you stay...

And then the ridiculous questions:
Q. Who will be armed (carrying guns)?
My thought: is that really the best solution? To add more guns to the situation...and what are you expecting- for us Christian missionaries to get into a shoot out with the drug cartel?
Appropriate and given answer: it is illegal for US citizens to carry guns into Mexico, so no one will be carrying guns.
Response from a parent and leader on the trip: there are 230 of us and we all have hammers-so yes we are armed!

Q. Do the drug cartel know our group is coming down over spring break?
My thought: Yes, I just emailed them and they will be waiting at the border for us. Oh, Should I not have them on our email distribution list??
Appropriate and given answer: I'm really not sure.

Q. Does building houses in Mexico even have a benefit.
My thought: I'm going to hurt you right now for even asking that question.
Appropriate and given answer: The Mexico trip changes not only the lives of the Mexican families we minister to but all the lives of the students and leaders.

So, after the meeting we thought the frenzy would calm down...we were wrong. In fact, one parent began emailing students will information from the CIA (false information from what I researched). And, of course on the night of the meeting there had been no reports of violence in Tecate-where we were going. Wouldn't you know it-Wednesday morning reports of 2 sixteen year old girls (from Mexico) being found dead in Tecate began popping up all over the Internet and news channels. Nice timing! So then the calls began to flood in-you lied! You said it was safe in Tecate. Ugh! It WAS!

So, after much, much prayer and hours of research we have had to postpone our annual Mexico trip. I can't tell you how difficult of a decision this was-especially for a missions driven person like myself. If we were taking adults instead of minors on the trip we would still be going. I personally don't think we would encounter any danger but also have to remember that it is different when taking minors instead of adults and that we need to not take the trust of our parents lightly.

I know God will do amazing things wherever we serve. My heart breaks for the students who so badly want to go.

I did learn that I never want to have a parent meeting like that again. I heard that all community meetings in our area are similar to that, needless to say I will not be attending any of those!! It amazes me how we as a youth group/church can do so much for some families and they can turn on you in an instant. It is frustrating to see how some parents have no trust or respect for the church leadership. It also makes me think about how God must feel when people are lukewarm and when people only turn to Him when they need Him and use Him like a genie. If it frustrates me this much I can't imagine how He feels.

Let's pray that the violence in Mexico calms down before Spring Break 2010 so we don't have to go through that again!