Mission trip

Crossing Borders, a GCI GenMin chartered mission organization, recently completed its 25th trip to Mexico (they conduct two each year). Crossing Borders’ director Lee Berger submitted the following remembrances and pictures from the most recent trip.

We continue to see that our mission trips are all about relationship—relationships our missionaries from all over the country have with one another, relationships with our Mexican ministry partners, and relationships with the people we are blessed to serve in Mexico. As shown in the pictures below (click to enlarge), our recent trip included all sorts of service activities involving about a dozen of our ministry partners. Each partner has their own unique set of challenges—ministry on the border in Mexico is very demanding! Over the years, these partners have come to trust us as supporters of their ministries and as encouragers of them personally.

Here are some of the activities our 17 missionaries were involved with during this 25th mission trip:

• One of our partners, Pastor Pedro, is facing a deadline to make payments for the land on which his church building sits. He and his wife are working hard to expand the size of the building while paying off the land debt. We were able to provide some monetary help.
• We supported another ministry partner family by providing two meals and playing with their three boys all day. We spent time listening attentively to their needs and stories, laughed and prayed, painted the exterior of their house, rebuilt a storage shed, repaired their broken computer (by which they homeschool their children), and strengthened friendships and ministry bonds.
• We visited a family for whom we built a small house several years ago.
• We distributed bags of socks and toiletry items to homeless people.
• We visited some partner churches where we shared messages about godly unity and thankfulness. We also conducted a four-station Vacation Bible School.
• We visited a senior citizen’s home and had some of the residents up dancing to lively praise songs.
• We sponsored a group lunch with personal gifts for each ministry partner.
• We conducted a Fiesta at a children’s home, complete with a new water slip-and-slide that we brought with us, water-blaster tubes, two meals, lively Uno card games, various craft projects, soccer, breaking a piñata filled with candy, and more.

God willing, we will head back to Mexico on December 7-10, 2018 to distribute Christmas gifts. For information, go to www.cbmission.org, or contact Lee Berger at 903-746-4463 or by email at lee.berger@gci.org.