The First Baptist Church of Littleton, MA sent a mission group to La Paz, Mexico on February 12-21, 2003.We would like to share with you a letter written by John Court, their group leader, that tells of their experience.
Submitted by David and Joyce Reed

MORE THAN A BUILDING PROJECT
by John Court

February 12th, our mission began as sixteen daring souls left our comfortable (and a little bit too cold lately) life in Littleton, MA. We left with much support from our friends and families as we set out on a mission adventure in La Paz, Mexico. We had a plan. We were going to help in the building of a seminary that will someday be used to help train the local ministers in La Paz. The details of what we were to do were not totally spelled out, which was a little bit unsettling to someone who wanted to know what to expect. I learned that we were just going to have to trust God with the details. What eventually happened on the trip was that we realized the mission and our purpose on the trip as it happened. This process was both exciting and awe inspiring as we learned our mission involved "laying a foundations," and "building bridges."

Arriving in La Paz we settled into our digs at the Casa Buena, which was a very appropriate name. Casa Buena is a place where we didn't mind sleeping in a bit over crowded quarters (16 people squeezed into 5 bedrooms), because we could fellowship in big central meeting area called the palapa. Here we could take our meals and fellowship with each other and with our hosts Susu and Milton Sanders. These folks are friends of Joyce and David Reed and I sensed that they're hospitality to us was a gift from them to us and from God. What a blessing! With a home base that we felt comfortable and able to rest in, we were freed to recharge up from our various projects. During the down times of the trip we were able to get a feel for La Paz. We visited churches, an orphanage, shops, the local sights, restaurants, and even the local laundry-mat, which many of us needed. We just had to hand over a bag of dirty laundry and 35 pesos and 4 hours later we picked up our washed dried and folded clothes.

We visited the work site of the seminary on our first day and saw the work that we were to do there. At the work site we met the men who we would work with for the next several days. We realized we would be digging the footings for the foundation to the library for the seminary. We would be using mostly a pick and a shovel to do our work, mostly grunt work. We soon realized that in addition to the task of digging a foundation, we needed to focus on "building bridges" with the other people at the work site and that this was a significant aspect of our mission work. We had to get out of our North American "stand offish" mind set and make efforts to reach out to these beautiful people. The people are warm and hard working with a pride and a sense of propriety that must stretch back to the combination of their Mexican and Spanish heritages. We had to learn to be more relationship minded and worry less about the tasks at hand.

Our group provided programs for the children at an orphanage, one of the Baptist churches, and at a neighborhood gathering. The craft and the activities that were done are another example of how bridge building was a hallmark of our trip. The faces of the children beamed with their excitement as our group showed them how to make friendship bracelets. Again here building relationships and working to understand each other took precedence over the task. Music was a big part of the trip. With the talent of For Higher and the voices of many, we shared our praise music and our spirit of excitement about being there, and about taking part in the symphony of God's plan. Music is a universal language, and we learned some new Spanish praise songs as well.

Leaving La Paz with a foundation in place for the future seminary library, I felt that a more lasting foundation had also been started. By going to La Paz, we had stepped out in faith and let our friends the Reeds, and our new friends in La Paz know that we cared. Our willingness to invest ourselves in the work that is ongoing in La Paz was a big encouragement to the folks there. The work we accomplished with God's empowerment and support allowed us to "build bridges" of relationship from our community of faith in Littleton to the community of faith in La Paz. An amazing thing also happened; we built some new bridges between the members of our group. Laying foundations and building bridges, maybe that's part of what "missions" is all about?