March 2017 Mission Trip

Three times a year (March, July, December) the Vallado Project sends a team to San Luis Potosi, Mexico to serve, love and connect with the women and children of the Casa Vallado Children’s Home. We’ve been doing this for 10 years now and every time we go we always return having had an amazing experience, having made lots of great memories, and having been blown away, yet again, by how special and spectacular these beautiful children are. So…I figured it was time to start writing about our trips so that you, the Vallado sponsors, prayer partners and pen pals, could get a richer taste of what you are involved with.

Typically our trips consist of projects and repairs around the children’s homes, a short Bible camp where we teach the children about the love of Jesus and important biblical lessons like love, commitment, integrity, perseverance, etc. We also spend time with the kids at a local park, water park, or, as we did this March, a Peter Piper’s Pizza & Entertainment (personally, these are my favorite moments). The goal of the trips is both to serve the practical needs of the Casa Vallado community, but also to engage the relational and spiritual needs. We hope to help these kids understand that even if there are people who have abandoned them in life, there are others who love them, think about them, and long to spend time with them.

So far, it appears that message has been received loud and clear. Every time we arrive we are greeted with grins that span from ear to ear, hugs that simply melt away traveling woes, and friendship that easily surpasses language, cultural or geographical barriers. Our most recent trip in March was no different as we once again stepped into the Casa Vallado world to love and serve these precious boys and girls.

As far as projects go, we spent the week mostly painting, but were able to repair some bedroom doors and patch a leaky ceiling while we were at it. Of course, when the paint brushes come out so does the temptation for the kids to get themselves, and everyone within the velocity of a flinging paint brush, messy with paint (this may give you an idea of how we came up with the painted handprint logo). But, to give these kids the opportunity to be involved, to partner with us, to serve their moms and foster siblings by helping with the projects is far more valuable than the cost of having to replace a t-shirt that has been redesigned with tiny hands that have been dipped in paint, or cute attempts at autographs.

On the relational front, we sent some of the ladies from our team, Sulamita and Elizabeth, out with the Vallado Moms, and the oldest girl, Jaqui, to spend an afternoon relaxing, being pampered, having their hair done and just having some ‘girl-time,’ which is something these moms rarely ever get. While the moms were out, the rest of our team stepped in to fill the gap by helping the kids with their homework and studying for their big mid-semester tests they have coming up. There is something magical that happens when you are walking through the journey of learning with a child, and our team did an amazing job at leading the kids into understanding and knowledge. Now, let’s just hope and pray they don’t forget it before their tests at the end of the month.

As mentioned earlier, we finished the week at Peter Piper’s Pizza (if you’ve never heard of that place, think Chuck E Cheese on steroids). We usually try to treat the children to an experience they rarely, if ever, get to have. So, we take them to water parks where many of them are able to go on a water slide for the first time. We take them to a park where we hand-feed squirrels and ducks. This trip we introduced them to the world of video games, something most kids in America spend too much time doing, but that the children of Vallado have done maybe once or twice in their lives. Once the confusion of what to do with the colorful buttons and strange looking handles sticking out of the box with a TV screen on it subsided, the fun, smiles, enjoyment and excitement quickly flooded the building. Our team can attest to the fact that watching intrigue and joy come across a child’s face while zapping giant, alien spiders off the screen far exceeds any feeling that playing the game yourself could ever produce.

When it was time to leave, amidst the shedding of tears and sniffles of crying, we hugged the children and the moms, reminded them that we are standing with them and praying for them and continuing to seek ways to better serve them over the upcoming months and years. It is always a difficult moment to say goodbye. Often times I find myself torn between two worlds. I have a beautiful and loving family waiting back home, but these heart-gripping children I am about to leave. I think the thing that enables me to stand in that tension, and that I would be willing to guess helps the rest of our team stand in that tension as well, is fact that I know the Vallado Children understand that distance does not equal abandonment. They know that the love we share spans space and time and that one day, very soon, we will be together again sharing in the joy, laughter, and love that God has so graciously given us with one another.

See you in July kiddos!