• “Tijuana Blitz” Includes Kids!
One of the largest One-Day Mission Trips organized by the Bread of Life Church in Torrance, CA was done this Oct 6th. Over 150 of us loaded three buses and ventured into Tijuana to visit four venues…a Tijuana Blitz, if you will. One venue was the La Mesa Jail in Tijuana, the other three were churches, that we have visited before. However, this time…
Two of the churches were painted inside and out in a half day. Each place had a full medical team: doctors, dentists, nurses, pharmacy, and translators. In addition to women’s ministry, children’s ministry, and men’s ministry, lunches were provided for all who came to us.
At the jail, one hundred-fifty inmates joined us for all the services we could provide in the time we had. There we enjoyed such great freedom to minister, with musicians, selected testimonies, a good sermon and prayers. And we feed them too. In addition to all the free medical services, there was a women’s ministry for the wives. Yes, we were able to bring all our self-contained sound equipment, food service and stove, free medicine, teaching aids and props, new testaments, gospel magic, theme crafts and gifts for the children, etc., into the jail.
For this mission I trained over twenty-team members for three sites. Each team had (1) a children’s speaker who presented an illustrated message, (2) a song leader to lead new choreographed music, and (3) a craft leader to oversee the “make and take” theme craft for all the kids. At one church, that has more room, we even had a recreation leader for fun organized games. Michael La Fond, one of my protégé’s, was the children’s speaker at one site. He had a great experience with the children, doing an illustrated message with visual illusions.
I went to the Tijuana Jail with my team. There we had the opportunity to minister to the children in jail! Yes, the children come with their mothers to jail when they visit their husbands, who are incarcerated there. Saturdays are designated as Family Day at the jail. They come to visit Dad. Some of us come to visit them. It is possible that the father, mother and the children are being dealt with in three separate programs in Jail.
At the end of the day we all gathered at the largest church for dinner together and a time of sharing before we returned home. I am always amazed how much really gets done in a short day of ministry, again, it was just incredible. The churches are helped, the pastors are encouraged, and some children have a good time, because we obediently came across the border to share. God is at work in Mexico, He is doing a work there. This “Tijuana Blitz” included the kids. I am so glad to just be apart of it.
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