On July 6-16, our High School Youth Group went to Chablekal, Mexico in the Yucatan for a Mission Trip. It was a fantastic 10 days. We went to serve and support Don Wehmeyer (a PC-USA missionary our congregation supports financially through the Outreach Foundation), his family and their ministry.
Our projects consisted of construction and landscaping at the Getsemani Retreat Center that Don oversees as well as running a three-day Vacation Bible School at the Iglesia Filadelfia (the Church of Brotherly Love) where Don is the Pastor.
The construction was hard work, but rewarding. We worked on helping to build a new kitchen and dining facility that will be able to seat 60 people. Construction in the Yucatan is largely done with concrete and rebar. So we mixed concrete by hand, with only shovels. One “normal” load was twenty 5-gallon buckets full of sand, 3 bags of cement, 2.5 wheelbarrows full of gravel and a whole lot of water. Most of the time we weren’t doing normal loads, though. Most loads were double loads because we had large areas to fill quickly. Most of the concrete we poured was for support beams and the roof. Each beam had to be poured as one contiguous pour. So, that meant that we worked until each job was complete.
While one group mixed concrete, another group worked on leveling out the ground (which eventually will become the floor of the building). This involved moving fill dirt from the pile where the truck dumped it to the construction site and then leveling it out on the ground. We had two or three people filling 5-gallon buckets with dirt while the rest of us passed full buckets down a “bucket brigade” line. We then passed the empty buckets back to the dirt pile. During our ten days, we moved about 6 dump truck loads of dirt.
When mixing the concrete by hand was done, we would take a break from moving dirt and move the concrete instead, in much the same manner. We would have a few people fill buckets with concrete and then “bucket brigade” them to wherever we were pouring. When that pile of concrete was done, we went back to work on the dirt pile while another group mixed concrete. We tried to keep the jobs rotating as much as possible to keep things fair and to make sure everyone got a chance to work on all of the projects. We also took frequent water breaks. All in all, we consumed about 300 gallons of water in 10 days, nearly a gallon per person per day!
We also did some landscaping. We pulled a lot of weeds – tall weeds – from all over the retreat center. We cleared rocks. We uprooted some bushes and replanted them. We painted the concrete wall surrounding the center. We put up chicken wire to keep stray dogs out. We trimmed bushes and repaired a stepping stone walkway. We also picked up a great deal of garbage, particularly in front of the retreat center along the street. Don and the staff at the retreat center were tickled with how the place looked when we were finished.
We also did some work at the Iglesia Filadelfia church. We moved block for their future bell tower, picked up trash and debris and put in a wire fence to keep their volleyball from going into neighboring yards.
Vacation Bible School, though it was only three days, was a big part of our trip. We sang songs, performed some dramas, did arts and crafts and played games with the kids. We had a wonderful time bonding with the children from the church. I think for most of our team, it was hard to say goodbye to the children.
The trip wasn’t all work, though. We also had time for play. We visited the Mayan ruins of Chichen Itza, the gulf beach of Progresso, the city of Merida (the capital of the state of Yucatan) and a “cenote”, which is an absolutely beautiful sinkhole where we spent an afternoon swimming. We also got to play volleyball many evenings with youth and young adults from the church and community.
Thank you so much for your support of our mission trip. Through the money you gave and the prayers you prayed, we were able to support the Wehmeyers and their ministry in a very tangible way. We were also able to give those from Chestnut Level who participated in this trip a tremendous experience and many wonderful memories. More than all of that, though, we were able to glorify Jesus Christ by responding to His call to “Go into all the world and make disciples.” Thanks for helping to make that a reality! 
