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Jim and I left Baggs to go to Denver and Castle Rock to visit our kids there before leaving for Mexico. We had a wonderful time at Roy and Julie’s. We went out to dinner to a Viet Namese restaurant, visited and then watched the movie “Terminal”.

Quite an appropriate choice since we were flying out of Denver’s airport the next day.

We went to Laurel and Ken’s. Bob and Connie (Ken’s parents) were there for the holiday from Texas. Jamie and Jackson came for lunch. Baby Brooklynn was sick with a temperature of 104, so Jamey stayed home with her. Enjoyed Kaylee and Makenna. They were SO-OO into Christmas. We stopped by to see Jayme and the baby before going to have Roy drive us to the airport. We left the Suburban at his house while we were gone.

We met the Skalbergs and Paul at the motel, made arrangements for a shuttle and a wake-up call.

The men split up the money so no one person would be carrying a large amount of cash.

Todd, Angeli, and the girls left ahead of us. We all had too much luggage for one shuttle. While waiting for our shuttle in the lobby, we met 5 year old Abby. She had leg braces and was in a wheel chair, but was the cheeriest one on the shuttle.

Todd got us checked onto the plane. June’s purse did not pass the scan, so it had to be hand checked .

We all ate breakfast at McDonald’s then boarded the plane. It was a good flight. We changed planes at Houston. We ate lunch at different places in the airport Paul, Todd, Jim and June ate over-priced ribs, Angeli ate a sensible salad and the kids and Jake ate hamburgers.

The waiting area for our flight was very crowded, noisy and smelly. We decided to go down the hall to the chairs overlooking the runway to wait until 4:00 when our flight was due. Angeli went to check the board to see if there was a change in time, and discovered that the pilot was ready to close the door. We had been too far away to hear the call for us to board. The plane came earlier than had been posted. We nearly missed our flight, but Angeli persuaded the woman in charge to wait while Olivia ran to get the rest of us. It was a close call. We were lucky to have such a nice pilot. We received several dirty looks as we boarded, stowed our carry-ons and got belted into our seats. Several people who were flying stand-by were disappointed that we showed up.

We arrived in Harlengen, Texas and were met by Bill and Nancy, Erin and Tim, Shannon, and Becky. They brought vans to take us across the border to the Gateway, the AIM community where we got settled into our rooms. There were only a few rooms that had heating and we stayed there. It was very cold for that time of year down there.

Dinner was at the private residence of the kitchen manager and her family. She doesn’t work this time of year, but agreed to feed us at her home. We had traditional food: tamales, soup, stew, salad, guacamole, and drinks. What a feast! Patty used beautiful lace table clothes and set one large table to accommodate all of us. It was a very nice meal and we enjoyed seeing the inside of one of the local homes.

Bedtime was around 9:30. We were glad for the heated rooms, it was quite chilly and rainy.

We woke up to a rainy, cold day. First thing, the electricity went off. The generator took over, so we were not without electricity for very long. We all huddled in the kitchen to try to keep warm.

Part of the group went shopping to buy gifts for the women and children at the prison where we will visit tomorrow. The rest of us stayed to prepare the meal for this evening and to make cards for the children at the prison

When half of the shoppers returned, we made lunch. The other half were held up while a train went by. (This is their story anyway).

At 3:30 we left for Bob and Marissa Waag’s house for dinner. This is where we met Gilbert Garcia, our interpreter. We took ham, macaroni and cheese and green beans for the meal. After supper, we made hot chocolate and packed up burritos that the women of Bob’s church had made to take downtown to the hospital to share with the patients and those who were in the waiting room.

This visit was very depressing. The building was small, dirty and cold. There was a woman in the waiting room who was crying. Her daughter, 16 years old, had just delivered a baby who died. The young mother was in critical condition because she had hemorrhaged and her blood pressure was dangerously high. They were looking allover Texas for the medication she needed, but were not having any luck.. Gilbert translated so we were able to understand what was going on. Paul and several of the rest of us laid hands on the woman and prayed for her. Meanwhile, Bob and some of our group went into the rooms to visit. One lady was very happy to see them. None of her own family had been to visit her since she had been in the hospital and she was very lonely.

There was freezing rain onthe door and the trees when we got back to the Gateway.While everyone was getting something warm to drink, the electricity went off again. We all decided to go to bed early.

It’s Christmas! And we had a white one! This is the first time for Matamoros. Gilbert had never seen snow. He was very excited!

A wonderful breakfast of French toast, sausage, eggs, and oranges was made and served by Shannon and Tim. We ate and visited then headed for the kitchen to clean up and get the food started for us to take to the women’s prison. Everyone shared by cutting up something to put into the stew. Erin and Tim picked up decorated cakes.

We visited, played cribbage, cleaned up and loaded the vans with the gifts for the women and their children and all of the food, then headed for the prison.

We could not find a parking place near the entrance, so carrying all of the stuff-gifts, food and lemonade took the cooperation of everyone.

Guards looked through all of the gifts and took out hats, scissors and jump ropes. We showed our I.D.s , then were stamped. We each got two small pieces of paper with identical numbers. We kept one and the other was attached to our I.D. which was left with the check-in guard. We were then moved to a small private room and had our bodies checked to be sure we were not carrying anything forbidden to the prisoners.

It was intimidating to walk inside the prison. We saw men and women dressed in street clothes. This surprised me. I had expected to see orange coveralls.

The guards opened the gate to the open air courtyard. We walked through quite a maze of concrete halls before we got to the area where we were to set up, gifts on one table, food on another. The tables and the benches were made of concrete.

There were many people there visiting, so we fed more than just the prisoners and their children.

After the meal and also during serving, we mingled and visited some. It was hard to communicate, but Gilbert, Marissa, Bob and their boys helped us translate.

Watching the kids hit the piñata was the most fun of all. Some of the men prisoners had placed the piñata on the confiscated jump ropes. They were on the two roofs on opposite sides of the open area between the living quarters. The men bounced and pulled on the rope while the kids tried to hit the piñata. Everyone sang “the piñata” song when each person tried to break the piñata. Even a grandma took a try. (We later learned that she is the main drug dealer within the prison). When the piñata broke, everyone scrambled for the candy. Every single piece was scooped up in about 10 seconds.

We asked the guards if we could leave the rest of the food with the prisoners. It was decided that we should take the left-overs into the prison to the ones who were “being disciplined” in solitary confinement. Our guys carried the pots inside where they dumped everything together for the 8 men. The men were in a pit covered with a cover, like a manhole in a street. They picked up dirty plates from the floor, wiped them with their hands and handed them up to be filled with the food.

After we returned to the Gateway, we took time to rest and clean up and then set out food for “grazing”.

Paul led a nice Christmas service with scripture, (the Christmas story from Luke), a reading from Max Lucado, prayer and praise time, and songs. I personally missed singing the traditional carols, but the praise songs were on C.D.s and it was easy to sing along with the music.

At different times during the day, groups played cards and visited. The Skalberg girls were a delight for all of us with their enthusiasm. They never whined or complained about the cold or the food as most kids their age might have done. They made friends with the kids who were riding bikes in the parking lot. They played cards with all of us and learned some new card tricks.

Breakfast was at 8:30. I was early, but everyone had already started eating. After breakfast we had time for devotions and discussion.

Half of us stayed at the Gateway, cleaned up after breakfast and got lunch. The rest of us went downtown to see if the church where we planned to worship tonight was going have service and at what time. The minister there is a lady. She is married to Erasmus who works for the Gateway as an interpreter. They had gone to Monterey to visit family for Christmas, so Bill was not sure they would be back for services tonight.

On the way back, we stopped at a store to buy chocolate for chocolate milk to take to the children at the shelter tomorrow. We all bought some of the chocolate to take back home. We checked our the shelter. Esther, the manager was not there, but would be back later. We are to call to make arrangements for our visit.

As a group we chose to go to the church downtown instead of Bob’s church. We will work with him tomorrow at the school he and Marissa are building.

Right after lunch we chopped up vegetables for chili. Bill made the chili while we toured the institute where AIM trains missionaries. Spartan rooms, few amenities. The caretaker and his family just moved in. They share one large room that he divided into 3 sleeping areas. The mom had chosen nice colors and decorated the small spaces with things the kids could enjoy. There was a t.v and lots of shelves for storage, but the floor space was mostly taken up with the beds. Tim invited them to come to church with us.

We arrived at church early. No one was there to let us go inside, so most of us decided to go across the street and walk through a very old cemetery. They bury the dead in stone boxes above the ground, stacking family members on top of each other on one plot. Lots of ornate rock and tile work decorated the gravesites. There were several new memorial wreaths. There were broken tops on many of the tombs. It looked as though vagrants used the cemetery for sleeping. There was rubbish everywhere . It appeared as if one man stood outside the cemetery all day. We wondered if he earned money by showing people where to find their family member’s plots. He had been there in the morning and was still there when we got there.

Church was quite an experience. There were only a small number of the people there, but we made it quite a group when sixteen of us arrived. We waited around for quite awhile before church began. It was very cold inside the stone building. The small benches had no backs, so we huddled close together to keep warm. Bill finally told them that we needed to leave by 8:00 so we could get the girls home for bedtime.

They prayed for us, while simultaneously, we prayed for them, each in our own language. It was quite a moving experience. It was hard to understand what everyone was saying, but it was obvious everyone was praying with much emotion. We listened as the minister, Adrianne, read the scripture in Spanish. Gilbert translated everything with so much feeling, it seemed to be his own words instead of repeating what was said. That was a very wonderful experience to see him so animated and happy to translate the scriptures. Paul spoke, telling us of the story of Daniel and how he kept his faith no matter what the king did to crush it. Todd gave testimony, Bill spoke, we sang for them, they sang for us, we sang together. Overall, it was a wonderful experience.

One half of the group went to the construction site where they moved poles and cement blocks nearer to the site where they were to be used during the week..

The rest of us went to see the children at the shelter. Bill, Bill and Angeli went shopping for gifts for the kids after checking on ages and sexes of the kids. The director asked for gifts the whole group could share.

Todd, Nancy, Erasmus, Olivia, Lydia, Ellie, and June stayed to play with the children. Nancy, June and the girls played with the little children. We were even able to put the baby and one of the toddlers to sleep while swinging. Nancy and Todd were able to talk with some of the older boys. Todd, Erasmus and the girls played soccer with the older boys while Nancy and June cared for Sarah.

Sarah was severely retarded, has cerebral palsy and had braces on her legs. She liked to have someone hold her up so she could stand on her feet. We “danced” with her on a platform built in the backyard. She liked to hear the thump, thump, thump of her feet on the wood.

Angeli and crew brought the toys and some M&Ms for all. Even Sarah got a bear and candy.

We met at Bob and Marissa’s house for a lunch of peanut butter sandwiches,etc. We then all went to the construction site.

The men worked on the support beams. These were originally too short, so the men were nailing extensions onto the poles using scrap lumber. This lumber was scavenged by the ladies and girls from the clutter around the site. This lumber was of such poor quality that we in the USA would have thrown away, but the crew put it to use to lengthen the poles to make the support beams longer. We stacked up the other scraps of wood into piles of approximately the same length so it could be used in similar ways during the project. We also gathered quite a large pile of trash that would be burned later.

Angeli, accompanied by the girls and Gilbert passed out candy to the kids in the makeshift houses that were built near the dump in the colonial (neighborhood)

Another group visited a lady, Carmen, who had lost most of her shelter because of the rain and snow the day before. She and her family and several others from the “dump city” had spent the night in a local shelter because it had been so cold the night before. She was cheerful and was making plans to rebuild her shelter.

We stopped at a grocery store for supper supplies on the way home. When we arrived, everyone pitched in to get supper ready. A delicious meal of ribs and potatoes and squash was followed by clean up, cards, and conversation.

Bedtime came early. We were all tired. We will be boarding the vans at 9:00 in the morning to go to the plaza downtown for shopping and dinner.

Breakfast, 8:00. The kitchen was always the place where we met and huddled around the stove to get warm in the mornings.

We split up again, going to the worksite or the children’s shelter, planning to meet again at Bob and Marissa’s for lunch. This time we took the ribs and left-overs from supper the night before. We planned to meet and go shopping and to a nice dinner down town later in the afternoon.

Our bus went to the children’s shelter where we toured the facility with Esther as our guide. Then we played with the kids. Another church group was there. They had brought gifts and we helped the kids with their packages. We helped organize their parts and pieces so the right kid had the correct toys. We played with the kids and their toys and another soccer game was enjoyed by the older boys.

The other busload went to the construction site and moved the materials, again. The stone masons needed to be in the space where we had placed all of the materials the day before.

Laying this cement brick is not an easy process. The laborers mix the concrete by hand on the ground and haul it up ladders in buckets like a bucket brigade. It is hard and heavy work. Most of the building we saw were made of cement brick and we assume the majority of them are made in the same tedious manner.

When we arrived back at the Gateway, everyone pitched in and began to clean up what we could before we left tomorrow. We decided to leave the bathrooms until we had all showered the next morning.

We began the day, as usual, in the kitchen. We finished breakfast and then tried to decide what to do with the left-over food. Most will go to Bob and Marissa to help feed the laborers and some will go to the caretaker.

We swept and checked to see if we had left anything, packed and loaded the vans to set off for the airport and our trip home.

The border guard did check under our seats and banged in the sides of the van before letting us cross back onto Texas soil. It was a little unnerving, but not fearful. We waited for the Wiggins to pass over the border before setting off again. The Wiggins had graciously offered to take home some of our luggage so we could get onto the planes with less trouble. They had quite a load.

The flight was relatively uneventful, no missed planes. We ate a very nice meal at Pappadeaux in the Houston airport, then boarded the plane for home. We arrived at DIA and headed for our different destinations. The Skalbergs and Paul headed for Baggs, Jake headed back to school and Jim and June were met at the airport by Roy, where they stayed the night before heading back home to Baggs.

Journal—Mission Trip to Matamoros Mexico