A family tradition

In the spring of 2000, everyone was wiping their brows after the Y2K scare, the last new Peanuts cartoon was published, and the first season of Survivor kicked off on CBS. Bryan and I were finishing up our freshman year at Sprague High School and our church youth group was preparing to go on a mission trip to Mexico that summer. While Bryan and I were far from being a couple at the time, we both decided to go on this trip. We went mainly because our friends were going and it sounded exciting to travel outside of the country without our parents.

A trip that started as a “fun thing to do,” ended up shaping us in much bigger ways. 

For the first time, I experienced poverty. 

I was astounded at the houses made of plastic and plywood, bursting with smiling children. It was a wonder to me how they could be so happy yet have so little. 

Bryan worked to clean up a church which was an old storefront where they set up old folding chairs to worship God together. 

I learned how to straighten old rebar, twist wire and set bricks and mortar to construct a protective wall for a local family. It never occurred to me how much work was required to construct such things I had seen in passing every day. 

Bryan dug nasty bricks out of a pit toilet to create more room and we both learned to sleep in open-air rooms where bugs had free reign. 

I swam in the warm pacific for the first time and spent many nights falling asleep with my friends’ laughter in my ears and a smile on my face. 

The 2000 Mexico mission trip was challenging, yet so rewarding for us.

Twenty years later, it is our goal for our children to experience the sacrifices and rewards of mission trips as we take Piper (age 6) and Cayden (age 9) with us, back to Mexico to build a house for a local family. 
Over Spring Break (March 21-28) our church in Corvallis, Grant Avenue Baptist Church, is sending a group of 22 to build a house with Amor Ministries in Tijuana, Mexico. We are so excited for this opportunity to share our love of missions with our children, and let them see God’s people at work, serving others. I can’t wait for them to see the world in a different light, hopefully teaching them that every person, no matter their race or social position, is loved by God and should be loved by us. 

Our mission trip team to Mexico last year over Spring Break

Throughout the past 8 years, Spring Break has been about mission trips for Bryan. I have also participated on the years we didn’t have a newborn, traveling to Peru, Haiti and Mexico in past years. Our kids, however, have stayed home with friends and family (having great Spring Breaks, mind you), never really understanding what it is their parents are doing. That is why we are so excited for this year!

We plan on driving the church bus all the way to Mexico and staying on one of the guarded Amor bases in Tijuana. Amor Ministries provides us space to camp, and we pay them to cook our meals. There are bucket showers and pit toilets and lots of dirt! Every morning, we will take our bus to our job site, where we will construct a 2-bedroom house for a local church family. We will hand mix the concrete, lay a slab for the foundation, build the frames of the walls, raise the walls and the roof, stucco the walls and lay the roofing. No power tools allowed, so there is lots of teamwork involved.

Piper is excited and says she is looking forward to building a house. Cayden is nervous, but she is excited to sing songs around the campfire. Judah (age 3) will be hanging out with family while we are gone.

In the past 40 years, Amor teams have built 19,890 houses and 374 churches. I hope our children will always remember when they put aside their personal comfort to change the lives of a family by building a home for them this March. For more information about Amor, visit the website for Amor here. If you want to see a video from our trip last Spring Break, it can be seen at: see video here.

Please be praying for us as we prepare for this trip, and if you would like to help financially support us, we could really use your help, as we need to raise $2000 to go.  The simplest way to contribute is online here. Make sure to put “Bernard Mexico” in the memo. Checks can be made out to Grant Avenue Baptist Church, with “Mexico – Bernard” in the memo line. Grant address: 1625 NW Grant Ave, Corvallis, OR 97330. All contributions are tax deductible (if checks are made out to the church).

Another way to support us (if you are from Salem/Corvallis) is to donate your pop cans to us, so we can redeem them. The girls love taking pop cans back and are working to fill up our “Mexico Jar” as their contribution to our trip funds. Please call me (Charissa) at 503-779-5273 to arrange drop off. Thank you for all your prayers and support!!!