A Journal Entry – Mexico 1989

O.K. so I have always been a little strange.  As a child I remember being held captive by our black and white screen…..images of starving children in Africa & the reality of their pain.  (Not a lot has changed) …..While other children play outside & people run to and fro….doing other things.

Started working at fifteen. At sixteen (when I could drive) I remember dispersing hamburgers to random homeless people walking by.

It had nothing to do with good works…but an insatiable burden within my soul that a desperately painful world lies around us and our job is to do more than watch it from abroad…but to enter its barren land, leave the fortitude of our castles of sand, & like Jesus, for His glory…..enter the valleys.

So, today I decided to post a reflection of my heart cry as written June 26, 1989 from an old journal I ran across recently.  It is entitled, “My Trip to Mexico“.  1989. I just turned 18 when I wrote this:

  
“Today I sit here a completely different person. The new experience I encountered changed my whole aspect of thinking and living. 

I arrived from Mazatlan on the 23rd. Yet, the memories of everyday spent there clearly fastened to my mind. The excitement of the airplane accelerating mid-air with me inside, I hardly imagined. 

Reaching Mazatlan, we drove on a bus through poverty stricken, little hut-type towns. It was unreal to think that a person must live in such dirt and filth.  There they lay in hammocks or running around the open dirt plains, nearly naked. 

….With nothing but dirt shacks and miles and miles of open land.


The tourist part of Mazatlan was amazing. It was kind of oddly patched into this poverty stricken country. There I saw thousands of Americans…deeply tanned, clothed fashionably. They were shopping or kickin’ back drinking Margaritas.


It felt somewhat vain to be there.


The sight of a mother and her unclothed kids lay on the sidewalk, reaching out their hand for some small token of love.  It made my heart bleed.  They were bug bitten. And the baby had a bald spot on his head from laying flat on his back on the cement for so long.


A little old lady especially tore me apart. She stood about 5’2″ and sat curled up in a black blanket against the wall, where behind it frolicked many mindless, civilized Americans. The eyes of this lady were not gay & festive, but helplessly stared at me with weakening, gut wrenching sorrow.

When we reached this masterpiece of God…the never-ending waves & glorious skies…vendors both young & old surrounded us. 

By them, we were constantly reminded that this land was not our own. 

It did not belong to us white people who saw such magnificence in it….It was theirs, those who had nothing but the richness of their thought & the imagination to take them across the waters which they hold before them.  

To the left…like a god…stood a castle of much beauty, “Valentinos”. To us it was a dance club standing dignified at the edge of the reef with big boulders uplifting it up for all to see. It seemed to watch as the gnarling waves roaring below…while poor, local women and children washed at it’s feet.


The language of the locals who prospered so minutely seemed unconnected…distant. Yet, hand signals were universal. And we thrived on their hospitality.


At night, the soul resting silence intertwined me with God and the beauty of this land and it’s people.


Those who gather in this place, differ so drastically in their lifestyles.  Some quiet, content, well-mannered. Others living only for each ray of sunshine and ten-foot wave.


The children, so little, carefree, young. Yet, seemingly older than any pampered American child. Living and making their lives through their own independence. They need it to survive. As they wander through the immensely rich…their future only a sale away. They hold gold in their hands, but there is little hope in this jail of poverty they are locked in.  

So tough, so strong they seem….yet, in their eyes….the innocence of childhood remains.


I long to reach out and hug them. To make them break out of their cold personalities trapped inside their baby faces.  But many are hardened by the need to survive from us tarnished Americans.  So much shame….as the future and lives of these children seem to go to waist. 

Yet, as they play…I see the sparkle of good found in all of us.

“As I was just beginning to open my eyes, realizing all I had partaken of these past heat stricken days….it came to an end.  The place we had familiarized ourselves with would now just be a memory.  

The sun we had awakened to many mornings…absent.  Clouded.  The worry free life we had led so freely would be forced to hide in the back of our minds.  No more moon lighting up the sky and brightening the oceans front. 

In just moments…heaven would be only a memory. And we walked around to bid farewell to the friends we had made.


We savored each last second there. 

The ocean would remain though we were gone.  Palm trees. The town had not even acknowledged we had come. Yet, we had grown so richly from them.


The man packed our bags in…just as easily as he had unpacked them.  Only hours lay between these two worlds.  

And we drove away. 


Was it the wind that drove tears down my face…or the thought of leaving this beautiful place…Sandy beaches, salty air…the beauty of it’s people.


Then, as our jeep like taxi sped to the airport, I looked at Mexico one last time. Real Mexico. Not the Americanized part for tourists. 


There they stood…unmoved as before…The huts.  The people.  The poverty.  

And I knew…my trip was in vain.


As I went home to my world full of luxuries, these people stay here…trying to survive. Trying to not starve.  They work cruelly to gain a half cent. 

No paradise they can vision here….no heaven they are in. 


In vain I came to their country.  

Yet, I sympathize only.  

…While they are struggling for bread and water.


I leave with a burdened heart.  

And they stay with an empty gut…..”

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Thank you for joining me as I go back in time, reliving my first experience out of the country through the pages of my journal.

My hope and prayer, is that in days ahead….I….can do more than sympathize.