Shoes changed my life

Bradley Vinson

The nature of my job puts me in contact with a lot of people's stories-- time to time I take a moment and really read (or watch) them. One in particular comes to mind, "I changed a child's life" from our Shoes for Orphan Souls promotional DVD. In it a Buckner missionary tells of how a pair of shoes changed an orphan's life-- giving that child something she could call her own. Well today, a pair of shoes changed my life.

After visiting a ministry where "local" children are fed (I use local loosely, many of those in need walk very long distances to reach the facility) we visited a family with the intention of giving them shoes, in turn I was given a lot more. I could only equate the moment to how Cinderella must have felt when the glass slipper was placed on her foot-- at that exact moment her life changed forever.

To see these children express joy from our simple gesture pierced my heart in a way I can barely explain. At that exact moment my life changed forever-- I became a missionary.

I had to re-establish my focus (my 'job'), shoot video and photos to document the need so that you all may see and be inspired to help-- but I couldn't, I could only stand there and try to keep my composure as the children danced, almost floating around the dirt courtyard of their home.

One photo that was never taken will always stick in my mind and be imprinted on my heart. After I finally gained composure I shot some video of the children dancing and showing their shoes to one another-- I gestured to them that I would like a hug, I knelt down and all at once they embraced me.

Shoes!

Following the feeding ministry, we took several pairs of shoes to a local family that attends the feeding program. The mother, who has five children, walks 45 minutes each week to see her children receive a meal from the program.

Their neighborhood colonia is a sea of cinder block in the middle of a dry, dusty plain. The father leaves each morning at 4:30 for his job as a mason and returns well after dark. While employed, the family is poor.

Analiz, Brad and Dexton worked alongside of feeding ministry leader Saul to fit the shoes, collected through Buckner International's Shoes for Orphan Souls drive, to each child's feet. The five pairs, said Saul, equaled about a week and a half's wages for the father.

Food for the Soul

Iglesia Bautista Horeb's feeding ministry feeds about 150 children on a weekly basis. Parents will walk 45 minutes to bring their children for a meal, then most stay for Bible studies afterward. The neighborhood colonia is among the most impoverished in the city, with many squatting families called "parachutists" because they float in from nowhere and where they land, they live.

Saul directs the feeding program, and knows the program well. the 20-year-old was one of the poor children it fed nine years ago.

Visiting the neighborhood, I'm struck. Entire families live in 10' X 12' cinder block homes or, not being able to afford those, corrugated tar paper shcks. Want to do missions? We could go here now.

Maria's Gift

Imprisoned at age 26 and six months pregnant, you wouldn't figure that Maria* would have much to smile about. But she's beaming.

"God has seen me through this," she said, adding that she gets out in two days. "I have His love in my heart."

Deep within Santa Marta women's prison, I understood how God can reach anyone, anywhere, even penetrating the walls of this place. She told me the name of her future son. I told her it was also the name of one of my sons. Her face lit up even more.

Reaching into her pocket, she pulled out a handmade icon of Christ, woven from twigs and trimmed with a red ribbon. It's an important, concrete image in this highly Catholic culture. She handed it to me over my protests.

"No," she said. "It is my gift to you for coming. It has helped me through this. Maybe it will help you, too."

Though I've grown up and remain a believer in the Baptist faith (an icon's an icon), the act of giving transformed it into something personal, something I'll keep close.

*Not her real name

A Piece of Home in Prison

Analiz González

The 50-some-year-old woman performing songs with the other prisoners was barely noticeable.

But Laura Gomez* said she'd never forget me. And she cried. She hugged me and cried—said I reminded her of home.

"She's from Matamoros," her singing instructor said, pointing to me. She jumped when she heard this. Her hands flew to cover her mouth.

"I'm not technically from Matamoros," I explained. "I'm from its bordering city on the Texas side, but I was always in Matamoros as a child, all my extended family lived there."

That was close enough for her. She said she's been in prison for seven years. I don't know why she got the sentence, but she wasn't able to see her children grow up. They've never visited.

"My husband said he'd never bring them," Laura told me, adding that she was OK with that. "It's ugly here. I just asked him to take good care of them.'"

Laura will be in this grey-painted prison for 22 more years, they told me. She'll age in there. No freedom. No outings. No television. She can't even look out the window to see the city—all windows face inside.

She's got God, though. She was converted in prison a few years back when her music instructor, Jorge Quezada, from Iglesia Bautista Horeb, told her about Jesus. And she said she's glad, that although she's trapped in prison, her soul is free.

"I'm so glad you came," she said. "I feel like God sent you in here for me, to bring me a little piece of home."

I told her I'd be in Matamoros for Christmas and that I'd think of her while I was there.

"I'll think of you at Christmas, too," she said. "Always. And say hello to our city for me."

"I will," I told her and thought of Matamoros. It had never seemed so beautiful.

*Laura Gomez is not her real name

Beyond Words

I don't know what to say. I'm still collecting my thoughts after going to Santa Marta women's prison in Mexico City. Here's how it went: We go in with a ministry team from Iglesia Bautista Horeb, led by ministry team leader Jorge. No cameras are allowed, so all I came away with was this photo. But not really. I came away with a lot of mental images that are going to be with me for a while. The Horeb team leads a 70-woman vocal and instrumental group of prisoners who have turned the misery of incarceration into a ministry of song. Sixty more are on the waiting list to join. We've come for a practice session.

We entered at the end of Sunday visitation with our first observation: as visitors streamed out, we noticed that the line of women visitors went on forever while the men's line only contained a handful. It is a reality, said Jorge, that while their female family members and relatives still visit, the men in their lives have abandoned them.

As we made our way to the rec hall, prison life manifested itself. Tough stares from some inmates showed no emotion or, worse, anger. Some women walked with their children in their arms (they can keep their small children with them if they are born within the prison walls). Same-sex relationships were everywhere, with some couples sharing close embraces. Some sold cigarettes, gum or cakes out of little boxes, a couple of others had frypans and sold quesadillas to other inmates, evidence of a microeconomy within the walls.

And the walls. Grey and unpainted, I might have been tempted to call them sterile, but the conditions are anything but sterile here.

Inside the rec hall, something changed. There was excitement from the inmates who were tuning their guitars. One, already strumming her guitar, looked up when I tried, in very bad Spanish, to tell her I liked it. "Thank you very much," she said, with a smile. Noting my surprise at her response, she added that she spoke French, English, Spanish and a couple of other languages. Of French nationality, she had been working on cruise lines before her incarceration. I moved over to Dexton, who's asking two women if they might want to participate in a possible project between Buckner and Horeb -- a group home to care for inmates' older children. Both are eager. They know it's a better path than their children are on. They are among the same influences that led them to crime.

When the practice began, the women began playing and singing. Seventy voices and about 20 instruments can make a lot of noise in an enclosed cinder block space. While it was loud and rough, it was beautiful. But it was the content that takes me beyond words. As they sang of their misery, their pain of separation from their children, the abandonment by the men they love, they also sang of the love of God in their lives. All sang while crying. The emotion and salvation evident there from women who Jorge said include killers, prostitutes, drug addicts and thieves still leaves me unable to express what's going on with that ministry. There is something wonderful there, that's so painful yet so joyful, I'd come off sounding crazy to try to tell you.

I'll leave it at that.

A Place of Freedom

It's Saturday night, and while the rest of Mexico City celebrates the Christmas season with fireworks popping in the distance and people moving in the streets, a group of men behind the locked door of the Rehabilitation Center ministry are gathered in a circle on the third floor of the street front building, talking about the addictions that have brought them here. The center, a ministry of Iglesia Bautista Horeb, has signed agreements with each of the men to provide them shelter, counseling and, most importantly, seclusion from their addictions.

It's a spartan setup: In the dorm room, a dozen bunks are packed less than two feet apart. Each resident is allowed a drawerful of posessions. Days are filled with counseling support, Alcoholics Anonymous-type group sessions and the requisite chores that help the ministry be self-sustaining. Tonight, each will have a small set of pancakes for dinner before lights are turned off.

As each man shares his personal fight with addiction, I can't help but feel I'm in a prison behind the center's locked doors. But as each shares his story, I reach another conclusion: this is the only place they feel free.

Analiz Gonzalez: A Cold Night in Oaxaca

I have baby mania. Any time I see one, I want to carry her.

So it wasn't long after I spotted a 4-month-old infant at the Zapoteco community near Oaxaca that I stretched out my arms.

She had an awful cold. Her nose was runny and she had the hiccups. But she cooed at my smiles and I was in heaven. I rocked her, bounced her around and made all sorts of baby noises before snapping out of my zone and noticing that her mom and aunts were watching and smiling at our interaction.

"What's her name?" I asked.

"She doesn't have one," the mother answered. "What is yours?"

"I'm Analiz," I told her.

"Then that's her name, too."

I smiled and nodded. This woman just named her little angel after me. They didn't even know me and I'll never see them again. I had no words.

I wondered, though, why it took so long for 4-month-old Analiz to get a name. Could there be a high infant mortality rate? Russ asked the question.

"Yes, they told us. It's 25 percent. But it used to be a lot worse."

I thought of Analiz and her cold. They have no doctors. No heaters. Hardly enough blankets. They bathe in cold water in aluminum out-houses without roofs. Babies get sick and die. Not naming them must help the families deal with the loss of a child.

Tonight, when I take a shower and get ready for bed, when I lay in my king size comforter at the Holiday Inn in Mexico City, I don't think I'll feel comfortable. I'm warm. I'm fed. I'm clothed. But Analiz is sleeping on the dirt floor of a shack in Oaxaca. And it's a cold night.

Gothic Jesus

I've always believed that Jesus meets you at your point of need. But for some of the older kids and young adults in Oaxaca who have adopted a punk rock or Gothic lifestyle, introducing them to Jesus proved tough for Letitia and Laura, two young ladies raised in a Baptist setting who wanted to reach that group.

So becoming all things to everyone, the pair donned the characteristic black clothes and darker makeup and provided Christ's message to a few. But to reach more, they needed more support. Enter Buckner, which has now provided short-term funds for a storefront church with an unlikely name: Comunidad Subterranea, or Underground Community. It's a place for the kids to go off of the streets to worship in their own style (Note to self: taking photos while crouching next to the amp when the lead guitarist launches into a riff ain't a good idea).

Tatoos and piercings are the norm for worshipers, who uniformly dress in black and sport some heavy eyeliner. The walls are lined with Gothic-themed posters and an Apocalyptic scene forms a backdrop at the front.

Looking out the window from the service, I saw other young people stop to see what all the music and speaking were about. In a city where a cult revering the Angel of Death is rising quickly among young people, this might be the best spiritual defense it has.

Children of the Dump

This morning, we toured a church that serves children who live in the Guillermo Guardado Colonia near the Oaxaca landfill. We hope Buckner may in the future join that service. Many of their parents derive their families' incomes from the dump, either as laborers or, just as commonly, as scavengers of the city's castoffs.

The church is on the edge of the dry, dusty road to the landfill and like clockwork every minute, a dumptruck roars past, belching diesel toward the building and its courtyard, where 100 children are learning Bible lessons either n the small santuary, under a giant blue tarp outside or crammed into one of three tin-walled classrooms adjoining the building. Each of the children are participating in crafts or listening to a teacher, while many parents wait against the entry wall for activities to end.

There's a disconnect between the happy children and the surrounding colonia where they live, though. The striking display of poverty outside the walls of the churchyard doesn't match the smiling faces inside. While the children are learning, church members provide healthy snacks and juices provided in part by another children's aid organization. Outside, their homes stretch over the horizon, rows of one-room tin sheds dotting the foothills of the city. Inside, the children laugh. Outside, survival drains the humor from the faces of those who walk along the road.

In many places, churches struggle to provide Jesus outside their walls. For this church, they reached out by providing Jesus within.

Lunch: Trout and Humility

The Zapotec villagers treated us to a great traditional meal under a tarp strung between a truck and two poles. It was grilled trout served with beans tortillas and sauces. Delicious, if you can get over the fish eyes staring at you. And delicious, if you can get over the fact that four families pitched in a sizeable chunk of their meager incomes to provide us the lavish spread.

Analiz, Brad and I felt our hearts sink when Dexton spoke of the sacrifice they'd made to host us. They sank lower when our hosts didn't eat, devoting all of their resources to us. While he shared that its is typical of the Zapotecos to offer genuine hospitality to their guests, we all talked about our feelings of remorse for eating the meal. It soured an otherwise fine meal. The only thing that made us feel better is the hope we could come back one day to repay the favor.

The Zapotecos

We started out early this morning for what would be an hour-plus drive into the mountains near Oaxaca to explore ministry opportunites with the Zapotecos, an indigenous Mexican people group. When I heard we were going into the mountains, I figured it would be "among" the mountains. No such luck. The village's name, La Cumbre, means "the Peak." The drive was harrowing, with all the steep cliffs and small roads, but the view was breathtaking.

When we came into the village, two things were evident: this was a village living in poverty. Nowhere was there any sign of affluence. Families live in single-room shacks with clay floors and open-fire cookstoves vented by holes in tin roofs. Most of the population, estimated by one of the villagers at 800, earns their living from cutting the mountain forest for sale as firewood in the valley.

The other thing that was evident: this was a village receptive to the Gospel, receptive to our help. A lot of that is due in part to other missionaries who provided most of the village with resources to its most precious need, water, by providing reservoir tanks and pumps to move the water from springs to the village. They were warm and welcoming, and everyone halted work to visit with us.

During our visit, they showed us some of the needs that confront them. Wells that need shoring with concrete, help with a greenhouse to be used to grow tomatoes, new pumps and lines to run water from the springs. And filters, because one of the village's biggest needs is safe drinking water for its children, says our guide, Jaime Garcia, who heads up ethnic work for the Mexican Baptist Convention. He says parasites from unclean water contribute to the 25 percent infant mortality rate among the Zapotecos.

Check out this video from Bradley Vinson featuring Dexton Shores, he can share the needs a lot better than I can.


Here is a second video featuring Dexton speaking on behalf of the Zapotecos children.

We made it, and wow!

Brad and I made it into Oaxaca about 8:30 tonight. Wonderful local pastors Jaime Garcia Merino and Isaac Guzman Hernandez picked us up at the airport. We were whupped. Flight delays had made it an eight-hour trip, and once we made it to the Oaxaca airport, the customs agent had a few questions about our big bags of shoes (the four of us are bringing 100 pairs of shoes collected through Shoes for Orphan Souls for an orphanage here). I know enough Spanish to understand the question, "Are all of these YOUR shoes?"

Once we got that cleared up and reached our our hotel near the city center, or Zocalo, we didn't feel tired at all. We paused long enough to throw our bags in the room and then we were back out. We'd driven up into the middle of a celebration, complete with a parade, fireworks and thousands of people enjoying the cool night walking around the Zocalo under Christmas lights. What a beautiful city center. Tomorrow we're going to see some areas of real need, but tonight we're enjoying the festivities. I've attached some photos.

Blogging In Mexico

They call this an "exploratory trip" into Mexico for Buckner International. It's a six-day trip Dec. 13-18 that will take us into the interior of our southern neighbor.

We've built a good international reputation for our mission work in eight countries, including China, Kenya, Ethiopia, Guatemala, Peru, Romania, Russia, and the U.S. A big part of the rep has been our work along the Texas-Mexico border. Now we're expanding into our ninth country, Mexico, and the opportunities look great.

I use the word "great" with more than one meaning: yes, the opportunity is great, but so is the immensity of the work. A quick look at our itinerary shows the variety of need in this country just to our south. After travelling most of the day Thursday (a flight to Mexico City, with a connection to Oaxaca), we'll meet up Friday with some Christians working in a Zapotec village, then tour a rehab center before visiting a children's ministry in the La Joya colonia. We'll meet in the evening with members of Iglesia Bautista Armonia Familia (Family Harmony Baptist Church) to discuss mission opportunities with them. And that's just Friday.

There are four of us from Buckner on the trip. Once we begin taking volunteer teams in, they'll run from a handful to dozens, depending on the work. I'm Russ Dilday, and I've been telling the Buckner story for several years. Analiz Gonzalez writes for Buckner Communications and will be doing all of the stories that come from the week. Brad Vinson, our multi-media guy, will be shooting video and attaching downloadable video for this blog.

We're led this week by Dexton Shores (more on him later), but I'll summarize him by saying he's one of the premier missiologists to Mexico anywhere. Although he's been a co-worker only a few months, he's our key to reaching into Mexico for ministry to children and communities.

I'll try to update daily, depending on Internet connections, and post photos muy pronto. Please pray for our team as we spend a very fast six days discovering what God has in store for the children of Mexico through Buckner.