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After the mixing of the raw materials was done, the team formed long lines from the mixing area to the roof of the house to pass the buckets full of cement there, and one line to pass the empty ones back, forming a large, efficient cycle on the worksite. “The whole experience was pretty fun even on the hard days. You would always feel good at the end” Paulson said.

Every year, many students from Stillwater Area High School and many other schools travel to Mexico for Trinity Lutheran church’s Mexico mission trip in mid March. The main goal of the trip is to help several families who are in need in Mexico to finish a roof on their incomplete homes.

For a week every year, many students all pack onto a plane, fly to Mexico, and do charity work with Mano Amiga that changes the lives of many families in Mexico, as well as some of the missionaries that go on the trip. The missionaries this year went deep into the heart of the areas of the Yucatan Peninsula, to Chuburna Puerto and Chelem to help 12 families finally finish their homes after years of work. 

Junior Matt Paulson, one of the missionaries on the trip said,“Some people do local things to help out the rest of the world but seeing the families reactions when you finish their roof is something you’ll rarely ever see.” Paulson added “ Just do it. Because why not? What else are you going to do to feel this satisfied about helping people. It’s fun, it’s rewarding, and it’s a one-of-a-kind experience.”

On the trip, the students helped families finish the roof on their mostly cinder block constructed homes, most which take years to build one block at a time. The missionaries work was all in pouring shovel-mixed concrete made from the raw materials on the ground, scooping it up into buckets, and forming lines stretching to the roofs of the house with full buckets and all the way back to the mixing area with the empty buckets.

After the houses were completed, the missionaries gathered around the house placing their hands on the house and they would bless the house.

Additionally, the families would receive a quilt made by the children at Trinity Lutheran Church and two Spanish bibles for the families to read. This cycle was done by the missionaries twice a day for four days on the trip, while others were spent for rest.

Sophomore Zach Husten, who had some things to say about his first experience on the trip said, “To be honest I didn’t expect much, just some other church camp. Now, the only way I can describe it is that it was amazing. Everyone’s experience is an individual thing and you have to go on the trip to really understand it.”

The most remarkable thing about the entire trip, as said before, was the families that were helped. All of the families endlessly expressed their gratitude to the missionaries as they left the sites, for they now had a roof over their heads that could last 50 or more years. The shacks they used to live in had them cramed into their shacks like sardines, with no room for their growing families to sleep. Added onto that, most had to deal with leaky or broken roofs. Seeing their reaction first hand is what the trip was all about; the feeling of actually making a difference and seeing that difference in action is what most on the trip would agree the feeling was after the worksites and after the trip as a whole.

The trip overall not only unites a community but it also provides an amazing experience and the chance to help out someone who desperately needs it. to see that help firsthand is a whole other sight. Seeing the families in tears of joy is definitely something that can bring light to anybody’s heart, and is definitely a good reason to go on the trip, no matter what the cost of it might be.

Husten added, “In the grand scheme of things, seeing all of the family’s responses is what makes it all worth it in the end and knowing that you really helped someone.”