Where will we be working? We’ll be  primarily working with the Alpha – Omega Primary and Secondary school which is a donor based school serving an extremely impoverished population located in a section of Acuna called San Antonio Colonia. If it were not for this school these kids, with nothing to do, they would be  targets for  the increasing mafia and drug trafficking presence in all of these towns along the boarder.

What will we be doing? Although there are many needs at the school they would like us to partner with them introducing a new aspect of their curriculum based on the concept of volunteering.  We willl be helping them to clean up their school, landscaping, painting, cleaning the grounds and in general enhancing both the interior and exterior.  Alpha Omega’s hope is that this work will not only teach the students about  giving and serving others, but  will have a lasting impact  on the school with a  spill over effect on the surrounding community increasing both community and school pride. The visibility of an international team in the community working with the local students will help underscore the value of education, Alpha Omega, and the student themselves. There is also  a small Orphanage next door that is in the beginning stages of operation with only 4 orphans. We have begun discussions with them on a collaborative effort with our team and the local students to  clean up their property as well. (More on this as it develops)

Who should go? This trip is a great one for  teenagers(15+)and their parent(s) or for people wanting to check out international volunteer work for the first time.

How long will we be in Acuna? We will spend roughly five days working and living along side the Mexican students helping them complete their projects.  The capstone of the week of work will end in a music festival held near the school grounds with a band.

What about the rest of the time? The final leg of our trip will involve two nights and three days at a Texas Dude ranch located in the heart of Bandera,the Cowboy Capital of America.

What will we do here? We will use this time to process our experience, share our impressions, and insights as well as immerse ourselves in  true Texas style on  a 16,000 acre working ranch. The kids will share a bunk house and the grown ups a cabin(s). With three Texas meals a day  and a wealth of things to do  that includes horseback riding and Texas style BBQs, inner tubing along the Medina River and for some, much needed rest and relaxation.

How much will this cost? This trip will cost around $1,800.00. The price includes round trip airfair from Seattle to San Antonio Texas, transportation to Acuna, food and lodging while in Acuna, and all of the cost assocotatiaed with the dude ranch. It also includes emergency medical insurance, pre trip planning meetings and rcultural training, as well as a post trip meetings.

Liz and Dana Sweet

Never having taken a team to Acuna before, I was a little apprehensive about how everything would work. After all, there’s the culture, the schedule, the new students, there’s us and how we react or respond to each situation. All this hits you between the eyes, not to mention things never go as planned.

Our first brilliant move was to hire Dana Sweet of Wide ministries to be our ground support during our stay. He and his wife Liz and their daughter Joanna run a dormitory facility for teams to stay while they work in Acuna. It is a walled off old Montessori school that had been remodeled into a dorm. They accommodated us so well and with such grace and style it made it easy to work all day in the heat. Each day we were able to go back and eat dinner, prepared by two local women and hang out and laugh,

Fun Learning Spanish and English

sing, play cards, journal, and process our day together. We knew we were in good hands.

From the renting of the giant 12 person van (nicknamed the marshmallow) all the way through to its return without a scratch, this trip was very successful. The project at the school was well planned and all of the materials purchased and ready to be taken on our first morning there.

Much time was spent trying to communicate, learn names, learn Spanish, and laughing and playing. We still exceeded the expectations of the school’s project list. In the end we painted the entire inside of the school twice to cover the purple and blue that was underneath. Patched a multitude of holes in walls, and cleaned up the grounds or at least tried to. We built two walls

Students Sign the Wall

and wired an entire classroom so it could be used for their expanding population.

This year was the biggest graduating class ever and with the building open from 8 am to 11pm, the wear and tear was showing. In the end we all stamped our hand prints on the wall entering the school grounds. It will be a great reminder of our time there.

The team worked so well together I can’t help but think spending time at our planning and training meetings helped start the process early. It was cemented by the experience of traveling and working and serving others together. We knew we were in good hands.

I know we will go back next year, so mark your calendars for next summer.

Diane

The Wall

I was standing on my balcony this morning and noticed how beautiful it was. I felt the sun but it wasn’t searing hot.. There was a cool breeze coming off the water, and I thought about the contrast to where I had just been. There were no cool breezes to take the edge off– just hot winds blowing dirt and dust everywhere. Our lives are so different from those we visited in Ciudad Acuna, Mexico It is challenging to step into their world.but as any of on our team would say, “well worth it”!

These trips are, at the very least, a reminder about how lucky we are; of how blessed our lives are. It seems that I take more time to stop and savor the moments of my life– more than I did before I went to Acuna. I even notice running water over the tooth brush in the morning, watering my garden and flushing my toilet. All these simple tasks seem luxurious. Certainly being clean is a luxury.

Our 8 day trip to the Alpha y Omega School epitomized who Global Support is. It was certainly a mission trip in that we helped the students paint, patch and build walls and even showed them how to work with running electricity. The kids were extremely interested in learning and many of them gained some minimal skills in carpentry and painting and lets not forget patching drywall.. More importantly, they were the ones that helped us to help them make their school better. Vandalism is alive and well in that part of town. It is the second poorest Colonia in Acuna. These kids know more about making holes in walls than patching, and more about tagging and graffiti than painting. Having them see what it takes to repair their holes and paint, perhaps they will think twice before doing it at the school. I don’t think paint is often used on their homes as most are made out of concrete block or worse yet cardboard and tar paper. Paint is a luxury.

We made friends there. Kids that helped us every day, all day. Octavio, Marco, Héctor, Luís, Deya, Ofelia, Patti to name a few. We took 4 teenagers with us and they enabled us to quickly relate to the kids at the school. Being that they were cute Americans only helped us get the local students to participate! Especially the boys. Many laughs were had over failed attempts at Spanish and English. We all lived with our Spanish- English dictionary by our side ready to figure out just the right word, often resorting to pantomime and charades to help. We would sit in the shade together trying to communicate about our lives. Those impromptu moments were some of the most meaningful. This was bridge building between cultures at its best.. Maybe we helped these kids to see beyond their world of hopelessness. Perhaps the door of possibilities became open in those moments?

I have found that God is in the unexpected and often the spontaneous on trips, and this one was no exception. I fell in love with two little girls at the Orphanage next door to the school. I pray for them everyday as their situation was horrendous. We would go over to the orphanage for lunch each day, prepared by two wonderful Mexican women we hired. We loved on those two children and watched them glow and laugh… They, of all of the children we met remain on my heart.

There was another surprise encounter with a young women that we had noticed working with us, yet clearly not a teacher nor a student. We discovered she was the custodian, a local who had dropped out of school and this was her job. Jessica, from our team, and she hit it off and there was a connection that allowed us to notice and acknowledge who she was by inviting her to lunch and giving her rides home. By paying attention to her we watched her emerge from a quiet, in the background, even marginalized person to someone laughing and engaging with us, even trying to speak English. We bought her a birthday cake on her 19th birthday and sang happy birthday in Spanish that we learned the night before. From her reaction I wonder if she had ever had a cake before?

These are the moments that we savor from our trips. The moments where we see God at work, calling out people to tell them they are important. And that they do matter.

An address by co-founder, Diane Ellis, April 19, 2008

I am standing here today, to share with you what a difference a trip working with the poorest of poor can make in your life. I had no idea when we took our first trip to China and Tibet that I would be so impacted by what I saw, but I was. What I now know is that I, that we have been called to champion the cause of these children who live in extreme poverty, who are being exploited, neglected, abused and forgotten. Believe me, I had no plan for this in my life, but it happened.

The faces you see are of children that we’ve met. These are children who live in impossible situations, not just temporarily but permanently. With no one advocating for them, these kids are easy targets for people waiting to take advantage of them…turning them into prostitutes, child soldiers, drug dealers, addicts and slaves. More on Global Support Auction: