Members of the Monroe Congregational Church Take Mission Trip to Mexico

Members of the Monroe Congregational Church Take Mission Trip to Mexico Thirteen members of the Monroe Congregational Church recently returned from a mission of goodwill and compassion leaving the comforts of their homes to visit Casa Hogar Benito Juarez, an orphanage housing 70 children in Oaxaca, Mexico.

Nearly two years ago, the Church's Outreach Board began looking into participating in an international, overseas mission. Through connections within the United Church of Christ, the Board contacted Bryan Nurnberger, a member of the Naugatuck Congregational Church and President of Simply Smiles.

Simply Smiles is a non-profit organization that arranges mission trips and is dedicated to improving the lives of impoverished children by providing funding for food, shelter, medical assistance, and educational benefits regardless of location, ethnicity, or religious beliefs. The mission of Simply Smiles is to adopt a charity, and direct 100% of it's energies to that project until the need there has been met, an acceptable standard of living has been installed, and is able to be maintained.

Mr. Nurnberger was invited to speak to the Monroe Congregational Church, and he presented an opportunity that would peak the curiosity and touch the hearts of the parishioners. During his one-hour presentation he showed pictures of the children of Casa Hogar, and shared stories of the hardships in their lives. Lynn Levins, a Braille instructor, was won over by Mr. Nurnberger's enthusiasm and passion for the children, and ended up coordinating the Church's mission. "When I found out there were blind children there and Braille supplies needed, I wanted to get involved," she said.

She was not the only one. Pastor Peter Allen also felt that this was a great opportunity for the church members to have a face-to-face experience with a different culture. He said, "Something like this makes you question your own way of life." Rev. Allen continued, "Where we were going was hot, and far away from home, but it was worth it. To be touched in this way opens minds and hearts, and it was spiritually good for us." Participation was open to everyone and attracted a nice cross section of the congregation. Participants had to pay $500 for travel expenses, and the Church donated an additional $8,000 for the orphanage. During their stay, the members lived in a dormitory and spent their days working on two main improvement projects. The projects included painting a new computer lab, and cleaning out and reorganizing two storage rooms, plus taking an inventory of the supplies. All the while, they talked and played with the children, shared in arts and craft activities, and grew to love them.

At the orphanage, there are children who have parents who cannot afford to feed them, or they have special needs they cannot provide for. Some of the children live at the orphanage to get what they need. Approximately 1/3 of the children have special medical needs. Others may have a single parent or a parent in prison and need to be taken care of. Rev. Allen said, "The kids lead a simple life, unlike our children here. They are happy making up games and talking to each other. It is very different. The children have such potential, but their potential is limited by their surroundings."

Despite the desperation of their own situation, the orphans find time to help others through service projects. One of those projects is making sandwiches for people living at the Oaxacan dump, where some of the poorest people in the area live. Debbie Gran recalls being able to visit the dump with the children during one of their weekly visits. She said, "They are a very supportive community for each other." Other participants like David Kingsbury noted that while most of the children spoke Spanish, the language barrier was only a small obstacle in communicating. "Even though some of us only knew minimal Spanish, it was only a minor hurdle," he said. "They were very accepting of the language barrier and overcome by other things." He added, "What surprised me was the way the children were filled with love and compassion for each other."

Now that the group has returned home, the giving nature that they learned from the orphans continues. At their welcome home celebration at Monroe Congregational, they shared their stories with the parishioners and took a second collection, in addition to the regular offering, to fund the computer lab for the children. Rev. Allen concluded, "Relationships lead to wonderful things, the Holy Spirit is active in a lot of ways."