Why is IPC engaged in Mexico?
Only a 3-hour drive from Irvine, the Baja California, Mexico region has some of the worst living conditions in the world. As Mother Teresa said, "Of all the places I've been in the world, Tijuana is among the poorest." Because of our close proximity, we have many opportunities to serve and partner with local ministries in both Tijuana and the colonia of El Niño.
Our mission is to assist in providing education, outreach and evangelism opportunities for children and their families in Tijuana and El Niño, and to empower the children to change their lives through education. Additionally, our goal is to provide our congregation and neighbors with hands-on opportunities to travel to Mexico for ministry projects and to develop ongoing relationships with individual children and families.
“This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers. If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth. This then is how we know that we belong to the truth, and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence.” 1 John 3:16-19.
Change the Life of a Child Through the Gift of Education
Build a Relationship with a Child in El Nino
IPC has been serving in El Niño since 2000. Community leaders have told us that the best hope we can provide for their community is through helping educate their children (who can now share our own children’s dreams of becoming teachers, doctors, & engineers).
You can change the life of a child by providing one year of school:
• Tuition, uniform & shoes and a filled backpack ~ $135 per year (or $85 & you fill the backpack).
• Sponsor a university child ~ $1,200 per year or $150 for a partial scholarship.
Sign up on the patio or at elninochild@yahoo.com
Questions: contact Karen Francis at (714) 835-8584 or Laura Boyd at (949) 433-9727.
Contact the Church office for information on the next El Niño event.
"The King will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.' Matt 25:40
Tijuana Christian Mission (TCM)
www.tijuanachristianmission.org
Tijuana Christian Mission, also known as City of Refuge Orphanage, was IPC’s first mission partner 30 years ago. TCM houses, feeds and helps educate over 100 children. Most important, the dedicated staff shares the love of Jesus Christ with the abandoned, orphaned, and lonely children of Tijuana. Staff members work together to meet not only the physical needs of the children, but their emotional and spiritual needs as well. In addition to their Tijuana location, TCM has started a new orphanage in Rosarito.
TCM Dental and Outreach Day Trip
Contact: Pastor Tim Avazian at (949) 786-9627 x204
On May 3, 2010 we traveled to Tijuana Christian Mission to do dental work and projects. This was a great opportunity to visit the orphanage, make a difference in a child’s life and have some fun at the same time! Contact us for information on the next trip.
TCM Christmas Party
A highlight of every Christmas at IPC is participating in the TCM Christmas party. Photos of children living at Tijuana Christian Mission are displayed on a Christmas tree, and we are given the opportunity to select a child for whom to buy a gift. We take the photo home to display on our own Christmas tree, as a reminder to pray for that child. On the 1st or 2nd Saturday of December, IPC hosts a Christmas party at the orphanage in Tijuana. We present the children with their gifts, play games and have fellowship, and enjoy a delicious Mexican meal together.
“Give a man a fish and he eats for a night. Teach a man how to fish and he eats for a life.”
Contact: Laura Boyd at (949) 433-9727
Andrea
Lindsay
We want to empower people in El Niño to find ways to gain economic sustainability through creating artistic items for sale.
Ways you can help:
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Donate time – we need:
- Artistic volunteers who would like to help teach people how to make items that they can sell. This requires going to impoverished locations.
- Artistic people who can develop art/craft ideas.
- People who are good at marketing & can help sell the items in the US.
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Donate supplies or money:
- Paint & paint brushes
- Glue guns, glue sticks, & liquid glue
- Scissors
- Varnishes & plasters
- Decorative items – buttons, old costume jewelry, shells, yarn, fabrics, feathers, clay, yarn, fabrics, decorative stones, etc.
- Storage bins
Groups of volunteers go down to El Niño and spend a fun filled day helping and teaching enthusiastic 'artists' of all ages to create beautiful hand painted crosses. Contact the church office for the next event.
Mexico House Building
Contact: Emmett Raitt at (714) 743-3371
Our ministry builds houses in El Niño over a long weekend! So grab your hammer, come join us and change a Mexican family’s life forever. The cost is $50 per person ($150 per family) for the weekend. For more information, contact Emmett Raitt or contact the church office.
Pastor Daniel Nuñez, Baja Christian Ministries
Pastor Daniel Nuñez Pastor Daniel Nuñez is an IPC Prayer Partner. He is pastor of Lo Mejor del Trigo in El Niño and is on staff with Baja Christian Ministries. Pastor Nuñez has a vision of planting 50 churches in Mexico. His church is on their way, having planted 3 churches already, with 2 more in the works. IPC has assisted the new pastors of two of the church plants with their seminary tuition through our Education Sponsorship Program. IPC partners with Pastor Daniel in many projects, which include house building, education sponsorship, and various outreach projects.
High School Spring Break House Building Trip
Each spring break, the High School youth group travels to the El Niño area for a 4 day house building trip. A quote from Eric Smith, High School Youth Pastor: “Please pray for the two families for whom we will be building homes, even if you are not going on the trip!! What an honor to build a home for families who have a little shack (6 feet by 10 feet with dirt floors, no electricity or water, leaking roof and no locking door or windows!). We pay for and build them a home with cement floors, waterproof roof, locking door and windows, a loft, with drywall and basic electricity!!! Please pray for them and for our trip for: the homes to get finished, spending good time with the families, building fun memories with our youth group, to be sensitive and learn more about Mexican culture, to be aware of God's presence in Mexico, and stretch ourselves as we service others in the name of Jesus.”
Lo Mejor del Trigo Breakfast & Tutoring Program
Through an anonymous gift, IPC has received funding for one year to establish a breakfast and tutoring program at Iglesia Lo Mejor del Trigo in El Niño. According to Pastor Daniel Nuñez, 99% of the El Niño children go to school without having breakfast. The funding provides for two women from their church to prepare the breakfast and oversee the children. Additionally, they will hire prepatoria students to tutor elementary children. This not only helps the children being tutored, but it also provides a source of income for the prepatoria students. Many prepatoria students are forced to drop out of school in order to work and assist their families.
El Niño Education Sponsorship
Contact: Karen Francis at (714)835-8584
Many children who live in El Niño, a rural village located between Tecate and Tijuana, live without hope for a bright future. Although an education can offer the children hope for their future and can improve their present living conditions on a daily basis, many families cannot afford the cost. We can help by sponsoring a child for one year of school. 3 ways to help: · Tuition, uniform & shoes – cost is $85. · Backpack – fill a backpack with specified school supplies (we have backpacks available for purchase for $10), or for $50 we will fill a backpack for you. · Donate any amount of money toward our prepatoria (high school) program. By doing any of the above, you will receive a photo and info sheet about your sponsored child, so that you may pray for him/her throughout the year. Sign ups are on the patio or contact Karen Francis if you would like to renew your sponsorship for a particular child.
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Communicating with your sponsored Child:
Your sponsored child would LOVE to receive a photo and a note from you (preferably in Spanish).
To translate your note (or the one you received back from your child), simply type it (or paste it) into the Google Translator, select the translation language, and press the 'Translate' button.You can then cut & paste it in to a word doc. From there you can copy it in your handwriting or leave it as a word doc.
It will take you less than 5 minutes & be a precious gift for your child. Be sure to include your sponsored child’s name & # on the envelope. If you need the name &/or #, contact Karen Francis at (714) 835-8584.
Letters can be mailed to the following address:
Pastor Daniel Nuñez
667 F Street Apt #A-12
Chula Vista, CA 91910
Re: El Nino child sponsorship – Child Name & #
Thanks for making the difference in the life of a child!
El Niño Fiesta
Contact: Rick Caille at (714) 669-1884 or Frances Caille at (714) 788-6140 for the next event.
Meet your El Niño Sponsored Child! We’ll be distributing backpacks in El Niño. We need interpreters, photographers and lots of smiling helpers.
- What We’ll Be Doing:
- Distribute Back Packs
- Opportunity for sponsors to meet their school child!
- Fellowship
- What to Bring
- Water bottles – approx 1 gallon per person
- Sunscreen
- Snacks
- Camera
- Lunch will be provided
Sign Up: Sign up at the missions table on the patio or contact Rick & Frances Caille.
Transportation: Drivers, visit website www.teamcasa.org/insurance.htm. By using this web page to buy insurance, BajaBound will make a donation to the Team Casa ministry. Purchase a 24 hour policy starting at 9:00 a.m. on Saturday (cost is approx $24). Print out the policy & keep it in your glove compartment. Insurance can also be purchased on the U.S. side of the border just prior to crossing. Also bring approx $7 for the toll road. Walkie talkies are handy if you have one.
“Dios le Bendiga” … “God Bless You!”
Reflections of my El Niño experience
by Heather Singarella, an El Niño Child Sponsor
My young daughters (Natalie and Juliette) and I drove from Irvine to Mexico one summer, excited to help the IPC volunteers distribute school supplies to needy children in the village of El Nino. The members of IPC made this day possible by finding sponsors to provide shoes and backpacks filled with school supplies which were necessary for the children to enroll in the only school in the village. I was particularly interested in meeting Itzel, a 12 year-old girl who my friend, Andrea, had sponsored in my name as a beautiful gift to me.
Although the poverty in El Nino is well-known, the despair that I expected to see from the villagers was never evident on their welcoming faces. It did, however, permeate their worn clothing, cardboard houses, and the soot that filled the air. The backpack distribution was supposed to begin at noon; yet when we arrived at the school in the morning, there were already throngs of children who had been waiting eagerly for hours in the hot sun at the school gates.
The volunteers proceeded to the school classrooms where they would hand out the supplies which had been effectively organized in advance of our arrival. The classrooms were stifling without the benefit of even a fan, and I wondered how the children could concentrate in their classrooms at lesson time. But at that moment, their faces were exuberant and beaming with happiness. As each child entered the room, Natalie, Juliette and their friend, Sabrina, would find the appropriate backpack and shoes, and share a grateful hug with the child. Then the child would have his/her picture taken and would write a note of thanks, to be mailed to the sponsor.
The line outside the classroom door had died down. Itzel's unique disability had been described to me, and I knew instantly when she entered the room with her shy, yet shining smile that it was she. Itzel didn't walk into the room--she has almost no mobility in her legs. She crawled into the room on her hands and toes like a "crab", as described by her mother. Itzel seemed so completely vulnerable, yet there was a resolve in her shoulders that deftly moved her to the center of the room, where she was presented with her new backpack and shoes. When my daughters introduced themselves, Itzel recognized our name and thanked us personally for sponsoring her. Her gratitude for these simple gifts overwhelmed me; it took so little to change the next year of her life.
Natalie and Juliette took a picture with Itzel as I tried to talk to her mother, Maria, in my limited Spanish. Maria has three children and sells empanadas to support their most basic needs; she cannot afford the nominal fee for the school. Without enough sponsors, some El Nino children are unable to attend school.
Afterward, Itzel, Maria and I went outside to the school's courtyard and said goodbye. I was puzzled when a few minutes later they arrived back at the classroom. Itzel quietly scuttled over to a desk, reached up to find a pen and paper, and wrote a letter to my family. It said that she loved us and hoped that God would come visit us soon. At that moment, I knew God already had.
Without a sponsor, some El Nino parents must grieve their inability to send their children to school. And it is unfathomable how Maria must suffer to watch Itzel maneuver on her hands and toes through the ragged streets of El Nino. But, at least this year, Maria will watch her daughter negotiate the harsh paths on her way -- into the classroom.
Quotes from Those Who Have Visited El Niño
The colonia of El Niño is located between Tijuana and Tecate and got its name from the El Niño rains. Many people moved here after losing everything in Tijuana floods caused by El Niño storms. Much of El Niño doesn’t have running water. The people buy their water from a water truck and store it in old 55 gallon drums. They ration their water carefully and sometimes go without.
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“They love their children, nurture and teach them good values, and at great sacrifice, send them to the best schools they can afford.”
“I was really sad when we had to leave. I really like being in El Niño. I like the people there.”
“Where are all of their toys?”
"Only a 3-hour drive from Irvine, this region has some of the worst living conditions in the world. As Mother Teresa said, '...of all the places I've been in the world, Tijuana is among the poorest.'"
“The kids don’t even have TVs or toys, but they seem happy.”
“My children said they liked this trip better than Maui.”
“Hector Rubio (who coordinates the house building and is a liaison with the local people) has the best job in the world.”
“Prior to the trip, I was really nervous about taking my children to build homes in Mexico. We’ll definitely go back – it was a fabulous experience.”
“When we arrived at the work site, I learned that we were building for a family who was living in a room the size of my bathroom built out of scrap wood and cardboard.”
“I liked making bead necklaces with the children in El Niño.”
“My self-oriented concerns were totally eliminated just a few hours into the work on the first day. A young man was walking by and stopped for a moment to watch our team building this house. He could see that we were helping his community. He looked at me and said, 'God bless you Amigo'."
"Although there is a school in El Niño, many families cannot afford to send their children. Uniforms and books cost about $150 per year per child, which equals almost one month’s wages! Some families “rotate” their children – sending a different child each year."
“Hunger is a big problem in El Niño. They don’t eat 3 meals a day like we do. At most, they’ll have 1 meal a day – it’s not uncommon to go for 2 or 3 days without food.”
“Our dear friend Edith proudly showed us tomato plants that she grew from discarded tomatoes on our sandwiches last year! As a result we decided to build planter boxes for each house and gave the families a variety of fruit and vegetable seeds.”
“These people are really innovative. Someone made a kite out of an old plastic bag and two sticks.”
“I think it’s really neat how everyone helps each other in El Niño. If someone has a latrine, they share it with everyone else.”
“Remember, we’re going to serve – not to be served!”
“Not even a flat tire or dizzying drive around and around Tijuana could hinder our food distribution efforts. We bought 1,578 kilos (3,400 pounds) of food at Costco Tijuana and later purchased an additional 500 pounds.”
Fortunately, Jose could navigate and Josie could translate. IPC children sorted and bagged rice, beans, flour, pasta and cooking oil. We distributed food to 347 families.
AMOR Ministries / Blair Illingworth
www.amor.org
Ministry Contact: Blair Illingworth at 619-662-1200 x142
For over 30 years, AMOR Ministries have served the poor in the border towns of Mexico along the US and Mexico. Along with Mexican church partners, desperately needy families have been provided simple 11'x22' two-bedroom homes in Jesus' name.
Blair Illingworth (an IPC member who grew up in Irvine) has served with AMOR for over 9 years. He currently is the Baja Field Manager with AMOR.