Several have asked about the Vineyard young adult (GodSearch) spring break work trip to Reynosa, Mexico. I headed the trip, and that’s me on the left holding a young Mexican girl after the church service on Palm Sunday in Reynosa, Mexico, our first day in Mexico.Our Vineyard young adult pastor (Tony Ranvestel) and I took 24 young adults to Reynosa, where we teamed up with veteran Vineyard Mexico missionary Fred Collom and his team. It was a great trip. Below are a few brief notes…which I already have shared with our pastoral team…
* The trip was very successful. Down and back in 3 vans was brutal but fun (25 hours each way … driving through the night twice). Talk about 8 days of intensive discipleship. We took our two 15-passenger Vineyard vans and one 15-passenger Enterprise Van. With about 12 people who could drive a 15-passenger van we did okay, driving through the night twice in 8 days. The group really bonded.
* Stan and Geneva Clapp, Vineyard members who spend the winter at Fred Collom home in Mission, Texas, were ready for us, which we deeply appreciated. Accommodations at Fred’s house (which we affectionately called ‘The Compound’) were adequate and the meals Geneva planned and cooked with her team were outstanding. We divided the group into 9 teams that took turns helping Geneva with meal prep and clean-up. It worked well.
* Fred Collom drove from Mazatlan, Mexico (on the west coast of central Mexico) with Lydia (one of his staff members at Mazatlan) and Amber (his oldest daughter). Lydia and Amber served as translators during the week. They both were outstanding servants. Fred also asked two brothers from McAllen, TX, (Moses and Vic) who have their own ministries to help us during the week. They were a bit "crazy" and opinionated, which made it interesting but fun. Everyone got along amazingly well, although there were a few times the chain of command was unclear. 
[On the first day (Palm Sunday) there was a 2-hour wait to get back across the border into the U.S. I ended up in Vic’s 1988 Dodge pickup with an American missionary from Iowa who was helping Vic drill wells. Vic suddenly got totally impatient with the line. He does a 180, burning rubber, and saying, "Praise Jesus, we’re gonna cross somewhere else." He heads to the town of Progresso about 25 miles away where there is another crossing to get back into Texas. Along the highway he quickly accelerates to 90 MPH, passing everyone in sight. He looks at me and in his Louisiana ancient says, "What’s the matter, Gringo? You scared? The Holy Ghost is leading us, buddy. Don’t worry. This baby doesn’t even starting humming until she hits about 100." He looks at me, and wryly says, "The brakes ain’t too bad in this old girl. They’ll work if we need them, but I ain’t used ’em for weeks."]
* Palm Sunday we went to a very small Reynosa Pentecostal church, where Fred preached. The poverty all around was incredible. It turned out the service where Fred preached was actually the Sunday School time, which was fine. There was a lot of joy during the service, and in the middle of the service while a woman prayed the Holy Spirit just seemed to fall on the place. As we debriefed later that evening, many in our group mentioned this. Pretty incredible. We played with the kids after the service, had a soccer game in the street and had a good first day.
* Mon.-Wed. of Holy Week we went to the same squatter village on the north edge of Reynosa and worked on houses, ran the mobile kitchen and prayed for people. One day the pet rat of one of the girls in the village made a visit into the kitchen while we were cooking pancakes. "Pancakes, anyone?" Somehow I don’t think U.S. sanitation laws applied in quite the same way!
* Sun.-Wed. evenings back at the compound we worshiped and debriefed from the day’s activities. We had a tremendous ministry time Monday evening. The final night Fred gave the group a challenge to really be part of what God is doing in Reynosa. We put Fred, Lydia and Amber in the middle of our prayer circle and blessed their ministry in Jesus’ name.
* Part of Fred’s vision for Reynosa is to both start churches and "convenience" stores in some of the squatter villages on the north edge of Reynosa. There was a church and a "convenience" store in the village we ministered in, and Fred is looking for places where he feels are the best places to plant Vineyards.
* On the way back home we let the group shop in a little Mexican tourist town (Progresso) and we goofted around at the beach for a couple of hours Mustang State Park just east of Corpus Christi. We arrived in Houston about 10pm, where we stopped for about an hour at the home of one of young men in our group. His parents had a late evening delicious meal ready for us. Sweet!* Tony Ranvestel, the young adult pastor here at the Vineyard, and Sheila Schmidt, a church member who is a veteran at mission trips, were with us the entire time, and were both outstanding servants. I was the captain of the Enterprise Van, while both Tony and Sheila were in charge of our two 15-passenger Vineyard Vans.
* At this point I’d say this certainly seems to be the first of many GodSearch mission trips to come.
donfollis.com 