SAN DIEGO (BP)–San Diego locals don’t seem inclined to relocate, and it’s easy to see why.
The Southern California city boasts miles of exquisite cliff-lined Pacific Coast, elite shopping boutiques in open-air malls, trendy outdoor cafes and the relaxed atmosphere of an area content with its upper-class persona.
But drive 20 miles south down Interstate 5 and the environment changes dramatically. You arrive in Tijuana, Mexico, a city the color of faded bricks where scrap metal and discarded tires form homes and the drinking water isn’t safe.
More than half of the 750 students who attended LifeWay’s San Diego X-Fuge camp July 5-9, however, chose to spend the bulk of their camp day in Tijuana and other local points of outreach instead of enjoying free time in comfort.
For this summer’s inaugural X-Fuge on the West Coast, camp organizers at LifeWay Christian Resources implemented a mission track option in addition to regular free time and breakout sessions.
X-Fuge coordinator Jason Ellerbrook said LifeWay offered the mission track after youth directors expressed an interest in attending a camp where their groups could do missions as a church.
“I think there’s a great need in California, particularly Southern California, for a camp that will offer missions,” Ellerbrook said. “These students are dying to go out and make a difference, to be revolutionary.”
For three days, students and leaders headed to various locations in and around San Diego. Each group took the tools necessary for work at their assigned mission sites, paintbrushes to colored sand, soccer balls and candy.
Each group also took a willingness to serve.
IN THE ‘DUMPS’
“Muy bonita,” Sandra Ladd proclaimed as she coated tiny fingernails with glittering silver polish. Hundreds of fingers later, the countless grinning girls had contributed a bit of sparkle to the otherwise dingy Tijuana dump they call home.
Ladd, youth director at First Christian Church in Stillwater, Okla., knew the students in her youth group wanted to experience something new, something deeply touching at camp this summer.
Watching her 30 students exchange high-fives with more than 200 children they had never met, deliver food to hungry families and paint ramshackle shelters in impoverished Tijuana, she knew LifeWay’s X-Fuge camp had met their needs.
“The kids were ecstatic from when they first heard [about the mission work in Tijuana],” Ladd said.
During three scorching days south of the border, the youth helped children choose crayons for coloring pictures, blew bubbles that burst on eager fingertips and swung jump ropes through the sweltering air.
Rousing games of soccer erupted in the barren lot adjacent to Centro Shalom, the church that served as the mission site headquarters. Even the choking clouds of dust that rose with every kick of a royal blue ball couldn’t hide the joy of the Mexican children and Oklahoma youth alike enjoying one another’s company.
“I knew that coming to Mexico would be a life-changing experience,” said Katy Wilkinson, who will begin school at Baldwin-Wallace College in Berea, Ohio, this fall. “I wanted to learn to be much more selfless and to not take so much for granted.”
Ladd said the leaders and sponsors spent time prior to camp helping students understand the many aspects of mission work.
“We just had to help them understand that when you go out and minister to others it really benefits you,” Ladd said. “This has given them a greater perspective. It’s not about guilt — it’s about an awareness of what’s out there and being able to help.”
Each evening, the First Christian youth group gathered to discuss their perceptions of the day. Sandra Ladd’s son, Tanner, said the time together ran the gamut from broken weeping to gleeful recollections.
“I think our kids were surprised by how happy the Tijuana kids are with what little they had,” Tanner Ladd said, recalling the discussion during the meeting after the first day. “I just hope [the students] go home and appreciate what they have — not that they feel guilty, just blessed.”
SET FREE CONVERSIONS
Because of the language barrier, the work in Tijuana didn’t provide many opportunities for traditional sharing of the Gospel, but a Foothills Church youth group from Las Vegas who worked at Set Free, a ministry to addicts, the homeless and hopeless just outside downtown San Diego, had the chance to sow some seeds and even reap a little of the harvest.
Parent volunteer Tracy Bogdanovich explained that each of the 22 Foothills students spent time prior to camp preparing to teach, lead crafts activities and otherwise implement LifeWay’s Arctic Edge VBS curriculum for the children at Set Free.
Before their final day of ministry even began, the students had already seen nine children and one adult come to know the Lord, an event Set Free attempts to accomplish every day.
For three days, X-Fuge campers from Foothills Church gathered near Set Free’s swimming pool and in unused community rooms to offer the ministry’s youngest residents a little distraction from the everyday difficulties they often face.
Youth laughed and encouraged blindfolded preschoolers as they bumped into tables and chairs during an activity designed to illustrate the story of Paul and Ananias. Meanwhile, a poolside awning sheltered older children and youth as they completed crafts, performed dramas of Bible stories and otherwise spent time together.
“It’s fun because we get to teach these kids about God,” youth group member Anna Lutschkin said. “It’s important to help people because sometimes they don’t have very much.”
X-Fuge speakers Bryan Currie and James Jackson spent the week focused on teaching campers about revolution, and pointed back to the impact X-Fuger’s made at various mission sites.
“Folks, today you made history in someone’s life,” Jackson, a student events coordinator at LifeWay, told the crowd on closing night. “You’ve influenced people’s history this week and what if, by influencing their history, you influenced their eternity?”
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For more information about 2007 X-Fuge camps, visit LifeWay.com/fuge.
