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Uncommon Freedom
Hearts of Gratitude After Serving in Mexicali, Mexico
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Embarking on a mission trip can be an adventure that changes not just the lives of those you're helping, but your own heart as well. My son Dylan and I share about our adventure to Mexicali, Mexico, where we experienced the beauty of human kindness, humility, and hope. In today's episode, we unravel the emotions of this journey—from the joy of providing toys and blankets to a community that welcomed them with open arms, to the profound lessons learned from the resilient souls at Oasis Village in Bakersfield.
As we navigated the labyrinth of border patrol, we faced an exciting encounter with a Mexican officer and the challenges of communication barriers. Join us as we share these stories, stirring within you the desire to seek out your own service adventures and embrace the unexpected lessons they bring.
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Serving Others in Mexicali Gratefully
Speaker 1Hey everyone , welcome to another episode of the Uncommon Freedom Show . Normally it's myself and Becca , but today we have a very , very special guest . Don't tell the Labor Department that we got a minor here . We're putting them into work and we're going to have a conversation about serving others and being grateful for all the blessings of being in America . I've got my 13 year old son , dylan Tinter , in the house . Dylan , how you doing , buddy ? Good Go sons .
Speaker 2Yeah .
Speaker 1Absolutely who you repping tonight .
Speaker 2Booker .
Speaker 1Booker , excellent . So 2024 is here . How's it going ? Pretty good , pretty good . Today I want to talk about a really cool opportunity we had . Was what ? Less than a week before Christmas , we got to go to Mexicali , mexico . How was that for ?
Speaker 2you Interesting yeah .
Speaker 1Why don't you tell everyone what we did there ?
Speaker 2Okay , so like just a general idea yeah .
Speaker 1Yeah , just doing the Reader's Digest version .
Speaker 2We went with Will , a friend from Bankersfield , and then it was me , my brother and my dad , and then a guy from Bankersfield who's friends with Will named Matt , and we helped out Mexicali and we just we had like this big event and there was worship and then Will spoke and shared his testimony , and then there's a pastor there named Pastor Caesar , and then after that we gave out toys and blankets to parents and kids . And what are we expecting ? I think we were expecting like two to four hundred people .
Speaker 1They set up chairs for three hundred people , yeah , and then like over a thousand , yeah .
Speaker 2They gave like well over a thousand people came and like five hundred people suggested Jesus that day .
Speaker 1Yeah , yeah , it was pretty cool . So our buddy Will , who pastors at church in Bankersfield but he's heavily involved in a lot of different ministries , you guys have done some pretty cool stuff with Will in Bankersfield .
Speaker 2Yeah , like the Oasis Village and stuff .
Speaker 1Tell people about the Oasis Village .
Speaker 2It's like well , obviously it's in Bankersfield and it's like a place for people who I don't know . It's just like a , it's like where people live and they're like really .
Speaker 1It's a trailer park , right yeah ?
Speaker 2They're really poor and they live in like these tiny apartments and like people live in their trailers there and there's like a lot of drug dealing there and just like stuff . And then there was a fire there like within the last like couple months .
Speaker 1It was about six months ago , maybe eight months ago . Oh , it was not long yeah .
Speaker 2But , okay , there was a fire there a while ago and yeah , that just that burned down like a lot of their stuff . So we donated money to like just help them , like rebuild houses and like get new campers or something like that . And then this wasn't recent . It was like over a year ago when we went over the summer , but Will told us a story about how , during I don't remember , it was during like early 2023 . There were like three shootings there within like three weeks , I think . It was like between three and five people died and it was just crazy .
Speaker 1It looked pretty exciting for a white boy from Yilba to go to the Oasis huh .
Speaker 2Yeah .
Speaker 1Yeah , yeah . So , going back to Mexicali , we participated in purchasing toys and blankets . The toys were for the kids and blankets were for some elderly folks that live in a , basically like a senior care facility right . So tell people about some of the facilities that the church there in Mexicali , that Pastor Cesar's church , has .
Speaker 2Well , so obviously Pastor Cesar has like a church with really good worship equipment . That was random . Just saying and then next door they have like this , this , the senior home , where they've they've , they've like helped old people and that like people live there and just like kind of help , change them and hopefully bring them to Jesus .
Speaker 1Do you remember where a lot of those older people , those senior citizens , have been rescued from ?
Speaker 2Like , weren't they just like bad dads and like abusive parents ?
Speaker 1Well , yeah they . They shared the stories of a lot of the people there , but they had been rescued from . Many of them had lived , some of them had lived in a trash dump , basically called .
Speaker 2Trash , city , yeah , yeah .
Speaker 1Right , and there was one lady there who was there . She was resting on the couch , but they had said that she was . She was blind , wasn't she ?
Speaker 2Yeah , and she was also , wasn't ?
Speaker 1she was being sexually abused by people who would ever frequented or lived in the trash dump . They were taking advantage of her and just tragic . And then you know , sadly , within just a couple of days of us coming home , she passed away .
Speaker 2No , it was . I was the other old lady who was blind . It was the different arm . It was the one that we gave the . She wasn't the one that was like .
Speaker 1Oh , okay , but it was like if she was older than the one that got got it , but anyways , the one lady ended up dying within just a couple of days . And when you think about the lady who did die had been rescued from the trash city , so you think about it , if she'd still been there when she died , probably wouldn't have been buried , you know . It would just been like well , she's dead , and who knows what they do with bodies like that . So pretty sad when you think about it , right ? And then what was the other building ?
Speaker 2There was the elderly home and like right next door there was a home with a bunch of kids .
Speaker 1It's an orphanage . Yeah , yeah , yeah .
Speaker 2That's the word , and it was between kids that were like , I think , like five , four , five . It was like four , five to like 10 , 11 .
Speaker 1Yeah .
Speaker 2And a lot of the kids were there , kind of like a daycare for them . Like a little over half of them will pass . Your Caesar said that it was like a daycare . And then some kids just live there because like they were abused or just stuff like that .
Speaker 1Yeah , and you kind of touched on this . Do you remember what was one of the common themes of even the senior home ?
Speaker 2You kind of touch in this a minute ago that they're like abusive parents and like they're kids . Didn't want them this , so they don't drop them off .
Speaker 1Well , yeah , so drug use was pretty common , especially among the men .
Speaker 1Yeah which caused him to be horrible fathers , abusive fathers , and it led their kids to the point where the kids didn't want their parents , didn't want to take care of their parents , and basically that's why these parents ended up living on the streets or in trash city and you know pretty cool that they , through God's grace , were able to , you know , live out the rest of their days Somewhere where they're at least cared for and they're fed and they have a roof over their heads , right .
Speaker 2Yeah .
Speaker 1Yeah , and Obviously the orphanage . The stories of some of the parents whose kids were there very similar , huh . Mm-hmm drugs abuse pretty tragic stuff . How does that make you feel ?
Speaker 2well , for starters , very blessed , cuz like I don't have to worry about you guys doing drugs or like abusing me , cuz I'm in like a Christian foundation , like that's what we're built on and Although I know I know you guys would never do that , that kind of like Bax me up on what I'm saying , I'm like me , like knowing that you guys aren't gonna do any of that , but also it makes me very um like .
Speaker 2it makes me like second guess how I like ungrateful I am about things because I don't have to put up with that perspective , yeah , and also the thing you bring up a lot is like that's a first world problem and like where we were at they there , that's a third world country .
Speaker 1Yeah , I don't know Mexico is technically a third world country or not , but obviously where we were at it certainly looks like one . Yeah we've been to Kenya , which is a third world country , I believe , and it's some , some , some spots is very difficult to tell the difference between Mexico and In Kenya . So yeah , and then the next day talk about what we did . That was kind of the Well , no , actually it was the same day , but it felt like two different days . But that was the the next event . What do we do ?
Speaker 2Um , oh yeah , that was when we had like the whole event so that a storage house um at like that church elderly area . So we loaded toys into like two different pickup trucks and a van and we drove them to like this big like park where they had like we had rented it out .
Speaker 1Mm-hmm .
Speaker 2And we unloaded all the toys , divided them up between like genders boy , girl and there's just like toys for everyone , and then we also had blanket set up and then it came later but we had pizza for them . But yeah , we just we put toys , like we just set up all the toys and like chairs and stuff , and Well , y'all are doing that .
Speaker 1I played , I played soccer with like three of the kids , yeah and I know you're Really good at playing with the local kids everywhere we go , so that's pretty cool , I know you , you enjoy that you just do a good job of Just you know , kind of getting down at the level of whatever age kids you're with and and just having fun with them .
Speaker 1That's pretty cool . Yeah , they're this . We set up about 300 chairs , or they set up about 300 chairs and we gave away All the toys we had . It was , I think , close to 2,000 people that actually showed up .
Speaker 2Yeah , sure .
Speaker 1They did some worship . Oh Will shared his testimony . Several hundred people got saved . And then we handed out the toys . He handed out the blankets , the food . They Really did what Jesus did right . Yeah fed , the fed the people fed the 2000 . Yeah , clothes the people . Yeah , jesus feeds the 2000 , right , is that ? How many it is in the boat .
Speaker 2No , well over Estimate was 5000 , but people with women , or is that it was like over 10 .
Speaker 1Yeah , yeah , so but we'll just call it 2000 . It's close enough , yeah , for what we did and it's pretty humbling to see . So we're there A couple days before Christmas and the average American kid , if they got If you're only Christmas gift was what what those kids were getting ?
Speaker 2I would not be grateful . I'm just gonna be honest .
Speaker 1Yeah . So once again it's a really . And they were there . There was kids there well over an hour early just waiting because it was kind of a a First comfort serve for at least a seat , and when you think what a big deal . Even you know some of Kind of the dinky little toys that we were giving out were those little like dolls .
Speaker 2Like they were there , everyone wanted them .
Speaker 1Yeah , I mean kind of stuff out over 500 of those . Yeah , it's kind of stuff that most I'm American kids would just pitch the second they was given to them , right ? Yeah , yeah , yeah , anything else like when you go on a trip like that , how does that make you feel ?
Speaker 2I already brought it up , but like the , the main , where that comes my mind is like gratitude . Mm-hmm cuz I know you bring it up a lot and , like I said , third world , second world , everyone call it You're always like that's a first-world problem and whenever I hear that I'm either like trip , fair enough , or I get really annoyed because yeah care , it's a problem .
Speaker 2Yeah um , but gratitude , because if If any kids saw the average average life of an American like , or any person in Mexico saw the average life of American , they would prop in like if they even had like a day to spend just like that , they'd probably start weeping yeah and like like it's just , it's crazy cuz like . I mean , like pastor Caesar , he had a nice house especially for Mexicali .
Speaker 1Yeah .
Speaker 2I mean like they're just probably like the people . There's people living in tiny little shacks , like people are literally living in like a closet . Yeah and then there's other people who just like , like , like there's a kid . I remember when we were going back and forth dropping off the toys . There's like kid who kept walking up and down and he probably had a home , but it's just like driving back , like . They're like wouldn't stick , sticking up as fences and they're like bathrooms . That people .
Speaker 2Yeah but look like they're living in and it was just like , yeah , mind-blowing .
Speaker 1It . It makes you very grateful to be born in America .
Speaker 2Yeah right . Yeah , it is minus minus half of our government .
Speaker 1Well yeah yeah , we've got our own issues . But you know I use the phrase it's a first world problem on you guys , but I also use it on myself a lot because you know we're dealing with , you know , some roof lakes right now . Yeah and it's a nuisance . It's the fifth and sixth time We've had a roof lakes in this three years We've been at this house .
Speaker 1I think they'd be right now I don't know if you know this there's people in California , in the San Diego area , that literally like they just had some massive mudslides and their houses are pretty much destroyed . So Wow , saying man , you know it sucks having a roof lake , but we still have a house , most of our house is dry and it's just good to have perspective , which is one of the reasons that we're very intentional to make sure that you guys are exposed to what it's like in the rest of the world , because the rest of the world is much more like Mexico than it is the United States .
Speaker 1Yeah understand that right . Yeah , you want to talk about coming home in the adventure that way .
Speaker 2Oh yeah , for sure , just like start the beginning sure , but tell a story .
Speaker 1This is . This is kind of fun , right ?
Speaker 2Um so we left Um what you call it mr Caesar's or pastor Caesar's house .
Speaker 1Yeah .
Speaker 2And we were gonna say got by to say goodbye to Matt and will before we left , once we crossed the border .
Border Crossing Challenges and Mission Trips
Speaker 2So it was like difficult to like find the border it was . It was definitely a longer drive than it was getting to pastor Caesar's house . So then , pastor , see , this gave us directions that had to be on like the far left lane of like the four or five lane .
Speaker 1Right , because it was a global entry . Yeah , century lane , that's supposed to be really fast .
Speaker 2Yeah , yeah . So we drive all the way down but like we can't go through there , so we have to kind of like jump in into the in front of us . So we wait for like eight cars to pass , we sneak in and we're about to merge , yeah , yeah and we're about to like pass the border and then some Mexican officer calls us over and he's speaking like a million Mexican words per second .
Speaker 1So you , have no idea , I'll let you grace yeah .
Speaker 2Yeah , so my dad and him had to have a 20 minute in Google Translate conversation and my dad was explaining what we were doing and the guy was so what was going on your mind ?
Speaker 1Oh , when he initially pulled us over . I could tell that you were , it seemed . I was terrified .
Speaker 2Yeah , I thought we were gonna like go to prison for like I don't know . I Don't know I was . I was like just confused cuz , like I don't know what an issue is , because we were just passing in , yeah . But basically he was gonna like make us like . He was gonna like take your license or something and we're gonna have to stay an extra night and then get in the morning . My dad explained how we had been there on a mission trip and like giving out stuff and that was nice enough to let us go . So then we had to go around , like we had to go down like 10 blocks to find the back of the line , and Then pastor , and we called pastor Caesar and we told him about how , oh , yeah and will , will , and Matt also got stopped for like a similar thing and the the officer that pulled him over is like Crazy and he said that he was gonna keep Matt or something like that , if you're like another week .
Speaker 1Yeah , so basically , the way that they operate on this border is that if you merge with anyone , they're gonna send the cops after you . You have to go all the way to the back of the line and even drive past it so that there is no one . You're not cutting anyone off , you're not merging in front of even if someone lets you win .
Speaker 1What we experience is that they're gonna get you yeah and so I Got in the correct lane , but because it was moving ? No , I got in the wrong lane Because the correct lane was moving so slowly that I thought I was in the wrong lane . So , I over one lane , thinking okay , this is the lane I'm supposed to be in . And then it came to a dead end . I merged in for the century lane .
Speaker 1And literally like you said , literally like one car from where the barriers were . Had I gotten in there , I there's nothing they could have done at that point and I did think about just ignoring him and going in , but I , whatever reason , decided to listen and and and so got merged over . He called us out , he stopped and you know , definitely my Spanish isn't so good when I'm under the pressure , talking to a Mexican cop who doesn't speak English , or at least Appears to not speak English , whether or not he didn't speak , honestly I don't know . And the Basically it's like you have to give me your license , I'm gonna keep your license until you come back and pay this fine . And my gut is telling me this is just a bribery . Yeah , and I'm thinking well , in Arizona it's actually pretty easy to get a replacement license . So I'll let them have my license and I'm not gonna pay the fine , not gonna come back , I'm just gonna get out of here . And then I'm like do I really want to leave my ID here in Mexico , where who knows what kind of ID theft and Forgery is gonna happen with it ? So do I pay the bribe or offer him something to be able to take the license and get back , trying to reach past as well , called Matt , who does speak Spanish , and he's with will , and ironically they're in the same predicament Is us , but they're being told they're gonna keep Matt until the next day , like you said , which that would have been a very terrifying threat for us because I would have had two minor children stranded in Mexico . You know , that would have been crazy , that would be crazy . I don't know what I would have done , but so , but Matt speaks Spanish , but he's tied up , you know , trying to handle his issue . Call pastor Caesar . And couldn't get through initially .
Speaker 1And then I remembered a story that I'd recently heard on a podcast or something like that , where someone had shared a Similar type of incident . Maybe they were smuggling Bibles into like a communist country or something like that . I don't remember exactly what the details were , but basically it was someone who was doing something good and they were being harassed by the cops and they basically appealed to just like common decency . And that story came to my mind is we were dealing with this cop and I use Google translate and basically said hey , we came down here yesterday , hey , we came down here to deliver toys to an orphanage , and Would you please just give us grace and let us go . And I Handed the phone to him and you could just see his countenance change and he just kind of looked at me and he commented on the veteran marking on my license and made some comment about veteran . I said , yeah , marine Corps .
Speaker 2And he's like you can go you can go .
Speaker 1So we Made our way back to the end of the line , which was even further back . It took what it take us . It took us ended up taking us over three hours to get through Right just through the border . Yeah .
Speaker 2Oh yeah , for sure .
Speaker 1Yeah , so that was with the , with our global entry cards .
Speaker 2Yeah , because we had a drier and then we got stopped because we didn't have , like , your car registered or whatever the car registered attached to my account .
Speaker 1So , yeah , that was a lot of fun . How'd you feel like ? Did you feel like an American coming through the border ?
Speaker 2Um , I think so .
Speaker 1Well , I mean , just like the way you're being treated like you're going home . It doesn't feel like you're getting welcomed home .
Speaker 2Yeah , you agree with that . Yeah , for sure .
Speaker 1It's a very ironic set of circumstances . Yeah , excellent .
Speaker 2Yeah , your story was way better than mine , by the way .
Speaker 1Well , it's still , but the , I could tell you're always obviously sitting behind me and I could just tell you're really nervous and .
Speaker 1But I was just kind of praying , you know , in my head , like you know what should I do ? And I'm glad that story , you know , god just kind of planted that memory of that story in my mind and you know I'm Appreciate you guys having a great attitude when you come because obviously you're on Christmas break . I know there's other things you'd rather do , but I think it's so important to expose American kids to what life is like in the rest of the world . And the reality is you can I mean you've been to Oasis Village . You know that it's . I mean Oasis Village probably looks more like Mexico than Gilbert Arizona right ?
Speaker 2Oh , for sure yeah yeah .
Speaker 1So the reality is , you know , if you're in a spot , you're like man . We don't have the money to go to Mexico or some other country for a mission trip . You don't need to go find a place , go find slums , the low-income housing in your community and , you know , find people who are used to doing ministry there so that it's not more dangerous than it needs to be , but expose your
The Value of Serving Others
Speaker 1kids . And you know , for me , I've done , you know a number of missions trips . I'm certainly not a missionary , but I've done enough . But I feel like there's a discipline . I don't have to go on these , but I feel like it's good for me to sleep . And you know , less than ideal circumstances , eat less than my favorite food , get dirtier than I like to do and and just serve people . It really brings back that gratitude .
Speaker 1Yeah any final words of wisdom .
Speaker 2Um , don't cut the line when you're crossing the border .
Speaker 1Don't cut the line when you're crossing the border . That is wisdom you can take to the bank , absolutely Well . Hey friends , thanks for watching , thanks for listening , dylan , thanks for joining me . Bud Mm-hmm , it was fun to get your perspective on all this , and If you could do a mission trip to any country in the world , where would you want to go ?
Speaker 2I don't know a lot of like like third-world country countries , but Like mission trip . I don't really know anywhere , anywhere that I can help people , it's fine .
Speaker 1Cool . I love that because a lot of people say , oh , I want to go to Fiji or something like that , some tropical island . So awesome , buddy , thanks for joining me . Friends Find a way to serve before the year is over and hopefully before the month is over find a way to serve others , just to cement your gratitude for the many blessings that we have have a great day pieces .