Local youth head to Mexico for 'Houses for Christ'

Teens will be out of their comfort zone

By KURT NESBITT

Journal Staff Writer

NEW ULM -- Humility is a good thing because it gives you perspectives on your life.

That's the idea First United Methodist youth minister Dave Sperstad tries to convey to the junior high, high school and college students he takes on mission trips.

"The purpose is to get the kids out of their comfort zone, and hopefully, they'll realize they don't have it as hard as they think," Sperstad said.

In his four years as youth minister, Sperstad's missions have taken him and several New Ulm students to Canada and Mexico as well as U.S. cities such as Duluth, Minneapolis, Chicago and Nashville.The group performs community service work in blighted areas -- working in soup kitchens, volunteering in shelters, handing out free meals on bread wagons and visiting with children and senior citizens.

This summer's mission trip is to Juarez, Mexico, a town of about 2 million people located just across Rio Grande River from the U.S.-Mexico border and El Paso, Texas.

Sperstad and 21 other First United Methodist volunteers plan to spend three days in Juarez as a part of a mission project that builds homes for needy Mexican families. The project is called Casas Por Christo, a Spanish phrase that translates to "Houses For Christ." Currently, Juarez has a shortage of an estimated 40,000 homes.

Sperstad and four other adults will lead the group. It will leave First United Methodist Saturday at 7 a.m. and will travel for nearly 30 hours straight until reaching the Mexican border. The team will sleep in a church in Juarez and will work for three days to build a 400- square-foot house from wood, cement and stucco.

The trip will cost First United Methodist Church $13,000.

Most of that money is raised through donations from the collection plate. The students also pay a $285. That fee pays for supplies, food and transportation. First United Methodist received money for the trip from other local churches because some participants belong to their congregations.

Casas Por Christo is a non-profit organization that uses a network of Juarez-area pastors to find the needy families, who are required to purchase the lots where the missionaries will build their houses. The funding for building supplies comes from the volunteers' churches. Casas Por Christo provides the volunteers with tools and doesn't require any previous construction experience.

Sperstad chose Casa Por Christo because most of the money donated to the mission goes straight into its building projects, he said.

He also felt that Casa Por Christo's religious philosophy is similar to Methodism because it welcomes worshippers of all backgrounds. First United Methodist's youth program attracts interest from youths in Catholic and Lutheran churches and also from those who don't attend church regularly.

Although she's a member of St. Mary's Catholic Church, Lana Howk of New Ulm started going on mission trips with First United Methodist when its program began three years ago. Howk said she was originally attracted to the a mission because it was simply a trip to Chicago.

"At first, I was interested in the trip part, but after the second one, it was more for the spirituality of it," she said.

Howk has helped teach Confirmation classes at First United Methodist. Howk is even considering missionary work as a career, she said.

"It taught me that it's OK to express feeling about God and to share it with other people too," Howk said when asked about what lessons she learned on the trips.

Sperstad finds mission trips useful for another purpose -- teaching humility.

During the Chicago trip, missionaries worked in the Cabrini-Green housing project where many people treated Sperstad's group like they believed they were saving the world, Sperstad said, when in fact, Cabrini-Green residents were doing more for their visitors than the New Ulmites did for them.

Susan Ward, a 12-year member of First United Methodist Church, went to Juarez for the church in 1993.

"It was hard work," she said. "It was challenging physically because you work hard and it's very hot. It's also challenging in how we see the world. There's lots of poverty, lots of unpaved roads ... no indoor plumbing ... When it's your first mission experience, you learn all different nationalities struggle with the same things. ... I think it puts life in perspective in that perspective is about being thankful and about how much we need to give to others."

"It's sad that we have such a separation, Sperstad said. "We can stand in Juarez and see El Paso and see the people who have and stand by the people who have not ."

Sperstad also hopes to teach New Ulm kids about commonalities among other cultures, communities and countries.

The success of the mission trip experience depends upon an individual's willingness to open up to the experience, Howk said.

Howk sees some indifference to the lessons of a mission trip, but she doesn't think those people can't say the trip touched their lives in some way.

"I've lived in New Ulm all my life. This is all I knew," Howk said. "And going to Chicago was really an eye-opener. ... You're taken aback when you see how people live. We're rich people in New Ulm."