A scene near Puerto Escondido, Mexico

The Mission

    This is a true story of what God did and what I experienced. The story started initially with some strong fears of the things that possibly could happen to me if I were to go on a mission trip. Then there came the time that God spoke to me which gave me the courage to over come the fear and gave me a willingness to obey. However, it was not long before there were a couple attacks from the enemy, a time of testing, but God soon provided victory over them. Since God didn't give the full disclosure of the mission, I had to pray and wait on the Lord.  Next, I found myself in a life and death situation, but as I prayed, God brought me safely to shore. Then God opened a door for me to briefly minister, but this didn't seem like the mission which God had spoken to me about. The mission journey seemed coming to a close, but then God placed me in a situation where all I could do was to simply pray and look to see what God was doing. Then it happened....  

The Full Story

    A number of years ago in 1988, I was part of small church here in San Angelo, Texas. My pastor, Darrel Eaton was quite mission minded. The church helped establish a small mission school for young men who wanted to become pastors in the county of Mexico just outside the city of Puerto Escondido, Oaxaca. The missionary school was designed to help the young men to prepare for ministry. Mr. Larry Wester became their teacher, teaching Bible, but also teaching welding and carpentry so that the young men would have some means income while they established a church.

    My pastor at the time was Darrel Eaton. He and his wife, Barbara, were very mission minded and made a number of mission trips to Mexico, but shared once or twice something about being chased by the police (federales). At the time, my understanding was that the police was known to put Americans in jail for just about anything, thus hoping to get money from their family before releasing them. My pastor asked me several times about going with him to the mission. Well, I don't speak Spanish and definitely was not interested in the possibility of being put in a Mexican jail. However, one day, Darrel told me that he needed to go to the mission school the next week to take care of some business there. He said, "Basil, why don't you go with me?" This time, I knew that God was speaking to me to go with him. This time, there was no fear because I knew that God was giving me a mission in my going, although I didn't know why I was to go.

    My pastor and I got ready and drove to San Antonio to catch a plane flight to Mexico City and then got on another flight from Mexico City to Acapulco. On that second flight, the plane hit some rather turbulent air which caused the plane to bounce around and suddenly lose quite of bit of altitude. I prayed and thought, "Even if the plane goes down, God is still in control because He had told me to go on this mission trip." The plane shortly got out of the turbulent air and we were able to take a breath of air.  Not long after after that, both my pastor and I started to get quite physically sick with head aches and an upset stomach. We both felt it was an attack of the enemy, so we prayed and rebuked the sickness. The sickness left us in less than an hour and the plane landed in Acapulco shortly before midnight.

    At Acapulco, we rushed to catch a cab to go across town to catch a bus going to Puerto Escondido. We arrived a the bus station which was nothing more than a open air lean-to building with an outside bench for a waiting area. It was 11:45 p.m.when we arrived. Please understand, that bus was to leave at midnight to go to Puerto Escondido. As God would have it, we got the last two available seats which were at the very back of the bus and where the shell of the bus curves forward.

    It was not a very comfortable place to sit for a number of hours with the bus bouncing around on narrow roads and with our seats pressing forward against our backs. Of course, there was no air conditioning on this crowded bus and only with hot and humid air coming in through the open windows. However, about a hour down the road, there was a brief rain shower that helped considerably. I finally dozed off sometime after 1:00 a.m. Then, maybe an hour later, I was awakened with the bus being stopped and a Mexican policeman flashing a flashlight in my face. There were two Mexican policemen doing a search of the bus. I then realized that it was a drug stop when officer pointed to my camera case which was sitting in my lap. I opened it to show him that I only had my camera in the case. Again, understand that I don't speak or understand Spanish and my pastor seemed to be still asleep. The officer nodded his head to indicate that it OK. After the police left the bus, my pastor whispered that he had been playing to be asleep. Ha! Ha!

    I finally again dozed off for some time, but again was awaken as the bus pulled off the road and was heading down a rather steep embankment. Since it was a dark night and I was on the back of the bus, I couldn't see ahead to see where we were going or what was going on. I first thought that the bus might be being hijacked. However, the driver drove the bus across a rough area, maybe a low water crossing, at the bottom the of the hill and then drove back up the embankment and got back on the road. Evidently, there had been a bridge at the top that had been damaged. We arrived safely at the mission school about sunrise.

    We were to stay at the mission for about a week. Since I didn't speak Spanish, I mostly walked around the property and took photos. Then there was one day that my pastor took me to a lagoon (I think Laguna Manialtepec) that connects with the Gulf of Mexico. Darrel wanted to take me snorkeling and to show to me a coral reef and the beautiful coloreds fish. The coral was unique to me and the fish were colorful. The adventure started quite well, but I only had a little experience snorkeling. Then on one dive, water got into my mask and when I surfaced to get a breath of air, I inhaled water into my lungs rather than fresh air. I didn't know how to clear my mask and my lungs and I was a number of yards away from the shore. The only thing that I could think of doing was to pray, hold my breath, and swim toward shore hoping to get into shallow water before I drowned. I swam toward shore until I completely run out of energy and air. I then put my feet downward hoping that my feet would touch bottom and they did. I stood up in upper chest deep water, removed my mask, and coughed the water out of my lungs. My pastor was unaware of what had happen to me and that I could have easily drowned before he swam to where I was. Today, I think it may have been the enemy's plan to take me out of God's plan, but God saved my life.

    The last night that we stayed at the mission school, my pastor asked me to pray over each of the men and give them a word of encouragement from the Lord. Of course, he translated for me. It all went quite well, but I did not believe that this was the main reason that God had me to go on this trip. The next day was to be the end of the mission trip and I was still wondering why God had me to go on the mission trip. I believe that Larry Wester drove us to an airport to get a plane fight to Mexico City where we had a night layover before flying to San Antonio, Texas. We decided to go visit Richard and Mariam, a Christian couple that we knew who lived in Mexico City. My pastor called and talked to Mariam and she welcomed our coming to visit them. We caught a crazy, hair raising, cab ride to their house. In Mexico City at that time, the biggest vehicle and the loudest horn took the right of way at the intersection. When Richard got home from work, he said that he had a women's Bible study that night which happened to be on that Wednesday night. He invited my pastor and I to go with him to the womens' Bible study. He drove to a large one floor building that looked like it might be a factory of some kind, but the building had doors evenly spaced along the side of it. We stopped at one door and several women greeted us and we went into a small two room apartment. Soon, about 25 more women showed up and filled the two small rooms. The women had actually turned a bed on it side to make room for more chairs.

    Richard asked, Darrel, my pastor, do the teaching that night since he was a bilingual. My pastor, stood in the doorway between the two rooms so that he could see the people into both rooms and that they could see him. It happened to be that I was asked to sit near the doorway between the two room and where I could see directly into the other room. Of course, my pastor taught in Spanish which I could not understand. However, God directed my attention on a young Mexican woman who was around twenty years old that was seated in the other room directly across from me. She was rather attractive and dressed in pure white, but God gave to me the spiritual discernment that she was emotionally hurting. At the close of the teaching, I went to tell my pastor, that God was showing me that she was hurting and that she needed ministry.

    I thought that my pastor would take it from there, but he told me to speak to Richard about this young woman. So, I went to Richard and told Richard that I believed the young lady need some ministry. By this time, some of the other women were gathered around the young woman in prayer in the other room. Richard said that they were praying with her about her salvation. Then after the group of ladies broke up, Richard went and talked to some of the women and then came back to me and said that she did not receive salvation. Then unexpectedly, Richard asked me if I would still like to minister to her. I told him that would be fine, but that I didn't speak Spanish. He said that it would be no problem because he would translate for me. Richard went to her and asked if we could talk with her and she responded positively. As we sat down, I told her that God was showing me that she was really hurting emotionally. Then I asked her who had hurt her the most. She responded that a lot of people had hurt her. I said, "Maybe so, but who has really hurt you the most?" She began to cry and acknowledged that her parents had hurt her the most. I didn't pursue how her parents had hurt her, but said, "Jesus loves you and wants to heal you emotional wounds." Then I opened a Bible and read Luke 4:18-19."The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor, he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty to them that bruised, to preach acceptable year of the Lord." Richard translated the Scripture into Spanish.  I explained that Jesus was our emotional wound substitute and that God wanted to heal her heart, but that she must be willing to give her heart to Jesus as her Lord before he could heal her emotional wounds. Then I asked if she would be willing to do that. She, then responded nodding, "Yes." I then led her in a prayer to do that. Next, I also explained that she needed to be willing to forgive her parents for what they had done to hurt her and she responded that she would. God timed everything just perfect. That night the young woman prayed and receive the Lord as her Lord and savior. Beyond that, God gave me the grace to lead her through prayers for emotional healing from whatever her parents did to hurt her.

    Today, I don't remember her name, but I watched God change her life in a short period of time. I may never see her again this side of heaven, but I am looking forward to seeing in heaven. This was why God had me to go on this mission trip to Mexico.

    I pray that this story will be an encouragement to those of who are searching to follow on after God and see God work in their lives.