A group of Christian missionaries from Georgia is capping off its fifth year of biannual trips to Yucatan, Mexico.
The visit included a surprise encounter with another group of missionaries from the same U.S. town.
Twenty-one HBC Rome church members spent four days building houses and running hammock workshops in Ichmul, the Rome News-Tribune reports.
They worked with the local ministry Mission House Partners International, which has been in the area since 2008.
On New Year’s Day, they were surprised by a visit from some familiar faces — the baseball team from a Rome-based Christian school, Shorter University. They had arrived to teach baseball clinics to the local kids.
“We didn’t know they were coming until we arrived,” he said.
In a nearby village, where they painted three different rooms for three different families, which was one of four projects the team managed during their stay. Church member Mike Powell said the HBC Rome team purchased all of the paint and supplies themselves when they landed in Cancun.
The team also laid a concrete foundation for a new church near Valladolid. Powell said workers hand-blended 50 pounds of concrete base with 25 gallons of sand and rock and 15-20 gallons of water. They spent 30 minutes flipping the mix with a shovel before it was ready to pour. The team also laid rebar and added a 12-foot wall to the foundation of the two-story structure, which will also house the pastor and his family.
For a third project, a member gathered several men and built a thatched-roof home for a local couple about to get married. The man who will live there was overcome with emotion, according to the news report.
“He asked ‘why you would help me you don’t know me,’” a church member recalled. “They were so happy,” she said.
The group’s fourth project was making hammocks with a group of about 15 local women, who derive their income from the product.
The HBC Rome group supplied the materials for the women and then purchased the hammocks from them when they were completed.
The group also held devotionals and led the participants in worship.
Source: Rome News-Tribune
