For over 30 years, a week long-mission trip to Mexico has been led by Moraga Valley Presbyterian Church (MVPC) in partnership with Amor Ministries.

Each year this mission trip brings together over 150 high school students and adult leaders from the Lamorinda area to Tijuana, Mexico during spring break to serve families in need by helping build houses. This year, many Campolindo students participated on the mission trip where they worked together in teams to assemble houses, camped in tents, and bonded together through different activities.

Junior Gia Okulicz went on the Mexico trip for the first time this spring and was a member of the storm team. “My favorite memory was probably seeing the families’ faces when we were done building the house because they were really excited,” commented the junior. One of her biggest takeaways from this experience was, “meeting new people”. Okulicz noted that, “some of the work site assignments were really physically challenging and took a lot of labor,” which was one of the difficulties the team had to overcome.

Cale Anderson is a senior and this year’s service trip was his third time in Mexico with MVPC. He led the black team to, “build a two room house for a family of four.” Anderson was very proud of how his “group worked really well together and there were people from all grade levels and all schools” which allowed for them to, “work hard and finish the house which was a great accomplishment.” “There were some challenges in terms of weather,” said the senior, “It hailed and rained on us but my team persevered and pushed through to finish the house.” As a takeaway for this trip he noted, “it was great to see how happy the family was to receive a door that locked and a good house.”

Green team member Junior Amelia Ra participated in the Mexico trip for the first time this year. Outside of the time that the team spent building houses Ra said she enjoyed, “getting to know all my teammates because a lot of them I had never met before.” Some of her favorite memories from the trip were “from the bus rides because they were super chaotic and fun” as well as the lunch time discussions she had with her team. The Junior said the biggest challenge for the green team was, “finishing the house on time because [they] did not want to leave an unfinished house to a family in need.”

When the students returned home from Tijuana, they were able to celebrate their work by sharing their experience with the congregation at MVPC during Sunday Service and a reunion night dinner with all the teams.