Day 6 (Thursday)

Hola! Thanks for reading this far into my trip to Mexico City!

Today was the final day of actually serving and seeing another portion of El Pozo De Vida. At around 9AM, our team headed out to the Immigration Center of Mexico City. The Immigration Center holds immigrants who are found to be without their passports or identification (always keep your passport with you if you are in Mexico!). The process of verifying their identity and claims can range from hours to days to even weeks before each immigrant is sent back to their home country. As for our task, our team tagged along with other members of El Pozo De Vida and went in to provide a worship service consisting of songs, a message, and a taking of communion. Side Note: only 3 guys (including me) of the 8 in our team were allowed into the immigration center because some didn't have their passport (once again, always keep your passport with you!). Unfortunately, this meant that the team only got to experience the men's side of the location because the center is split into men, teens, and women & children. The experience was definitely not expected and you can see more of my thoughts in the reflection at the bottom of this post.

The next part of day consisted of a BBQ held at our place with the girls from The Well. There was a nice time of bonding and fellowship over food, games, dancing, worship, and even working out (odd...) . We then walked over to a nearby park to hike and to use the playground. Throughout these couple hours, a lot of us engaged in conversation and it was cool to get to know the girls a lot better! After saying our goodbyes, our team headed to get some good food!

The place we headed was called Coyocán. This village is near the center of Mexico City and the streets basically felt like a giant food fair. There were food stands everywhere and tons of people lining up for various things. The first thing that we got was hot/iced chocolate! Apparently, it's very famous and the line was about 20 minutes long (crazy for hot chocolate!). We also had some amazingly crunchy churros that were definitely the best I've had so far in my life. 

Other foods were tried was this giant pork stick (see below) that had some 'death sauce' (totally ruined me...) and a fried quesadilla from another food stand (also messed me up...). Here's some pictures below!

Reflection:

I think today was easily the most memorable day of my trip for a few reasons. 

First, going to the immigration center was pretty insane. When I walked into the detention area with all the other men, I was definitely intimidated not only because I was the odd one out but because they were all looking at us. It felt almost like a scene straight out of 'Prison Break'. Still, I saw that there was something different because when the group leading us went to the other end of the spectrum, almost all the men followed. To see so many of them interested in the Word, worship, and communion was mind-blowing because you would think that the only thing on the immigrant's mind is trying to get home as soon as possible.

Next, today's time spent with the girls was much more memorable than the previous two. Playing games and watching movies was also great, but there was a different connection that I made with some of the girls today. (I actually spoke a good amount of Spanish today, crazy...) It was cool to get past that language barrier and ultimately become closer in our relationship with them. 

Finally, tonight's trip to Coyocán was a nice getaway to spend with the team, Benny's family, and others. It almost felt like a celebration as a conclusion to us serving this week and I definitely enjoyed every last bit of it!