Mission Trip

This month I enjoyed going on a mission trip to the south of Chile with my school. Seeing as my school is catholic, there is a group called MOAEL every Wednesday, as well as a mission trip every summer.  I started going to MOAEL within my first few weeks at school, and there I learned about the mission trip. I didn't really know what it was before I went, but I said yes right away because I have loved all the mission trips I've gone on with my church in Ann Arbor, and I am certainly not going to turn down any chances to see different parts of Chile.

We did some fundraising beforehand, by selling chocolates and snacks etc, and departed in the morning on January second. It took around ten hours to arrive to Pitrufquen, which is in the ninth region. As the hours passed on the bus, the surroundings slowly got greener and colder until I felt like I could be looking out the window in Michigan. 

We stayed at a little chapel the whole week, with the girls sleeping in the dinning room next to the kitchen, the boys in a building across the road, and the teachers in the chapel. Each morning we got up in the freezing cold and set out to mission after having a breakfast of tea and bread. Including nine teachers, we were thirty-six people in total, divided into groups of six to eight people. Each group was assigned a section of Pitrufqun to mission. This was something completely new for me. All the mission trips I have been on were based around work projects, and this mission trip was based on getting to know the people in the area. As the day got warmer, we walked on the dirt road which winds through the farmland to travel from house to house. We would knock on the door and start out by saying we were missionaries in the area from Santiago, trying to share and learn about the people in this sector. After that, at almost every house we were immediately invited inside and offered tea, bread and sometimes lunch.

Aside from learning about these families and their history, we also learned from them how they made a living out there in the middle of no where. All the families lived off the land, and it was eye opening to learn how sacrificial that life is. One lady with a Raspberry crop, for example, works all day from dusk to dawn harvesting raspberries, to then drive them to town at night and sell them for almost nothing to exporters who make a fortune. For one kilo of raspberries, which is a LOT, she makes around 90 cents. She can sell them to the exporters for 1000 pesos, but she has to pay people to help her harvest so she doesn’t make all that money directly. We helped her harvest for a while and I was amazing by the hard work that it is to gain so little. Every ten minutes I would look at what I had and think, I still haven’t even made Luca (which is 1000 CLP). In fact, I ended the hour or so we were helping her in without making Luca. Keep in mind that Luca can’t even buy you three apples. When I think about how much money I make babysitting, which is fun and barely work, it blows my mind that people do this. This is something that I  knew before-that harvestors work all day in the beating sun but make almost nothing, but something I had never seen or understood before. They must also work regardless of holidays etc because as they said many times, the fruit doesn’t wait. On Christmas and New Years they still had to harvest because if not, it would be lost money. The fruit doesn’t wait.

When we weren’t visiting with the people in our sector, we were walking. All the houses are very far apart, and in some stretches we didn’t haven’t any luck so spent the whole day walking. That was part of the fun though because we passed the time in conversation and enjoying the beautiful surroundings. We also organized an activity for the whole community to do together at the end of the week. It ended up being a big success because we anticipated five people, and found ourselves with eighteen. The people were really grateful to be brought together for a little church activity, but more importantly expressed that it made them remember that they need to value their neighbors more and care more about each other. I was glad to hear that the community was grateful for our presence, because the whole week I keep on feeling like we were the only people benefiting from the visits. We were the ones who were offered lunch, given tours of the farm and taught about this life style, but I heard almost everyone express that this helped them too in a big mental way.

When we weren’t missioning, we were playing card games, soccer, talking and singing. This is always really fun because some of the games, for example, are only ever played on mission trips and overnight camps. It was also great for me because I got to know more people. The group consisted of students and ex-students of my school, but weirdly enough I am the only person in my year that participates in the religious school activities, so I didn’t know very many of the people beforehand. After a week of walking together, playing together, and freezing at night together, I made some really good friends. It was a great group of people.

I am also really happy to have gone on mission trip because I not only got to see a different part of Chile, but also experienced a new type of mission trip.