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 What missionary work is truly about is growth: growth of the community being visited and helped, growth for the groups visiting, and personal growth for the missionaries. I went with a mission group from La Jolla Presbyterian Church, including four other people and a representative from Floresta, to the community of Chinapa in Oaxaca. My life has been positively influenced in such a way that I can never return to some of my former ways of life.
Our mission was to build relationships with the people of Chinapa through vacation bible school and interaction with the adults during activities such as reforestation, vegetable gardening and fellowship.
In order to understand the lives of the people in the community, we lived the same way they do. We slept in their houses and ate their food.
 We played with their children and spoke their language. Our lives were transformed in order to see the world through their environment. We grew and began to understand at least a piece of their lives and could comprehend the differences and similarities that we share.Floresta’s mission is to heal the land and its people. While partnering with the communities, they equip them to reforest eroded hillsides. In Chinapa, we were able to plant trees that within a few years will replenish the forest. Through this experience, we helped the economy of the community to grow, the trees to grow, and our own group to grow, while leaving a physical reminder of the love of God. God brought us here to help, and these trees help the community and all who see them to understand His love and dedication to His people.
Similarly, in our own personal faiths we were able to grow by experiencing a different way to worship God and by listening to sermons in their church. The forms of expressing their faith were different, but the goal was the same.
Through this trip to Chinapa, I grew in multiple ways and I know the community was able to grow through our partnership. The trees were planted and will soon sprout their own roots. As we continue to visit and develop our partnership, becoming a part of the community, our roots will grow and our relationship will flourish too.
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