. Conn~ction ThrQugh Christ 30 student life On July 10, 2 009, I embarked with a group instead of paint bought at a store and sanded entire I of fellow Harding students on a twelve - day church pews with little strips of sandpaper instead ora mission trip to Oaxaca, Mexico for the nrst belt sander before staining them. time in Harding's history. Two adult chaper - Later in the week we held a Vacation Bible School ones led our group of six students to conduct missionary with the theme "Fruits of the Spirit." It was 3111azing work in this southern part of the country, and each one ~ ' to see the kids get engrossed in our games and skits of us came away with a new view of how God's children through which we strove to share with them God's live and interact in a place so unlike the one we were love. We were thrilled to see the number of kids who familiar with. Througho~t our stay in Oaxaca, each student stayed with a different host family to help immerse us into the culture. As my host family did not know any English and my Spanish was limited, we often resorted to games of charades in order to communicate. Despite the language barrier, I learned that there were more ways than one to communicate; that human emotion is universal, and at times, a simple smile says more than wor ds can express. During the first week, as we helped clean the church grounds, we discovered how different our two cultures were. As Americans, we were often concerned with doing things quickJy, using the most efficient means possible, but i n Oaxaca, the people did their work as it had been done for years. So we cut grass with machetes instead of lawn mowers, painted the e xte – rior walls with mixed paint they had made themselves attended increase each day, growing from around 50 to ~bout 80 kids by the end of the week. We learned later from the missionaries we worked with that lllany of those kids were from the streets. It was remarkable to see that we could make such an impact on these people and see Cod at work in their lives. While the differences between our two cultures were obvious, one fantastic similarity was that we all loved to worship the same God . Our group went down there, having no idea what to expect. Coming from a wealthy culture, we often times put ourselves on a pedestal and wonder , "How can they live \ike this?" But they do, and I had to strip away everything Twas used to and learn to live like them . Thad to remember who was in control and that Twas there to serve Him. Christina Hatler
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