"That Trip Changed My Life"

(taken from CMF International http://bit.ly/YuOB9T)

Students and staff from the Globalscope El Pozo campus ministry in Puebla, Mexico, will make the team’s sixth spring break trip March 25-27 to build houses for poor families with Casas Por Cristo, a Christian organization based in El Paso, Texas.

“Five families now have homes because of the five trips El Pozo has made,” said Kami Burns, the El Pozo team leader, “and this year’s we’re changing that number from five to seven.”

The group plans to build both a three-room and a two-room house in Ciudad Acuna, Mexico. They have raised more than $6,000 toward the nearly $12,000 cost, and recruited 17 of the 30 students they will need for the project.

“Sometimes this project sounds too crazy, like these are goals we can’t accomplish,” said Kami, “but the name ‘Casas Por Cristo’ reminds me every time I say it that these houses are built by Jesus Christ, and 13 more students and $5,548 more is completely doable for the Son of God.”

The previous trips have been life-changing events not only for the families who receive the new homes, but also for the team participants, including Kami herself.

“In 2008, in my last year of school at Georgia Tech, I decided to go on Christian Campus Fellowship’s spring break trip to build houses with Casas Por Cristo in Ciudad, Juarez, Mexico, for the first time,” said Kami. She had spent time as an exchange student in El Pozo the year before and was excited about reconnecting with her friends there.

“That trip was crucial for me … I realized just how much I loved being in Mexico,” added Kami. “I wasn’t sure when I’d be back in Mexico or when I would see my Mexican friends again, but the lump in my throat when I left told me that maybe God was telling me something. That Juarez trip changed my life.”

Other students have also been powerfully affected by the trip, said Kami. Rada was a young girl with only a slight connection to El Pozo who went on the 2010 trip on a whim.

“The community she discovered on that trip connected her to El Pozo,” said Kami, “and over the course of the next year, she started an internship with us, gave her life to Christ and was baptized, and today she still works on our staff. That trip changed her life!”

Yet another student who was impacted by the trip was a graduating senior, Armando, who had been part of El Pozo for years, but went on his first trip with Casa Por Cristo in 2010.

“Amramdo fell in love with Casas Por Cristo on that trip and interned with them last summer,” said Kami. “There he was baptized and made a commitment to ministry. He interned with El Pozo this fall and is now preparing to join the Casas staff in Juarez and Acuna full time this summer. That trip changed his life!”

If you are interested in joining El Pozo on this trip contact Kami Burns. If you’d like to make it possible for more students to go, you may donate here. Prayers are also requested for the venture, said Kami.

“Since the beginning of the semester we’ve been praying at 2 p.m. every day, and asking supporters, friends and students to pray as well,” she said. “Please join us in praying for God to provide the people and the money to build two houses, and for the families who will receive them.”