Mexico Mission Trip...Day 2 traveling to Playa del Carmen

Considering our drive to Chicago was longer than our flight will be to Cancun this should be a piece of cake right? We had a short drive to the airport then it was the all important question....who was going to remember where we parked and then after checking if I had my passport for the 10th time I finally stopped worrying about it.

Chicago skyline from the plane 

Luckily we got to watch a movie on the flight I wanted to see so I can cross Wrath of the Titans of my list. Beyond that it was an uneventful flight which is always a good thing.

Coming into Cancun

Well after a slight delay in finding the other groups we were meeting up with we did finally find our Praying Pelican Missions leaders and we headed out to get some food. So where else do you go when you are in a foreign country for the 1st time? McDonalds that's where. I at least got something called a McTasty (not) that you can't get here in the US. After that it was a 45 minute drive south of Cancun to Playa del Carmen. We went past megaresort after megaresort all with high walls and trees to block the view across the street of the shanties and abandoned buildings.

Never be the 1st to fall asleep 

We stayed just a few blocks off of Mexico hwy 307 at the north end of 30th Ave North about 10 blocks west of the ocean at the Filadelfia Baptist Church. But in order to get to the public beach you'd have to hop the bus for about a 1/2 hour and go south and then walk the rest of the way. But on the way to where we were staying we began to realize the neighborhood we were going to was not necessarily one we'd ever considering going to back home.....if we even have anything remotely like it.

The open courtyard at Filadelfia.

Rooftop view from the church 

We didn't have time to settle in after the long day of travels because we had to get ready for an evening church service at a different church after we had an authentic meal.

After our meal we changed (we'd already sweat through our 1st set of clothes) and began the trek to the church we would be attending. Walking down the sidewalk, many times single file because the sidewalk was barely wide enough for 1 1/2 people, we had our 1st chance to experience life and culture of this community. You can see in the picture above how there were usually 5-6 shops on each block which we would be about the size of a single car garage which was pretty much what these were and then converted to some type of shop. There were various food places, Internet cafes, hair dressers, convenience stores and shops selling backpacks, clothes, sandals and then they'd repeat on the next block. The real treat though was the homemade ice cream shop several blocks south of the church. The real eye opener started when we walked along the park that was packed with food carts, men playing soccer, kids playing on the playground and people selling things on the curb. But it didn't stop there once we got a block or so past you could begin to notice the extreme poverty this area is stricken with. From the dead rats in the gutters, the smells to the tiny houses with garbage spilling out into the street we weren't in Iowa any more Toto. A boy we met, Emanuel, told us he only made 15 pesos a day working 8 hours at the laundry mat....that's barely more than 1 US dollar.  

But we soon forgot all that as we shook some hands and entered the open air church that was filled with mariachi type music. We got to partake in the service and clapped along even though not all of us understood the words but we did have a translator along who helped us during the sermon parts. The highlight of the night was that our Praying Pelicans leader brought a couple of his old band members up from Belize and played a bunch of songs for everyone in attendance alternating between English and Spanish songs. After the service I tracked down the guitar player for the church's band and told him in my broken Spanish how much I enjoyed his playing.

The walk back to our church after the 3 hour service made me realize how much of a night time culture this part of the world has. We didn't make it in time to notice how everything shuts down during siesta but the streets were even busier now than before. We still had to set up our sleeping area on the floor of the sanctuary in the church but man it was still hot out. Some of the guys opted to sleep on the roof of the church for the extra air flow....little did they know we'd get a bit of rain in the night and even those of us sleeping close to the courtyard side of the church would get a bit wet too. I am thankful my wife packed some earplugs considering we were sleeping a mere 20 feet from what felt like the busiest road in the world every night while we were trying to sleep. I'm not going to lie that 1st night was rough sleeping with all the cars, buses, police lights flashing every few minutes, people walking by and food smells coming from all the shops on top of worrying about my son next too me that he was doing ok and and that he was safe.

Night time from the roof