Where poverty is big and wealth is little, the faith still remains strong in the hearts of the people. Over spring break of 2015, many students participated with their churches on a mission to Mexico to spread their faith and show their support for the families in need.

Churches such as Bayside and Bridgeway create a mission trip for high school students to volunteer a week of their time to help support families in Mexicali, Mexico. It costs $600 for a student to take part in the trip, but the churches help the kids fundraise to reach that amount.

“[Our goal was] to help the people and strengthen their faith in God,” Allie Burch said.

Their passion for helping was expressed through things such as building houses to simply giving a hug to anyone who needed one.

People were affected by the mission, both the students and the families.

Cole Chambers shared his experience of his first year to Mexico with Bayside.

“It was just eye opening to see how they live. Things that we think are normal and take for granted….is not normal to them,” Chambers said.

Everybody separates into teams of about 20 people, making up 15 different teams, who then separate to different sites. The biggest team is the impact team which travels to church sites to try to impact kids.

It was Sterling Quinton’s third time participating in the Mexico trip. Every year they go to achieve the same goal, but there are small differences each time.

“Every year gets better because every year I learn to put more into it so I get more out of it,” Quinton said.

In exchange for what the churches had to give, all that they asked for in return was faith.

“I shared my testimony with a womens group and it impacted the lives of the people,” Allie Burch said.

Overall the mission of about 1,040 people made an impact on themselves and the others that they helped. All it took was a little faith.

by ALLY BARRETT