Mexico Mission Trip

Our Mexico Mission trip takes place in Guaymas, Mexico.  We do/have done many things down there.  We work with a group of people that work for the Casa Francisca Outreach program Our Mexico Mission trip takes place in Guaymas, Mexico.  We work with a group of people at the Casa Franciscana.  Casa Franciscana is a Franciscan Mission started by the Friars of the Santa Barbara Province based in Northern California.  The management of the social programs of the Mission remains with the Santa Barbara Province while the Parish activities are now managed by the Mexican Franciscans from the Tijuana Province.   

Our Lady of the Fields History

Deacon Al and Bea Koslo went down to Guaymas, Mexico in 1991 while they were involved with the Cursillo group.  They spent a year down there and found a tremendous need to help the people of Guaymas.  Deacon Al started collecting money from Our Lady of the Fields in 1992 for Guaymas.  Deacon Al then started getting a group of people from Our Lady of the Fields to go down there every year.  Even our teens got involved with going there.  We finished our 10^th year in Nov 2009.  During that time we have helped build Houses, built bricks for houses, put on roofs, painted, worked in the food kitchen (Meson de Jesus) and cleaned up areas.  We also visit other places in/near Guaymas like Bellas Artes, Jerry’s Club, Yaki Indians, the Guaymas orphanage, San Carlos, and the old lady’s home.

Casa Franciscana Outreach

Casa Franciscana Outreach has been going on for almost 40 years.  Rev. Martin Gates (Father Marty) went down to Mexico in 1971 and saw a great need for the people of Guaymas.  He built several churches for the people of Guaymas and started the Casa Franciscan Outreach program.  Based in Phoenix Arizona, the outreach raises money to provide food, medicine, and educational assistance, as well as financial assistance to the many organizations associated with the Casa Franciscan in Guaymas.  To contact the Casa Franciscana Outreach - 011 52 622 2222302 and the house we usually stay in - Junipera Serra - 011 52 622 2221353.

Meson de Jesus

Meson de Jesus (Jesus’ table) is Guaymas' food kitchen.  This is run by the people of Casa Francisca and serves breakfast and lunch daily at the Meson and the surrounding barrios. 

Typical Day in Guaymas

Monday thru Friday

6:00 – Rise and Shine – coffee and breakfast

6:40 – Morning Prayer and Work Schedules

7:00 – Work Teams

11:00 – help out at the Meson de Jesus

1:30 – Work Teams including shopping for food and 2 days touring missions

5:00 – House Teams to Junipera Serra for cooking

6:00 – Dinner and Cleanup

7:00 – Evening Prayer

8:00 – Free Time to be spent in community with each other or the Franciscans

10:00 – All in house (there are some that will want to spend this time sleeping or reading,

            Please be respectful of them)

Midnight – Lights out and Quiet

Saturday – Varies – work teams or checking out the surrounding areas

Sat Evening – Attend Mass in San Carlos – in English

Sun Morning – Attend Mass in Guaymas – in Spanish

Sunday – light day to experience Guaymas.

Bellas Artes

Bellas Artes was started by Friar Ivo. Friar Ivo starts his day early in the morning by riding a bike to Bellas Artes and spends most of the day there.  Bellas Artes started out as a place for youth of Guaymas to learn how to play music.  It has grown to support 2 mariachi bands, a marching band, a symphony orchestra, and a ballet folklorio.  It is now an accredited school for fine arts which with a hall for performances and a place for wedding and other parties. It has a television studio which broadcasts fine arts performances on the regional cable channels.  Friar Ivo has a tremendous vision.

Jerry’s Club

Jerry is a Canadian born missionary who saw a need for the children of Guaymas to have a place to go after school.  Club Jerry,http://www.jerrysclub.org/,  is a safe haven where boys, girls and adolescents come to learn social values through recreation, sports activities and education. The club is open from Monday to Friday afternoons for the boys and girls ages 7 to 12 years old and in the evenings (7-9.30pm) for the adolescents ages 12 to 16.  The club manages a scholarship program in a local Catholic school for graduating grade six students of the poor barrios. The program is to provide a Christian education for adolescent boys and girls I grades 7,8, and 9.  During the school year, more than 50 mothers of the surrounding barrios come to the club to participate in a special program, teaching courses in life skills, human rights, and legal access relating to abuses in the home, Bible study, self esteem development, handicrafts and more women’s issues. 

Yaki Indians

The Yaki Indians are a group of people that still live off the land.  The Yaki Indians are a Matriarchal Society.  The chiefs are women.  The Yaki were converted to Catholicism by Our Lady of Guadalupe.  Their services are a mixture of Latin, Spanish, and Yaki with drums, violins, guitars, processions and Indian dancing.  Their patron saint is Our Lady of Mount Carmel and on the Feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel all the babies are baptized and children receive first communion.  There is a large Yaki reservation South and East of Guaymas.  The reservation is so large that a priest makes it to each local parish about once a month.  During the other Sundays Eucharistic Ministers provide a Communion Service.  At one point several Eucharistic Ministers went to the chiefs and suggested that they didn't need the priest anymore.  As a result a the priest refused to baptize any babies or provide first communion to the children until the wayward Eucharistic Ministers were removed.

Guaymas Orphanage

The orphanage in Guaymas is primarily for children of single parents and the extremely poor who could not otherwise provide an education for their children.  The parents bring the children to school Sunday evening and pick them up on Friday evening.  The orphanage in Empalme handles children who are wards of the state.  Some of these are orphans but most are children that have been removed from their homes for abuse or because the parents are incarcerated.

Old Ladies Home - Asilo

The Old Ladies Home is located next to the orphanage.  Since most women did not work and when they needed a place to live out there remaining years, the nuns started a place for those women.  They do get some money for some of the residents to offset the costs.

Women in Mexico do not benefit from social security.  Hence if a poor woman outlives both her husband and her children she eventually runs out of money and finds herself living on the streets.  Fr. Marty Gates the founder of the Casa Franciscana started the Asilo.  He got two nuns from the Philippines to come to Guaymas to run the Asilo.  Whenever Marty was told of a woman living on the streets he would find her and ask for her help.  He would take her to the Asilo and show her the work to be done: caring for those that were bedridden, preparing meals, doing laundry, cleaning and so forth.  He would tell them that he couldn't pay them money but that he could provide them with a room and food.  He was never turned down and the women took care of each other.  The Asilo was discovered by the man who provided playing cards to Las Vegas.  He provided for the financial needs of the Asilo for the rest of his life and on his death he left enough for the Asilo to be remodeled.  It is now a primary charity of a women's group in Guaymas and provides a home for both the poor and those who can provide financially for their own care.

San Carlos

San Carlos is near Guaymas and is where we go to and English speaking Mass on Saturday Evenings.  It is a town where some people up north spend some of their retirement in that area.  This is where we usually shop for souvenirs.

Other information

The volunteers usually stay at 2 different locations (Junipera Serra and San Benito) and have an option to stay at Jerry’s Club.  The cooking facility and the meeting place are located in Junipera Serra.   Junipera Serra is an American style house with 5 bedrooms and 4 bathrooms.  San Benito is an open room with cots and 2 bathrooms.

Guaymas has a large grocery store named Leys.  It is a large store similar to a Super Walmart.  We do most of our shopping in Leys. There are other supermarkets and small shops throughout Guaymas.

We usually fly into Phoenix and either drive to Tucson that day or all the way to Guaymas.  We then drive down across the border to Guaymas.  We usually drive back to Phoenix and fly out the next day.

There is cell phone coverage in Guaymas but you need to set that up with your company before you go.  As an example, I have a roaming service with AT&T which costs about $1 per minute.