‘Serving is not just a place’: Bayside Church Granite Bay reimagines annual mission amid conflict in Mexico

(FOX40.COM) — Bayside Church Granite Bay is finding a way to make an impact on the local level after having to cancel their annual service trip to Mexico amid ongoing cartel violence in Puerto Vallarta and Guadalajara.

Music, tacos and camaraderie flowed through the church campus Friday evening. Around a thousand people joined together prepared for an annual week of service.

“Every year, we take anywhere between 1000 and 1200 people to Mexico to not only build houses, but we also take time to reach into the community, the church’s global missions pastor, John Weston, said. “We have community outreach programs where we go to the local dumps, some of the orphanages.”

The Mexico Outreach program started in 1996 with just 26 people and has continued to grow and evolve. However, this year, that setting is changing.

The trip comes as cartel violence surges throughout Puerto Vallarta and Guadalajara. The church said its team is hearing from governing officials and agencies that it’s just not safe for visitors.

“We just dreamed about what could be,” the church’s student ministries pastor, Colton Tucker, said. “You have a week, we can just sit at home or we could do something about it.”

Organizers set up folding chairs and porta-potties to recreate what the students’ outreach campsites would normally look like, even though this time these students and community members are keeping their helping hands home and putting them to work right here in their own community.

“We’re partnering up tomorrow on Saturday with seven local schools in the area and we’re going to send about 700 people out there to pull weeds, to help with bark, to paint, to pull gum, to just do whatever we can in the community,” Tucker said.

Tucker said serving isn’t about a specific place, it’s about the heart.

“It’s not just those that are less fortunate than us that live in a different country,” Tucker said. “It’s those that are local around us, too.”

Again, students will be out on Saturday, March 28 to kick off their mission work. Tucker said their goal is to make a difference one way or another — filling the week with opportunities for people to help the community.

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