Tijuana, Mexico (December 2024) - Service Trip Recap
Trip Name: Posada Weekend
Dates: December 13-15, 2024
Location: Tijuana, Mexico
We have officially kicked off the 2024-2025 Service Season! Our team of 15 served on a three-day service trip to Tijuana, Mexico. Posada Weekend is a time for giving back and serving others, and most importantly it is the weekend of the annual Search Tijuana posada. The weekend was filled with traditional Mexican Christmas posadas, community visits, and fútbol (soccer) time.
Learn more about how our team embraced the season of giving below!
Day 1
Our team met in San Diego early Friday morning before crossing to Tijuana. They carried with them over 200 lbs of physical donations! 🇲🇽🙌
Upon arriving to our partner site, they visited Escuela Cares and supported a painting project with the students. Our Executive Director and one of the students share a birthday, so everyone sang and celebrated with some cake! 🎨🥳🎂
After lunch, the team headed to a community known as Vías, named after the fact that the homes spread along the length of some train tracks. There, the team split into activities for the children: soccer, bubbles, chalk, and coloring! After a collective prayer, the team handed out food bags, coloring books, and goodie bags to each of the families. For families that could not attend, our team hand-delivered them to their homes. Back at the church, the team put together 240 food bags for Saturday's event. 🚞⚽️🖍🧺
To end an eventful day, the team shared s'mores over a campfire with the young adults from Search Tijuana as they reflected on the impact of the day full of service. 🍫🙏🔥
Day 2
After some delicious chilaquiles for breakfast, the team started the day with a posada for the catechism students. Our team planned out 6 stations of fun games! Thanks to our donors, the kids received some dental care essentials and enjoyed pizza and desserts to celebrate the holiday season. 🙏🥳
After lunch, the Search Tijuana young adults and our team made a special home visit to Don Toño, an older man who is blind and utilizes a wheelchair due to a recent amputation of his leg. He currently lives alone, so our team cleaned the interior and exterior of his home and gifted him some warm clothes for the winter. 💙🎁
That evening, the team enjoyed the annual Search posada with mass, caroling, a Christmas dinner, and dancing! Our Team Captains made a cameo, and appeared as Mary and Joseph in the nativity play. HFK feels so blessed to have been a part of this annual tradition for the fourth consecutive year! 🎄🇲🇽
Day 3
After early morning mass and a hearty breakfast, our team set out to the community of La Antorcha for an afternoon of fútbol/soccer! 🇲🇽⚽️
Our team coordinated large soccer games on the turf, while the younger children enjoyed some chalk art and games. As HFK has hosted soccer at this field before, several of the children were returners and were excited to see some familiar HFK faces! 🙌💚
As the soccer time came to an end, our team said their goodbyes to our partners and headed home. What a great 3-day weekend of service! 🤗✨
We are incredibly grateful to have joined our partners in Tijuana for a 4th holiday season. A partnership that began in 2021 has now expanded to multiple trips a season, and an annual collaboration for the Posada Weekend.
We look forward to offering more trips to serve our partners in Tijuana, Mexico!
