One of my most memorable spring break trips was one I took while living in Saltillo, Mexico in 1988. We went to a small village called San Francisco de __ (I’m sorry I don’t recall the rest of the name. I looked it up on a map, but there are many towns that start with San Francisco, and I couldn’t figure out which one it was).
Shortly after that trip, I wrote a letter to my parents and told them about the spring break experience. My mom kept all of my letters from Mexico. I’ve copied parts of the letter here, with notations to explain things added in parentheses.
“Last week on Tuesday 5 of us went on an adventure: One young guy, who is 17, and 4 of us older girls. We decided to visit San Francisco, not in California, but here about an hour from Saltillo. The church (here in Saltillo) has a church there, and we went to stay with the people and visit them.
“We went by bus to a small town, and ate lunch there with one of the girls’ aunts. Then we started out walking to San Francisco, about 10 miles away, with sleeping bags and all of our overnight bags.
(I don’t know if the distance is correct, but at the time I wrote about it, that is what I thought. Since I was told it in kilometers, which I didn’t know how to convert to miles, I’ve never quite figured out how far we went.)
“On Monday I had gone running with a friend and so my muscles were sore. We went about a mile, and sat down beside the road to rest and pray. We prayed that God would revive our spirits, and send a truck to give us a ride. We started walking, and within 2 minutes a water truck drove by and gave us a ride to a small town, about 5 miles.
“Then we began to walk again, this time with much singing and laughing. I think we went about 2-2 ½ miles before we (got tired and) laid down in the gravel road to rest. I took a couple of pictures, and while I was standing, I saw a pickup truck coming. We waved it down, and the man gave us a ride as far as San Francisco. There were 5 little kids in the cab, and when we climbed in the back, they were all giggling.
“San Francisco is a small town, about 150 people, in the desert/hills region. They have outdoor toilets and animals running around. The people are very hard workers, and generous. We ate dinner with two different church families, and they both fed us coffee and a plate of beans.
“We held a church service, and before the service the 5 of us prayed together. God used the young guy tremendously, and the rest of us were also used to sing and pray and share the Word. No one wanted to leave, and it was 11:15 p.m. when we finally left the church.”
Carol Underhill 