Why We’re Taking Rockmont Staff to Mexico in December
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This upcoming Saturday, myself, our program director Justin Bennett, and 10 Rockmont staff members from this past summer will board a flight to Mexico City for two weeks filled with adventure and mission.
We will be spending our first week in Mexico City serving alongside Mother Teresa’s sisters, the Missionaries of Charity, at a home they run for children with severe mental and physical disabilities, most of whom were abandoned on the streets by their families because of their illnesses and disabilities. The second week, we will embark upon a six day mountaineering expedition to attempt to summit Pico de Orizaba, the third highest summit in North America.
I’ve led many trips like this throughout the years, and yet each one fills me with a new excitement because of what I know a trip like this can do for somebody’s life.
It is truly a unique gift and privilege to get to work alongside these Missionaries of Charity as they care day-in and day-out for those who have been “forgotten” or “cast aside” by society. They have given their lives to this work of caring for these children, we just get to step into that work for a week and see it from the inside out.
Most of these children are nonverbal and most cannot perform daily tasks such as eating or getting dressed or walking, and the missionaries wake up every day to take care of them, love them, and give them the dignity they deserve as human beings. It’s a profoundly transformative and often jarring experience for us who come from very different life circumstances to enter into their worlds for a week.
It will be a challenging week, but I’m excited to see the growth that we experience through our time together there.
After a week that will certainly give us much food for thought, we will head off into the mountains to tackle the grand adventure of attempting to summit Pico de Orizaba.
A week in the outdoors is a phenomenal way to follow up a week of service as it gives ample time for reflection and processing – both individually and as a group. We will spend several days taking acclimatization hikes in hopes of our bodies properly adjusting to the altitude so we can make it to the summit, and then one night we will wake up at midnight and push for the summit, hopefully arriving by sunrise!
Not everyone will make it to the summit, and I’ve made that very clear to the group. It’s not about the destination or the mountain top, it’s about the experience and the journey.
Austin, leading a trip in Ecuador in December 2020
So, why take a trip like this?
There are many more “productive” ways we could all spend two weeks of our lives during this busy holiday season. Yet, I’m not sure of a better way the next two weeks could be spent.
We talk all the time at Rockmont about how our mission is growth, and I believe a trip like this provides a unique opportunity for growth for our staff members that is different from the ways that they grow during the summer.
We know that growth only happens when we willingly step out of our comfort zones to the “growth” zone, and this trip will provide ample opportunities for discomfort: physically, emotionally, and spiritually. One of my favorite theologians writes “the world promises you comfort, but you were not made for comfort. You were made for greatness.”
This is what we are about.
In a world which encourages us to take the easy way out, at Rockmont we strive to create a community of young men that are willing to step out into what is uncomfortable and what is unknown because we know that is where they will find life, and find it in abundance! Many moments of this trip will not be fun or easy, just as many moments during the summer – whether it’s pitching in to help clean the cabin in the morning when you are tired, or practicing your kayak roll on the lake for the umteenth time when you have been struggling with it.
But these moments are where we grow.
Growth is not always fun or easy, but it always makes life richer and fuller. That is why we dedicate our lives to this work every summer at camp. And that is why we are heading to Mexico!
Austin Ashcraft
Camp Director
P.S. Keep an eye out on our social media channels for updates from our trip, and if you think of it, please say a prayer for us while we are down there!
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