Pastors taking 'wait and see' on Mexico mission trips
With fears of swine flu spreading faster than the disease itself, people are being forced to make decisions about their summer travel.
Area churches are not immune to the predicament.
Pastors making final plans for their annual summer mission trips to Mexico are struggling between fear and faith as deadlines near.
"We won't make a decision until 30 days before we're scheduled to go," said Pastor Syler Thomas of Christ Church Lake Forest. "Nobody knows where this thing is going. If we were leaving next week, we would have canceled. There is too much uncertainty."
Students from the church's high school youth group plan to travel to Acuna, Mexico in mid-June to build houses for poor families.
Thomas who has led 14 mission trips to Mexico in the last 11 years, said he has to balance the concerns of parents along with ministering to the poor.
"We need to respect the fears some parents have," Thomas said. "We just have to wait and see."
Organizations coordinating the mission work are reporting a large number of e-mails and calls from people concerned about swine flu, but have yet to receive any cancellations.
"People are definitely nervous and concerned, but so far we're going forward with all our plans," said Janette Roth of the El Paso, TX,-based Casas por Cristo. The ministry will arrange for 60 groups of people to build houses in Juarez and Acuna, Mexico this summer.
Roth said the swine flu threat is minor compared to fears about violence between warring drug factions. The ministry is reeling from the impact, Roth said.
"That has really hurt us," she said. "We've seen a huge decrease in the number of people coming to build homes out of fear of violence. We built 405 homes in 2007. This summer we'll only build 85, and it has nothing to do with swine flu."
Eric Hanson, Missions Pastor at the 5,000-member Christ Community Church in St. Charles, said he feels confident a planned trip to Aldama, Mexico scheduled for late June will happen. But he will cancel if conditions warrant. A group of 15 people is hoping to construct houses.
"We're watching and listening," Hanson said. "It's so much of a balancing act. We don't want to be fearful and we don't want to be reckless either."
The level of fear being expressed is unwarranted, said Casas' Roth. She said there has not been one reported case of swine flu in Juarez, Acuna or El Paso, TX for that matter.
"This is not the Ebola virus," Roth said. "It's the flu and it's treatable. There is no reason for the hysteria."
In some ways, making the decision is a matter of faith.
Eddie Passmore, director of the Tijuana, Mexico-based Mexico Caravan Ministries, said his ministry was just starting to recover from the losses suffered from people canceling from the fear of violence when the swine flu scare happened.
"We've sent e-mails to all the people scheduled to come down," Passmore said. "We're telling them hold tight and pray. We just have to wait and see and trust God."