July 17, 2025 Newsletter - Highrock's mission is to help people Connect to God Personally, Connect to God’s People, and Connect to God’s Purposes.
| Highrock MetroWest, 754 Greendale Ave. Needham MA
Our summer youth writers are still busy preparing their newsletter entries. None was ready for this week, but stay tuned for more this summer.
I was fresh out of seminary, leading a group of youth from West Texas’s Permian Basin—think Friday Night Lights —on a mission trip to Juárez, Mexico. We were invited by a local church to build a small chapel for a community on the city’s outskirts. In Mexico, many leave rural areas for cities, seeking better jobs, often settling on small plots with makeshift shelters of scrap wood or metal.
This community was unique. Most residents were pepenadores, scavenging landfills daily, sifting through garbage to salvage recyclables like metals, plastics, or repairable items for income. The term pepenador comes from the Spanish verb pepenar, meaning to pick or gather. These Protestant Christians, living in lean-to homes too small for gatherings, longed for a place to worship.
Our team of teens and a few skilled adults arrived to construct the chapel on a pre-laid concrete foundation, much like Homes for Hope, a ministry familiar to Highrockers who build homes in Mexico. On the first day, we built enough to sleep in the chapel, using pews we crafted as beds. The community served us simple meals of tortillas, rice, and beans.
What struck me most was the pepenadores’ generosity. Despite their poverty, they shared what they had with us. As we drove home, the teens reflected on their experience, moved by the joy and faith of people with so little, unlike our Texas town’s abundance, where happiness often seemed elusive.
This experience taught us that money, status, and possessions—the things we chase—don’t bring joy and can distract from what truly matters. As Jesus said, “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Matthew 6:21).
Years later, I still carry the lesson from that mission trip. Our financial resources and hard work constructed a physical chapel, but it was our shared Life in Jesus that breathed spiritual life into that space—a Life that endures far beyond the physical structure. This experience reveals a timeless truth: generosity creates spaces and environments where true wealth—meaning, connection, and faith—can flourish, far surpassing the value of the resources themselves.
— Pastor George