The Media Buff (right) with our team in 1999.

1999 - It was an era of disposable cameras, the band Third Day, VHS tape and overhead slides. 20 years ago today, 21 students and 5 leaders left on a mission trip to Matamoros, Mexico for 7 days.

I was a meager 16 years old in the summer of 1999. Headed into my Junior year of High School, I had never been on a mission trip.

I had been attending Eagle Church for almost 2 years at this point, participating in the youth group that I have been so involved with since.

When presented with the opportunity to go on this trip, it was so intriguing. Prayers were huge; should I go? Is this something I’m meant to do? Inevitably I decided to go. Naturally serval of my relatively new friends were planning to go, so that was incentive too.

“The Gateway” located on the Mexican side of the Texas / Mexico border.

We stayed at “The Gateway”, which serves as Andventure in Missions’ home base for partnerships with pastors of local churches. It is also home to Adventure in Missions’ Mission Training Institute.

I was new to all things technology in High School. Not until out trip to Washington D.C. for DC/LA in 2000 did I even really work on a “recap video”. So the fact that we were recording this trip (on VHS) was so cool to me. There was never a “recap video” of this trip. We had a mission trip reunion a week or so after the trip. We shared photos we had all got developed since returning from the trip (this is pre-social media days, kids). The footage, however, didn’t really get light shed on it.

At some point, years later, I got my hands on the footage from our mission trip to Mexico. I made copies for all those that went, managing to distribute most of them. That footage however stayed in our homes.

Recently I had been working on digitizing old VHS tapes. This tape was one of them. With the digitization I realized it had been 20 years since this trip. The trip was a standard mission trip (I imagine), but for me it was my first time on a plane, first time outside of the United States, first time to the ocean and so on. So many firsts for me that the trip became a mile marker in my life. The actual trip was under a week but I often think about the experiences I had and the people I experienced life with. Since then, I have gone on several mission trips and remained a part of Eagle Church since.

With 20 years having passed I thought it was time to recap the event. Below is my recap, 90’s vibes and all.

To me recaps are a quick way to relive a trip, rather than casually pouring through hours of footage or sitting through a slideshow, recap it with a video!

- The Media Buff

Once Upon A Time In Mexico (1999)