iscover the faithful journeys of Kayla Cardwell, Linda Phillips, and Melissa Watson, who dedicated years of their lives to the Yucatan mission trip. This inspiring endeavor not only changed the lives of those they served but deeply impacted their own. From first-time mission travelers to seasoned volunteers, their stories of faith, service, and community illuminate the profound effect of communal religious endeavors on individual growth and global fellowship.
Kayla Cardwell – Yucatan Mission Trip, 2018-2024
One Sunday at church in 2018, Stephanie Hines made a suggestion that would impact Kayla Cardwell’s life changed significantly. She encouraged Kayla and her daughter, Baylee to go on the Yucatan mission trip. Her son, Brandon, had gone for several years and also encouraged the girls to go. Kayla had never been on a mission trip before. This was the summer before her sophomore year of high school and she had just given her life to Christ the summer before at Chi-Rho, the youth camp. Kayla had been attending FBC Boerne with Baylee and the Hines family for about a year and she had been loving the church family that she found at FBC.
“Everyone was so encouraging of my faith and that was something I had never experienced from my own family before. I wanted to be able to serve together with this new family in that capacity. When you have a group of Christians who are all striving after the same thing, and you all have the same goal, the same focus, it is such a different kind of support. It is wonderful and I wanted to serve together with them.”
Kayla went on the Yucatan mission trip that summer – and continued to go for the next 6 years. The only year she has missed throughout high school and college was 2020 when the church was not able to send a team due to the pandemic. It was not easy to make the mission trip a priority every summer. She had to raise her own financial support and even had to work on college summer courses during two of her trips, which she said was really hard! She also had to convince her parents, who do not attend church, to let her go each year. “Struggling to help my parents understand why I wanted to keep going back after that first year was difficult.” It was challenging to explain to them the joy she received from serving alongside other Christians and seeing the impact of the ministries they helped to build and grow.
Kayla has seen many changes in the communities in just the 6 years she has been going and can’t imagine the incredible changes James Smith and others have seen in the 21 years that FBC Boerne has been sending mission teams to partner with Vida Life. Kayla said it was such a blessing to help the Kingdom School celebrate their first graduates two years ago and looks forward to continuing to pour into those ministries and seeing the fruit that comes from them. She was especially excited this year because their team got to help plant a new church in the jungle where there had never been one.
Kayla said the relationships formed with the pastors and their wives, and the people they serve, are a big reason that she keeps coming back to work with Vida Life each year. She is inspired by the passion the pastors and their wives have for their ministries and it fuels her desire to continue to support the pastors and the people they serve. “We go down for a week and come back exhausted, but that is their life and they do this ministry work with such joy and serve tirelessly.”
“When I’m down there, I feel like I hear the Lord so clearly. I think being focused on mission, serving with other believers, and isolated from the world contributes to that. Some people are meant to serve for a season, not everyone is called to serve full-time. But I do believe that everyone is called to serve in some capacity.”
Linda Phillips – Yucatan 2003-2024
“It felt like Christmas in June to those of us giving the gifts and those receiving the gifts. Every child was overwhelmed with gratitude for the small gift they received. Their joy is abundant!” Linda Phillips shared what a blessing it was to participate in this experience from the most recent Yucatan mission trip in June 2024. Every child received a small backpack containing something special they had put on a wish list several months before. They received some necessary items for school, but also some things just for fun. “Our students and adults are touched by their love and the joy they have in learning,” she added.
Linda explained how FBC’s Yucatan mission team helps provide support to children in Cuna Maya so they can attend the *Kingdom School there. These children do not have the opportunity to attend public school due to overcrowding. If they are not chosen via the public school’s lottery system, they don’t get to attend school at all. Kingdom School was started as a way to provide a quality education for these children with the long-term goal of giving them the means to lift themselves out of poverty. The children learn English as they read from the Bible every day, as well as learning about God and his Word. When they graduate from Kingdom School they will have the equivalent of a high school education from America, which would enable them to get better paying jobs or even to attend college in America or elsewhere.
Linda has been serving with the Yucatan mission team for 21 years – ever since FBC’s very first trip there in 2003** with her son, Danny, who was one of the youth pastors at the time. She said it has always been a student trip but looked a bit different those first few years than it does now. In the beginning, while they still evangelized and did work projects, FBC had not established any churches, yet, and so the wonderful relationships with the 7 pastors and their wives did not exist. She emphasized that the deep relationships that have developed over the years are part of what makes these trips so valuable. Linda said a big focus of the trips now is to provide help to the pastors and their wives in order to encourage them in their ministry work they do every day. She loves to share “about our deep love with the people of Mexico!”
Melissa Watson – Yucatan 2021-2024
My family has been a part of the Yucatan mission trip for 4 years. It began with just my daughter, Avery, going, and then the following year my younger daughter, Jenna, and I joined the team. I was hesitant at first to go to a new place with new people where I did not speak the language. I was not sure what I could do to be of any help but felt led to go, so we went. I cannot describe the pure joy that I feel when I’m down there. We create relationships with the pastors, their families, and the children at the school. We do home visits and pray with families that ave so much less than we are accustomed to but are so giving and excited to spend time with us. We do work that many of us have never done such as build concrete roofs, sidewalks, rock walls, playgrounds, and carry heavy things up and down stairs, over and over and over. We help expand meeting spaces so that more children can come to the school and more families can attend church comfortably and safely. We come into this not knowing many of the others on the team, but very quickly we become a true team working together to fill a need. We encourage each other and our personal needs become the last thing on our minds. It is hot and it is exhausting at times! It is completely out of our comfort zones, and yet it is the best experience. I cannot really put my finger on a BIG moment that keeps me coming back.
There are so many little things that all add up to feeling God move. Some of my favorite things about this past year are singing and dancing in the park at Pastor Alex’s church in El Esfuerzo. Families came from the neighborhood and the children played games, danced, and laughed together. We were able to share Bible stories with the children and just spend time worshiping together. Some of our team had the opportunity to visit the Ranchita, the jungle area, and partner with a new team that began the very first church in that area in April. Watching the families come on motorcycle from areas where we could not even see houses, drop off a few children and then go back for more, made me realize just how hungry these people are to learn about God. They may not have a lot but they dress their children in their best clothes, fix their hair, and send them off to learn about Jesus from these people they have never met. Their efforts touch my heart because it is important to them and it shows in the way they come so eager to learn and worship.
There is nothing like serving alongside my own children. Watching them serve, go outside their comfort zones, meet new people with giant smiles on their faces and seeing their hearts grow and be touched by the love of Christ is priceless. Not just my own children but also the youth amaze me with how eager they are to serve others. I watched kids jump in to do hard physical work, wash dishes, share testimonies and just befriend those around them. One sweet time was watching them begin to play a game together even though no one really understood each other. But, evidentially, hide and seek is pretty universal. The giggles by our youth and the students at *Kingdom Academy were evidence of that. Some of our youth are bilingual and jumped in to translate and share Bible stories on the spot. This year in particular, we all felt God move in mighty ways. It was not something we can really explain, but it was something that was felt by all of us. Each night when we debriefed as a team, many tears were shed as we were overwhelmed with what we had seen, done, and felt throughout the day. On the last day, as we prepared to say goodbye to the friends we had made, we hugged and prayed with and for each other and promised to try to return the next year. This is a life-changing week and I am so glad that we stepped out in faith. I’m still not sure that what I do down there matters in the grand scheme of things, but the change in my life and the change in my children’s lives is something I will always be grateful for. I hope to continue to serve in the Yucatan for many years.
