Goodbye, Mexico

Sunday morning, to make sure nothing was left behind, I made at least three trips through the concrete house - so cold and austere when we stepped through the door three months ago, so warm and familiar now.

n it, we’ve hosted dozens of folks for dinner. I’ve spent dozens of hours poring over the early stages of a manuscript. Most notably, we welcomed our third child here in July.

I took one last gaze in the boys’ room, which Helen had brilliantly decorated to their great delight, the wildlife wall art and the hanging letters suspended over Lucas’ bed. Then I turned back toward the garage, where the loaded car waited.

We drove to our final church service, a wonderful celebration of the work God has done here in this short time (and which, in many ways, is barely beginning). After a round of hugs and goodbyes with the fifty-ish dear people who’ve come to feel like our family over these three rich months, we departed.

A farewell photo of the young congregation

Hours stretched on as we drove north through the desert, a truly formidable kind of place in more than one way.

Everything went smoothly, until just before the border crossing.

As we approached the long line of vehicles stretching toward customs, a maze of gigantic craters appeared out of nowhere in the road, as if some kind of trap had been laid for us. Several were about six feet across and at least a foot deep. I steered madly but couldn’t avoid the biggest.

KaBAANNGG!

The car jolted to the side of the road. Front passenger tire: obliterated.

It was Sunday evening, before Labor Day. No cell phone service in the border zone, so it took me a long while just to reach anyone who could help on the American side, and the help was several hours away.

Then a Mexican agent directed me to an office to cancel my vehicle permit, a routine step when you leave the country. But either he or I was confused, because I was supposed to be somewhere farther down. I limped the car to the booth, parked beside it, and tapped on the agent’s window. He yelled at me in Spanish, shooing me away and telling me I would have to bring the car around the other side. I pointed earnestly to show him the flat tire on my car just feet away, and explain that I couldn’t turn it around. I could barely move the car at all, riding on the rim, with a line behind me stretching as far as I could see. He only got angrier. So I gave up and forfeited my $400 deposit. To top it off, our poor little children, already strapped in for a few hours already, had reached somewhat of a breaking point.

And then, somewhere in that eternal stretch through no man’s land, framed by the towering border wall, I looked out my window. The western sky had erupted, clouds blazing with color, long golden rays cutting through them to the desert floor.

I hobbled the car another half mile through U.S. customs, pulled off on the shoulder, and waited as evening turned to night and the kids played with traffic barriers and construction cones in the sandy parking lot.

How different it felt to be stranded on the roadside in the desert, cars going past us, on this side of the wall than a few hundred feet back on the other.

Our help finally arrived around eight o’clock: Martin, the 24/7 tire tech. He was cheerful, capable, and exactly the person you want appearing out of the darkness when your tire has been obliterated in the desert.

An hour later, we were back on the road, headed toward our airbnb an hour north. We stopped at a Raising Cane‘s drive-thru. Helen and I were both a little dumbfounded with how friendly the guy in the window was. How gigantic the “small” drink cup was. How clean and generous the concrete sidewalks seemed. How strange it seemed for random people driving by to wave at you… even smile!

Early yesterday morning, while the kids and Helen were still sleeping soundly, I drove an hour south again, crossed the border again, canceled the permit, and drove back up to get them.

And now we are enjoying about the best welcome reception I could’ve imagined, staying at our favorite places anywhere: a regenerative 25-acre lavender farm and hotel outside Albuquerque called Los Poblano. I’ve written about it here.

Tomorrow, on to my grandpa‘s up in Colorado.

I’m very sad to be leaving Mexico. And I couldn’t be happier to be on the other side of the border.