Tramel's Tijuana travelblog: Feeling at home in All Peoples Church

All Peoples Church sits off an alleyway, a few blocks from the Pacific Ocean. That’s prime real estate most places this close to the beach, but not in Tijuana, the Mexican state of Baja California.

Tijuana hasn’t leveraged its physiographical advantages — separated from San Diego, the USA’s geographical jewel, only by a border — and can come off as a rough place.

Certainly the beggars, some of them with children, are startling, stationed along the walkway from the border crossing down to Tijuana streets. The roads are rough — no more complaining about American highways — and so is the vibe. The parallel metal fences, standing anywhere from 18 to 27 feet high, the American side also sporting razor wire in spots, separate California from Baja California.

But in the middle of Tijuana, differences are not so stark. People flock to Starbucks on Sunday morning. Wal-Mart is crowded on a Sunday afternoon. The streets are dotted with pedestrians, just like most big cities.

I’m in Tijuana to get out of my comfort zone. Funny thing is, comfort is precisely what I found when walking into All Peoples Church at noon Sunday. It felt like home.

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Home being Antioch Community Church in Norman. The rest of Tijuana is not much like my hometown. Norman has its share of grime and roughness. More than its share of people on the brink of hopelessness. A few rough streets.

But nothing like Tijuana, the city of 1.8 million that is adjacent to the paradise of San Diego.

I’m here on a church mission. Antioch believes in going to the nations. On this very week, Antioch has short-term mission teams in Capetown, South Africa; Krakow, Poland; and Tijuana.

At age 61, this is my first mission trip. Never too late to start stretching yourself, even if it’s an inopportune time. I flew out of Will Rogers World Airport on Sunday morning just as the Women’s College World Series went into Oklahoma-overdrive. The Sooners and the Cowgirls are the last teams standing in the winner’s bracket, and a Bedlam showdown in the NCAA championship series seems likely.

But Jenni Carlson and the gang can handle it without me. I’ll miss the WCWS more than the WCWS will miss me. Just like I suspect Tijuana will do more for me than I will do for Tijuana.

That’s already showing. Our flight was so early Sunday – 5:20 a.m. to Denver – that our seven-person team landed in San Diego, took Ubers to the border crossing and walked onto Mexican soil by 11 a.m. Pacific time. Getting through security at the Tijuana border was easier and quicker than getting through airport security back home. Didn’t even have to take off my shoes.

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So before noon, we were at All Peoples Church, which was begat by All Peoples-San Diego, an Antioch affiliate. Antioch churches across the nation send mission teams to Tijuana.

And by 12:15, I realized why I had come. All Peoples’ church service seemed very much like Antioch’s, only in Spanish. It’s never a bad thing to remember that people are people.

All Peoples worships in an industrial-type building, but hey, Antioch worships in a renovated bowling alley. Neither church has a steeple that reaches to the sky.

The sanctuary seats about 175 and was almost full for its second service of the day. The people, who seemed to come from all walks, were friendly and warm. Laughter was common. The band consisted of an electric guitar and a keyboard, which doesn’t sound like much, but the duo created a lot of music – and no, it wasn’t too loud. I wonder if Mexican church-goers gripe about music volume the way American church-goers do?

The two-woman vocal group sang mostly in Spanish, with some English mixed in, and most of the lyrics were available in English via two videoboards. I found myself singing about as much as I do at Antioch.

The welcome and the announcements and the sermon all were delivered in Spanish, with English translators. Maybe that’s common in border cities. The messages were much the same as we hear at Antioch – promoting life groups and local outreach and even missions. Turns out, All Peoples does more than receive mission teams coming in. All Peoples sends out mission teams, to places like North Africa, Peru and Mexican locales.

I later asked if All Peoples sends out mission teams to the U.S. The answer is no, perhaps because visas are required, but it seems like a good idea to me. Sometimes, I think the U.S. is the biggest mission field on the globe.

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The sermon, delivered by a female staff member, centered around the story of the 10 lepers who were healed by Christ, but only one returned to thank Him. The events took place on the border between Samaria and Galilee.

Sometimes, we Americans think we have the corner on everything, including righteousness. But not so. The sermon culminated in Galatians 3:28. “There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”

Watching Mexicans worship on a fine Sunday afternoon humbled me. I came to help them; maybe I was supposed to come so they could help me.

The rest of the day was spent eating a couple of meals at the beach-area home of a church member who has been in the restaurant business and has been commissioned to supply meals for us all week. We had fantastic grilled tacos at midday, then some chicken and rice in the evening. Excellent all the way around. There will be no weight loss on this trip.

We made a Wal-Mart run for bottled water – yes, we’re told to not drink the water – and other than the Mexican brands and the prices in pesos, it seemed like any other Wal-Mart.

Then we crashed. I was working on two hours sleep plus assorted airplane naps.

I caught a little of the NBA Finals; the Hotel Jatay gets ABC’s San Diego affiliate. But alas, no ESPN. It’s not on the hotel cable system, and ESPN streaming isn’t available across the border. So there will be no softball watching this week. Bummer.

But that’s OK. I’m here to get out of my comfort zone, even if Tijuana seems determined to make me feel at home.

Berry Tramel: Berry can be reached at 405-760-8080 or at btramel@oklahoman.com. He can be heard Monday through Friday from 4:40-5:20 p.m. on The Sports Animal radio network, including FM-98.1. Support his work and that of other Oklahoman journalists by purchasing a digital subscription today.

This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Berry Tramel Tijuana travelblog: Feeling at home in All Peoples Church