USD Baseball in Mexico

Toreros spend the weekend in Rosarito, Mexico to build houses for two families in need

Regina Gaffney / Contributor / The USD Vista

Two weeks ago, the University of San Diego baseball team, working with both the Hope Sports orgnization and Youth With A Mission, had the opportunity to make a difference in the lives of two families. The team traveled to Rosarito, Mexico, a city south of Tijuana, situated on the coast of Mexico’s Baja California peninsula. 

Hope Sports is a nonprofit organization. They promote community service among athletes and sports teams as well as personal growth through the trips. This organization strives to create a bond among the athletes and encourages them to make a positive impact on their families, teammates, and communities. Hope Sports builds homes for families with lower incomes in areas like Mexico, Panama, Costa Rica, and the Dominican Republic. Similarly, Youth With A Mission is another organization established to allow groups to serve those in need. 

Michael Yourg, a first-year outfielder, was asked how he felt about going on this service trip.

 “We do things for ourselves every day,” Yourg said. “It feels good to get out and help those in the world that need it more than we do.” 

The entire baseball team attended this weekend in Mexico to help build homes for two families. Although this trip was mandatory for the team, the players saw it as a privilege to be able to go and serve in the community. 

“I was really excited to go,” Yourg said. “Anything we do as a whole team is fun for me. I grew up religious and doing a lot of service projects. I knew that I enjoyed doing things that brought joy to other people.” 

The team was divided into two groups and each group worked on one house for the two days they were in Rosarito. Each family that receives a new home must apply through Youth With A Mission. The organization considers the living conditions, financial situations, family dynamic, and the overall condition of the neighborhoods of the applicants. 

Throughout the weekend, the team had the opportunity to get to know the families they were working for and learned a little bit more about their situation. Nigel Ward, a redshirt junior and pitcher for the USD baseball team, worked on a house for a family of four with a single mother and her three daughters. 

Ward explained the situation of the family. The mother raised her daughters while living in the United States. When her father had been diagnosed with cancer, she went down to southern Mexico to care for him and left her daughters behind. After the death of her father, she tried to return back into the United States. However, she was not allowed to re-enter and she was detained for six months in a prison-like situation near the border, where she cleaned toilets and mopped floors for a dollar a day with other women in a similar situation. After her six months were completed, she was still not allowed back into the U.S. and would not be approved to re-enter for another 20 years. Her children moved to Mexico to be with her. This past weekend, she and her family were a little over four months into the process of moving back to the U.S. Hearing the story from the family, Ward expressed that he was able to really think about his own daily life and gain a new perspective on things that we might take for granted.

“I would ask them about their daily routine,” Ward said. “The girls were usually up at 5:30 a.m. and leave around 6 a.m. They would walk about 20 minutes to a city bus that takes them to another location about 35 minutes away where they would have to walk another 20 minutes. This isn’t a school bus either. It’s not a bunch of kids. It’s adults, people they don’t know every single day.” 

Ward found this to be a stark contrast with what he has experienced in the United States.

“Think about the outcry that parents would have if they had to put their kids on that kind of bus,” Ward said. “There’s no way; they would carry their kids to school first if they had to do that here.”

One significant part about this trip for the team was the final key ceremony, in which the players shared their personal experience of the weekend and the families got to see their new house for the first time. At this ceremony, Ward and his group were able to give two Bibles to the family. 

 “It’s just a release of emotion,” Ward said. “You speak from the heart in the best way you can. I told them, ‘If there is one thing that you don’t lose, you never lose the belief in yourself to keep moving forward and never lose your faith in God.’”

This was the second time that Ward participated in this service trip. For him and many of his teammates, each minute was filled with smiles and a willingness to do more. Instead of focusing on the tiring work or conditions of the area, the team was able to work hard and together to get the houses done. Ward believes that this experience creates a bond that allows a team to become closer.

 “We all experienced the same weekend, we all saw it through the same perspective,” Ward said. “It really was an eye-opening experience. If I can be as genuinely grateful as possible for all things, when the biggest disappointments or happy things come to me in life, I will be able to appreciate them with all of my efforts.” 

Hope Sports encourages athletes to see the greater picture and look at their potential for making an impact instead of defining themselves only through a sport. USD’s baseball team was encouraged to go out and serve wherever they can. It is important to remember the feeling of bringing joy to other people and giving back to the community. At the end of the trip, two new houses stood tall over the dusty dirt roads, reminding both families of their time with the team.