'Mexico or bust'

Emblazoned with messages in blue and yellow paint, pods of vehicles began their trek to the Mexico border Saturday morning, filled with enthusiastic teens eager to begin building houses for homeless families.

The 20th annual Yuba Sutter Mexico Mission will carry 50 high-schoolers to Tecate, Mexico for a weeklong project that aims to build friendship and faith, along with four new homes.

Driving down Interstate 5, the students waved to passing cars in hopes of drawing attention to their trip.

"They know we are doing a good deed, so maybe we encourage them to go out and do one, too," said Georgia Curtis, 15.

Horns tooted along in response to colorful requests for "Honk 4 Jesus" and "Viva La Mexico."

Inside the vehicles, the students did not wait to start their bonding.

Still groggy after their early morning departure, students played car games and picked each other's brains to find a connection with each other.

"It's making new friends instead of just being connected to that one church," said Curtis, a student at Marysville Charter Academy for the Arts and parishioner of St. Andrew Presbyterian Church. "I think it's good I got to connect with people."

Students from Loomis, who attend Shepard of the Sierra, taught Curtis and her classmate Evan Furr, 15, how to play "Contact," a brain game where students tried to pinpoint a word another teen was thinking of. They laughed and teased as they quizzed one another.

"Not knowing anyone other than one person in the car really helped me," Curtis said. "And maybe later in the week I can get to know them more."

Her goal for the mission is to talk with every other teen on the trip, she said

Three-year mission veteran Maggie Craig, 19, said she still has friends from her first trip and hopes to make many more this year.

"It's one of those cool parts of Mexico," Craig said. "You get to tent with other people. You work with other people, you can laugh through the hard times."

Now a college chaperone, she loved that her drive Saturday was in a 15-passenger van bursting with new people to meet and become friends with.

"You are stuck in your car and you want to have fun, so you are silly and it breaks the ice," Craig said.

The adult chaperones were not immune to building new friends. Bonded by the commonality of the colorful nametags hanging from their necks, it made it easy to start a conversation.

"They know that you are part of the group, even though they may not know you by name," said parent Melanie Graham.

She was thrilled when one teen approached her at lunch and just sat down to chat.

"It's amazing for these kids to make these bonds," she said. "You don't realize who you might meet or what friends will develop if you are out of your comfort zone."

The bonding that started in the cars Saturday will only continue, she said.

Kaylin Squyres, 14, said her favorite moment of the first day of the trip was simply talking to her fellow passengers.

"I'm starting to get to know a few more people outside my litter area," the Rocklin resident said. "We can all have the same kind of mission but all be different."

After spending the night at a church in Costa Mesa, the teens were eager for their 10 a.m. border crossing today, with a tentative arrival planned for noon in Tecate.

"Waiting's a bit of a challenge," Curtis said. "In your head you are 'Are we there yet? Are we there yet?' "

Ashley Gebb can be reached at 749-4724 or agebb@appealdemocrat.com.