Free Storm by Rick Bundschuh

director, called out before she followed her assistants, Mike and Gabe, off the plane.
    “I wonder what it’s going to be like,” Holly said as the group fanned out along the boarding tunnel. Bethany glanced over at her. Short, trendy hair, just a touch of lipstick (a recent victory in her makeup battle with her mom)—Holly looked cute and sure of herself, but Bethany knew Holly was just as nervous as she was … if not more.
    “Guess we’ll find out soon enough,” Bethany smiled, trying to sound more confident than she felt.
    “Ghettos aren’t pretty, that’s for sure,” Jenna said.
    “I hear some of the stuff we’re going to do is pretty harsh,” Malia said as she slung a backpack over her shoulder.
    “Great!” Monica said, giving her new manicure a worried look.
    “Well,
I’m
game,” Bethany announced.
    “When
aren’t you
game?” Kai teased, looking over his shoulder as they entered the terminal. “Car washes, surf-a-thons …” He glanced over at Dano and winked. “No telling what she’ll come up with for us to do in Mexico.”
    “Be afraid,” Holly said with a mischievous grin.
    “Very
afraid,” Bethany added, and they all laughed.
    Thirty minutes later, they were piling into the three vans idling by the curb in the early-morning light. Sarah, Mike, and Gabe were in the drivers’ seats.
    In spite of the all-night flight, Bethany found her mind racing, wondering about the week to come. Unlike her friends, whose heads were already bobbing back to sleep as soon as the vans hit the interstate, she had slept through most of the flight. She was used to traveling at odd hours for surf competitions.
    She turned and squinted out the window at the California scenery flashing by. She thought about Sarah’s description of some of the work they wouldbe doing in the ghettos that lined the deep hills and gullies around Tijuana: building small houses, bathing children from areas without running water, playing with orphans, and handing out food and clothes.
    More scenery flashed by as Bethany stared out the window and thought about Jesus’ words: “When you help them, you help me.” She thought how cool it was that Jesus wanted the world to know how much he loved people who were, for the most part, forgotten or ignored.
    She knew God had given her a heart that wanted to reach out to people. She just hoped she measured up now that she was in the position to help.
    Bethany suddenly sat up straight as the Pacific Ocean came into view. “That’s Trestles!” she said excitedly, elbowing Holly. “They’re holding the nationals there this week.”
    “Wha—?” Holly mumbled groggily.
    Kai cracked an eye open and asked, “So, why aren’t you there? Or is that a sore subject?”
    “Not
too
sore,” Bethany admitted with an unconvincing grin.
    “All things work together for good, right?” Malia said with a sleepy, but warm smile. Bethany glanced over at her, remembering their surf trip in Samoa.
    “Yeah … if I had qualified, I wouldn’t be on this trip.”
    “Could’ve saved us a lot of work,” Kai said, grinning at Dano. But Dano was still sleeping soundly.
    Soon the others fell back to sleep, and Bethany continued to watch the California coastline as the vans continued south toward San Diego and the Mexican border.
    By the time they reached the United States-Mexico border, most of the kids were awake. The border crossing went pretty smoothly, but the sudden change at the border from the US side to the hardscrabble town pressed up against the edge of a large steel fence shocked many of the kids into silence.
    It seems like we’ve stepped into another world,
Bethany thought. With no trees and with cement everywhere, it looked so barren. But almost immediately they entered the busy city traffic of Tijuana.
    “Whoa! This is
nuts!”
Sarah said about the crazy traffic. Cars zoomed around her on both sides, while she tried to keep up with Mike and Gabe in the vans ahead. She glanced in the