Mission Trip to Cuatro Ciénegas: The Long Way Home

Camino de San José: Lessons from Cuatro Ciénegas

I thought the journey was ending. It turns out I was just starting to understand it.

Every good pilgrimage ends with the journey home.

No surprise, ours required a little extra patience. Our group left Cuatro Ciénegas before sunrise on Sunday morning for the long drive back to Monterrey. The bus was quiet at first, some still sleepy, some waiting for the caffeine to kick in, and many of us were still processing the past few days.

Eventually the reflections started. Fr. Brandenburg challenged us to answer three questions. Something that had stretched us, something that had inspired us, and what we might say to someone considering the trip next year.

When it was my turn, I was thinking about St. Joseph again. As you probably read in my first reflection, our week had begun with missed flights, airport sprints, and a growing suspicion that we might not make the trip at all.

Somewhere over Chicago, I had prayed a simple Lenten prayer I’d learned from the Hallow app’s Pray40 challenge: Empty me. Fill me. Use me. In the moment, I thought that prayer might apply once we arrived in Mexico.

It turns out the emptying started immediately. And before long, the filling followed. As I listened to the others in our group, I began to recognize it. St. Joseph had been quietly handing us a whole collection of blessings all along.

The blessing of letting go of expectations. Mission work rarely follows a neat plan, and this trip proved it early and often. We learned to release our assumptions and step into whatever was unfolding. Nearly every time we boarded the bus, we heard, “There’s been a change in plans.” If we had made a t-shirt, that would have been the slogan.

The blessing of strengthening families. Seeing the work of supporting fathers and families made it clear why St. Joseph is such an important patron for this community.

The blessing of seeing long-term fruit. Several of the men in our group have spent years walking alongside the local men in recovery, helping build relationships, formation, and support within the substance abuse programs. Watching some of those men receive the sacrament of confirmation was deeply moving. We could see the impact of that steady, faithful work.

The blessing of connection through play. Watching and joining the local girls in a spontaneous volleyball game created an easy bridge between cultures. Even without many shared words, the game created laughter, encouragement, and genuine connection.

The blessing of being unable to fix everything. Not every problem has a quick solution. Sometimes the most faithful response is simply to do what we can with what is in front of us.

The blessing of quiet beauty in the desert. The landscape surprised us with its abundance: stars, sunrises, water, lunch in an oasis, vineyards, dunes, and wide open silence.

The blessing of community. Meeting people who have humbly spent years strengthening families and faith in ways most of the world will never see.

The blessing of holy exhaustion. By the end of the trip, everyone was tired but grateful. The work stretched us physically and spiritually, leaving us changed by the experience.

Eventually our bus arrived at the Monterrey airport, and our group from home began retracing our path north. The flights themselves went smoothly, at least for a while. But it wouldn’t be a classic Brakenhoff trip without a little precipitation.

In Houston, we boarded our final flight to Omaha and pushed back from the gate, only to sit on the tarmac for nearly an hour while thunderstorms passed through the area. When we finally landed in Nebraska, high winds and blowing snow were waiting to welcome us back.

After a bumpy landing, we waited over an hour for a gate to open so we could park. Then we waited again for the luggage carousel to decide whether it felt like working that night. By that point, I was beyond tired and completely out of humor. When someone suggested they were probably de-icing the baggage cart, it felt less like a joke and more like a reasonable explanation.

When we finally gathered our bags and hustled into the car for the drive back to Lincoln, it was after one in the morning. The temperature had dropped from the 101 degrees we had left behind in Mexico to -10 wind chill in Omaha. Wind whipped snow across the empty highways as we drove home through the dark. Under normal circumstances, that kind of travel day would have felt exhausting in all the wrong ways.

But something about it felt different this time.

Maybe it was the conversations from the bus that morning. Maybe it was the lingering images of Rosa picking up after herself, Carmen standing in her freshly cleaned house waiting for a baby to arrive, or teenage girls fully engaged in a game that needed no translation.

You might have figured this out much earlier in the series, especially back when I was writing about all our detours. It took me a little longer. It wasn’t until I started writing these reflections that it finally clicked.

Camino means “the way.” As in, yes, a literal path. But also a way of moving through the world.

I realize this may not be groundbreaking insight for most people. I, however, needed a full week, plenty of airport time, and six blog posts to arrive at this conclusion.

But I have to say, I really appreciate the layered meaning. A path you walk, and a way you live. Same word. Different depth. That feels about right.

St. Joseph is the patron saint of workers, fathers, and families, people who carry responsibility and keep going when the road is uncertain. His life was marked by unexpected journeys. From Nazareth to Bethlehem, from Bethlehem to Egypt, and eventually back home again, none of it followed a predictable plan. But that was never the point.

The way he walked it was.

Joseph was quietly faithful without needing to understand every step before taking the next one.

He provided when he could. He protected what was entrusted to him. He stayed when it would have been easier to leave. There’s no record of big speeches or dramatic moments. Just steady obedience in the middle of uncertainty.

Somewhere along the journey, I started to see our trip differently. Not as a series of delays or detours to push through, but as part of the path itself. The dusty houses. The early mornings. The rocky hike. The small conversations. Even the long trip home. This was the Camino too.

And maybe that is the real invitation of the Camino de San José. Not just to go somewhere far away, but to learn how to walk through whatever is right in front of you with a little more attention, a little more humility, and a greater willingness to serve.

You don’t have to travel to another country to do that. We’re already starting to look for ways to live this out closer to home. And if anything, this trip has only made me more curious about where that kind of journey might lead next.

I don’t think this was the end of the Camino for us. And if St. Joseph had anything to do with it, I think he was smiling quietly along the way.

Though next trip, I might try to make at least one of the flights on schedule.

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This is part 6 of 6 in of a series about our mission trip to Cuatro Ciénegas, Mexico.

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