Churches weigh mission trips after latest swine flu warnings

Calls have been frequent on Shane Padgett's phone since Monday, when the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued an advisory warning against travel to Mexico.

"I'm getting calls one after the other today. It's been nuts," said Mr. Padgett, a youth pastor who is organizing a missions trip to Cancun, Mexico, in June.

A team of 18, largely from Greenbrier Church in Evans where Mr. Padgett works, planned to build houses and lead Bible classes in a Mayan village outside Cancun from June 16 to 23. The trip is organized by Youth With A Mission, an evangelical agency operating missions in more than 170 countries.

The travel advisory and growing number of swine flu cases hasn't convinced the team to cancel its mission just yet.

"As of this very moment, we're still planning on going, but we don't really know what will happen yet," he said.

Dan Upshaw also planned a mission trip to Mexico, this time to the state of Nayarit, where he would build houses with Habitat for Humanity.

He was scheduled to leave Sunday with a group of graduate and undergraduate students from Georgia Tech, who are sponsored and led by North Avenue Presbyterian Church in Atlanta.

On Monday, he was told the trip had been relocated to Honduras.

"There hasn't been any closing off of Mexico yet but the leader of the team talked with folks at the CDC and they felt it was the most prudent thing to do," said the 26-year-old Augusta resident. "Thankfully there's a great Habitat program there as well."

Several churches in the Northeast Georgia Presbytery also participate in an annual mission trip to Piedras Negras, Mexico, in June.

On Tuesday, plans for medical and work missions were cancelled.

In a post to the Web site of Constructores Para Cristo, or Builders for Christ, organizers of the mission wrote, "This was a decision that was made with great thought and many prayers. As for the Mexican families who have prayed for years to have a house, our wonderful, Mexican staff will build the houses. In a few weeks we will make the decision concerning the second half of the summer."

Since March, groups from two churches -- Aiken Church of Christ and Fleming Baptist Church in Augusta -- have returned from mission trips to Mexico with no reports of illness.