Spectrum Ministries has chosen to work in the poorer areas of the border city of Tijuana, Mexico. Tijuana is a growing city of more than two million people. Some claim it to be more than three million. This makes it one of the largest cities in Mexico. Tijuana has been made famous by songs and movies as a hard-driving, fast-rolling city, and it continues to live up to it's reputation. Millions of tourists visit this colorful city each year. Tijuana is Mexico's most Northwesterly city, located in the state of Baja California. The border crossing between San Diego and Tijuana is the most heavily used in the world. The city and its administration is very friendly to tourists. (Police don't give the tourists a hassle.)

Contrasting the color and affluence of this large city are the pockets of poverty hidden in the wrinkles and creases formed by the dry dusty canyons surrounding the city. Within sight of clean and wealthy San Diego is abject poverty on a scale few can imagine. It's in these poor and often violent neighborhoods ... barrios in Spanish ... that Spectrum has chosen to work. We work in six barrios. The two most notable areas in which we work are the Zona norte and the Tijuana dump. This community is located just below the dump and adjacent to Tijuana's cemetery of the poor. The infamous zona norte is the crowded, dangerous and dark section of the north side of the city where many of the street children live and work.

The barrios are formed by large groups of houses, shacks and little stores perched on sides of canyons and located along a grid of winding dirt roads. While electricity and water are available to many of the neighborhoods, the poor simply haven't the money to hook up or pay the monthly bill, so they steal the electricity by splicing into the electric power lines with long cords sometimes stretching for hundreds of feet. In a similar way many tap into main water lines with garden hoses. Children abound everywhere. Most of our neighborhoods have little schools. Some children go to school while other children work. In the summer, our world is hot and dusty. In the winter months of January through March, the barrios are full of thick mud making access to the communities almost impossible. The weather is the same as San Diego. Nice and mild most of the year. Cold and somewhat wet in the winter months.

In every area in which we work, we have been invited to come by the community leaders. We know the local gangs and work with their permission and cooperation. In our environment there are a lot of drugs, alcohol and, of course, violence.

If you'd like to view maps to the areas where we work, check out our 'LOCATIONS' section.