Bringing Jesus and jiujitsu to kids in a suburb of Juarez, Mexico, where a drug cartel has become infamous for decapitating rivals seemed like the right thing to do for eight members of a Sheridan martial arts gym.
The group recently returned from a weeklong trip that involved working with a church ministry in Anapra, Mexico, that uses jiujitsu to bring practical and spiritual lessons to 100 area kids.
“Jiujitsu, we’ve found, just crosses all the cultures and language barriers, and it’s really an effective tool for not only teaching discipline and self-control, but it provides for healthy relationships with other people” said Jen Barron, who described herself as a jiujitsu student at Sheridan’s Grindhouse gym.
“It gives people confidence,” she added. "And so, for these kids coming from these really difficult backgrounds, it’s a great outlet for them.”
The group’s most recent trip was organized by gym member Matt Child, who said he started going to the Juarez, Mexico, region on church mission trips to build houses in 2018.
He said that two years ago, he ran into a local pastor who mentioned that his church hosted a ministry that involved teaching jiujitsu to kids.
Child met the man who leads the Project Rio Bravo ministry, Steve Jolly of El Paso, Texas, and a relationship was born.
The goal of the program is to bring not only the martial art, but the gospel to children living in poverty and meet education and food needs at the same time.
“November of last year was our first jiujitsu trip,” Child said.
Included on the most recent trip in addition to Child and Barron were Grindhouse gym co-owners Jeremy and Amy Williams, their daughters Kinsley and Evelyn, and fellow gym members Brady Mclean, Brendyn Petron, and Andres Vega, who also served as their translator.
Child said many of the children they minister to are raised by mothers or grandmothers who have learned to trust Jolly, who has established a relationship with them over the years.
“Everybody knows him and he really lifts the whole community,” Child said.
Left, students in the Rio Bravo jiu-jitsu class practice their moves. Right, Brady McLean spends time with a young friend interested in photography. (Courtesy Brendyn Petron) 
A view from church compound in Anapra, Mexico. (Courtesy Brendyn Petron) 
Members of the Sheridan team pose with some members of the Algo Man church team. (Courtesy Brendyn Petron)
Built On Landfill
Sheridan entrepreneur and jiujitsu black belt Mclean also has made regular trips to Juarez to build houses and minister.
He said Anapra is a section of Juarez built on a landfill that sits next to the Rio Grande River. People can look across the river and see nice houses and the American dream.
Mclean said he gets a lot out of teaching the kids and serving the associated church that is called Algo Mas, which translates as “something more.”
“We’re learning about ourselves, we’re learning about discipline, we’re learning about what goes into progress and commitment to that progress,” he said. “A lot of people will go down there and build a house really quick, and they then will get out of town as soon as possible because it's a dangerous spot to be.”
Mclean said when the local children and their families see people return and they recognize familiar faces, it gives them a different look at “who they think Americans are.
“And that just opens up the opportunity for us to share the gospel with them,” he said.
Amy Williams said the trip to Mexico was her third, and she believes that jiujitsu fits well with sharing the gospel.
“We wholeheartedly believe that disciplines of jiujitsu also can fall in line with biblical principles of the fruit of the spirit,” she said. “We are long suffering, we are patient, we’re loving, caring.
"In jiujitsu, you do emulate those with your partners, with respect and boundaries.”
Going to Juarez is building an extended community and helping grow the love of Christ, Amy Williams said.
“We do that here in our own gym and in Mexico as well,” she said.
Practical Lessons
Jeremy Williams said he and Amy have been at the gym for about 15 years and bought it in 2024.
He said the practical aspect of teaching the martial art that is similar to wrestling can give children tools to defend themselves.
Jiujitsu is oriented to self-defense using chokeholds, joint locks and takedowns.
“It was originally meant for a smaller, weaker individual to be able to defend themselves against somebody bigger and stronger,” he said. “That’s why it's such a good martial art for kids and women to learn.”
Prior to the trip, the Sheridan gym sponsored a fundraiser that involved members doing five-minute rounds of jiujitsu with 20-second breaks in between as they found a new opponent.
Financial pledges were given by donors to participants for each round.
Child said the team had a goal of raising $3,000 to help cover fuel and to pay for food and people employed by the church in Anapra to cook the food and serve the team while they were there.
“We expected to get eight to 10 rounds each, and we all ended up getting 20 to 25 which is pretty insane for how old we all are, most of us as least,” Child said. “We raised about $6,500.”
While in Anapra, Vega, 42, said interpreting for the group with the children became an emotional thing.
The most recent trip was his third and he said prior to accompanying Child on a house building ministry trip a few years ago, he was going through a hard time and experiencing depression. He wanted to do something for somebody.
Now that he is translating for between kids and the instructors in the jiujitsu program he has found purpose in his life.
“It’s very emotional for me every time I do it,” he said. “Me being the middleman for others, translating, uniting two cultures is very special.”
Mclean said a typical day on the trip involved traveling around Anapra to pick up the kids from either their houses or in some cases an orphanage and bringing them to the church gym for the jiujitsu sessions.
“We spend two or three hours where we do seminars where we kind of teach them a full progression of a position or move, partially so they can defend themselves,” he said. “Some of them are so young that … they are just learning how to learn and how to be taught and pay attention.”
Members of the Wyoming team clean up around the church compound. (Courtesy Brendyn Petron) 
A group shot of some of the Sheridan Grindhouse gym team with a Rio Bravo class in a church compound in Anapra, Mexico. (Courtesy Brendyn Petron) 
Members of the team provide instruction. (Courtesy Brendyn Petron)
No Screens
Afterward they make and share a meal and play with the kids.
“They are not stuck on screens, because they don’t have any,” Mclean said.
Amy Williams said on their trip last year, they did not take their youngest daughter, Evelyn, but did take her in March.
“At that time, we found out that one of the young girls in the jiujitsu program, her mom had died a week prior of cancer,” she said. “We did not tell Evelyn because we did not want her to be emotionally driven.
"We wanted her to do (what) Evelyn does and become friends with everyone.”
Amy Williams said her daughter and the young girl, both 10, became friends and on the most recent trip, the Mexican girl was looking for Evelyn as the team arrived.
“This one specific little girl comes right up to Evelyn, super excited to see her, and they played all day,” she said. “It’s just a profound experience that they love us, just like our own children that we are teaching here in Sheridan. It’s hard to articulate the moment and the experience.”
Child said the team uses a couple of Bible verses to guide them in the past 18 months of their relationship with the jiujitsu program in Anapra.
One is from Proverbs that talks about how as iron sharpens iron, one man sharpens another.
The other verse is from I Thessalonians 2:8 that says that “we love you so much that we shared not only God’s good news, but our own lives, too.”
“We feel like it’s a lot of series of coincidences, that we don’t really count as coincidences, that we wound up with this relationship with these kids,” he said. “In a lot of ways, it doesn’t make sense that we would be coming from Wyoming to serve kids in Anapra.
"There’re over 100 kids down there who absolutely adore us, and they know our names.”
Mclean said that he believes no one who made the most recent trip believes they have given more than they took from the experience.
“It’s such an opportunity for a really poignant perspective to go, ‘This is how these guys live and a lot of times they have more gratitude for the very, very little that they have there, then we have for everything we have up here,’” he said.
Dale Killingbeck can be reached at dale@cowboystatedaily.com.
