The members of Pleasant Hill Baptist Church began preparations for their third mission trip to Rio Bravo, Mexico, almost as soon as they returned last October.

They started with once-a-month Wednesday night church dinners and are now going full swing with fundraising. Their plans include yard sales, car washes and a P. Buckley Moss print raffle.

The first spaghetti dinner and auction is planned for March 8 at the church.

Twenty people already are signed up for the October trip to the border town, where they will work on construction crews and with deaf schoolchildren.

The trip costs about $1,100 for each missionary, said Dan Zicafoose, who's making his third trip.

Last year, the mission team held 10 fundraisers, earning more than $30,000 to help them make a 1,600-mile journey to Mexico Centros Christianos Para Sordomudos, a school about an hour from the Texas border. It's the only school for the deaf in that part of Mexico, said Debbie Turner.

The Pleasant Hill team, which consists of several people from other Roanoke Valley congregations, works in cooperation with the International Christian Centers for the Deaf on repairing school buildings heavily damaged during a July tornado and continuing construction in other areas.

The school, organized in 1998, became a residential facility last year, said Debbie Turner, spokeswoman for the International Christian Centers for the Deaf, which is based in Troutville.

Most of the children, ages 2 to 20, "don't know how to communicate," Zicafoose said.

Some of them live 20 to 25 miles away and have been shunned by their families and communities, he said.

Although mission team members give up vacation and other time off for the weeklong trip, "we are building relationships" with each other, students and faculty, Zicafoose said.

"Our main goal is to teach these children a language so they can learn about Jesus," Turner said.

"We also teach reading, writing, basic subjects, social and basic skills. We have to start from scratch," she added.

For information on International Christian Centers for the Deaf, call Debbie or Tom Turner at 966-3345.