Tuesday, March 31, 2009

Mexico Mission Trip- Extreme Home Makeover

Waiting for our plane to LA where we will rent vans, meet our Amor Ministry rep. and drive into Mexico!

The campground in Mexico.

We made our lunches first thing in the morning before breakfast.

Amor fed us well.

El banos.

Making our way to our worksites over the very, very rutted roads!

Our worksite and the home of Olga (42) and her children, Misael (20), Jorge (18), Beatriz (15), and Ana (5). They live in a community called 'Maclovio Rojas' in Tijuana. Olga and Misael work as factory workers. Jorge and Beatriz attend school. They all live in this house that is in bad condition. The roof as you can see is made of canvas and the floor is dirt. The walls are made of cement block, sheetrock and used lumber. The outhouse is almost unusable ( and guarded by a mean looking dog!). They do not have drinkable water, a telephone, stove, refrigerator or car. Despite these conditions they appear clean and happy. Ana is especially delightful. The others seem shy.

Dustin and Ana.

Pouring the new concrete floor.


Building the walls.

Shalayne- notice her cornrow braids.

Moving the walls into place.



Dallas and Dustin hard at work.

This is Ana, the youngest member of the family we built for. She was a sweetheart and kept up a constant jabber of Spanish- it didn't bother her that we couldn't understand!

These little girls loved the star sunglasses I gave them. They also found our van and lunches fascinating!

This is the house that Travis and his team (one of five) built.

The family lives up this steep street. The higher up the mountainside the lots are, the cheaper they are. They are still paying for the land, which may cost $50 to $60. The family (Mom Olga, with her two young adult sons and two school aged daughters) make about $160 a week. There is garbage everywhere, and on the first day when it rained we had to exit quickly because the roads become slick and impassible very quickly. The rain also seemed to uncover more debis- Kamar, our Amor rep said it is very possible that this used to be a landfill site. And to think that these people have to live in these conditions and the children play in this dirt!

Here you can see Olga and her family's old house and beside it the house that we built for them.

Our family in Mexico.

Mixing stucco- sand, cement and water.

Stuccoing the exterior. Hard work in the hot sun!

Inside the house we built. The family will finish the interior.

Our team (one of five) with Senora Olga in front of the finished house.

Handing over the keys, a Spanish Bible, a certificate for a water filtration system, and some housewarming gifts to our family. What a joy to see their gratitude! How blessed we feel to have made their life a little bit better!

This traffic jam caused us to loose the vans we were following out of Tijuana- thus we ended up lost. But God answered our prayers and sent us three Christian men, one whom spoke English, to give us directions to the border (were they angels?) It was a little tense~ but we made it through! Thank you, God!

Ahh, I love the ocean! (San Clemente, CA)

Beauty- God's way!
LAX Airport- on our way home!