Casas Por Cristo Day 2
Monday, June 11
“God provided strength, patience, tolerance and guidance when we needed it. The whole experience reinforced that it is better to give than receive”
A good omen. The day started with a glorious sunrise, which we could see from top to bottom because of our wonderful location on the hill. We started out the day excited and nervous and sleepy and hungry all mixed up together.
After a quick stop for a fast food breakfast we headed to the Casas por Cristo headquarters in El Paso. After meeting up with the Casas reps who would be leading our two groups (Amber and Kelsey) [picture?], we were ready to head out. Well, almost . . . The battery in Kelsey’s truck was dead and had to be jumped. But once we took care of that we were really ready to head out. Well, not quite . . . After a few blocks, Amber’s van (“The Importer”) just stopped. Turns out the fuel pump was busted. OK, no big deal. Amber and Kelsey jumped into the one truck and we headed into Juarez.
At first, Juarez didn’t seem that different from El Paso. However, as we approached the outskirts where our host church and construction sites were located, the evidence of poverty gradually increased to the point of disbelief. Our excitement and nervousness were gradually replaced by a sense of heartsickness.
We reached our worksites about 3 hours behind schedule. Words cannot describe the conditions these families were living in. Someone described it as “plywood sides, and roof, with tar paper tacked to it. . . . I could smell the dirt, the old wood and hot tar paper.” It’s enough to say that the 12x24, 2 room homes we built for them seem like mansions in comparison. [any pictures?]
As we hurriedly cut the lumber and build the concrete forms in an attempt to make up for lost time, we saw dark clouds approaching fast. We hurried even more. And then, IT HIT! One moment, the air was still, the next, it was a gale, carrying millions of stinging grains of sand. It was like the blizzard in Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer except instead of grabbing presents to keep them from blowing away, we were clinging to building supplies (and hats!). None of us had ever seen a sandstorm like this. We immediately headed to the vans for protection. The storm didn’t seem to bother the residents of the area, however. One of them was even holding his shirt out as a sail to propel him on his bike—and he was going fast! We eventually had to go back out into the sandstorm to finish the forms before the concrete trucks showed up. We completed the forms right about the time it started to pour ice-cold rain. The concrete trucks never showed.
Soaking wet, cold and filthy with sand and mud, we headed to our host church Jesucristo Es La Respuesta for dinner, showers, an hour or so of worship time, and (not enough) sleep. Many of us wondered what the events of the day meant. Was God mad at us? Was he testing our patience? It turns out he just wanted to remind us he was there. Here’s our devotional verse for the day (which had been selected weeks in advance):
Everyone who listens to these words of mine and acts on them
will be like a wise man who built his house on rock.
The rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew and buffeted the house.
But it did not collapse; it had been set solidly on rock.
Matthew 7:24-25
Whoa!
On the surface, this was not a good day, but not for any of the reasons we would have thought when the day began. On a deeper level, many of us felt that the difficulties we had faced helped us to relate just a little better to our house-families. In any case, the concerns that most of us had secretly harbored for our personal safety had been completely overshadowed by our concern for the condition of the people we were there to help.
Finally, the day was not without humor. On returning to the church, we learned that the rumor-mill had transformed the two team members we left at the El Paso airport the prior evening into two missionaries who had been injured (presumably due to gang violence) and airlifted out of Mexico.