Casas Por Cristo Day 3
Tuesday, June 12
“All people are the same . . .”
The morning started out nice and cool from the evening’s rain, and the temperature remained pleasant all day long. We (in theory) split our days in Mexico into morning and evening work sessions, with a 3-4 hour siesta in the middle. During today’s morning session we poured our foundations and built our walls. [picture] After that we headed back to the church for a wonderful lunch of fajitas and some much needed nap time. In the afternoon, we put up the frame and attached the “black board” to the outside of the frame. [picture] While we met our home-families yesterday, today we began to learn a little about them, as well as an apparently limitless supply of curious neighborhood kids. The “Green” team built a house for Jose, Veronica and their five-year-old daughter, Marlene. [picture] Jose works two jobs and is going to school, while Veronica stayed on the worksite with us every day, leveling, digging, playing, and helping out any way she could. We also had the assistance of Evan, a young boy whose family had received a Casas house the prior year, [picture] and many others. The “Blue” team’s house was for Hector, Faustina and their six-year-old son Hector Jr., and new two month old son, Alejandro. Hector Sr. is a supervisor on a steel worker crew. They build large projects such as hospitals and apartment buildings. Faustina stayed with us each day, looking after the baby and Hector Jr. and the family stayed each night at the home site in their car to make sure all of our supplies to build their house would be there the next day for us. It was a couple of days before we realized that Faustina had not had the opportunity to go to their “home” to prepare food for her family and had not eaten for those couple of days. We were horrified to say the least and brought her food from our meals each day after that. Hector Jr. and his community of friends were also very excited to help in the building process and their help was very welcomed! We also enjoyed the new pet our family had – The Duck.[pictures] Communication with our home-families and their neighbors often seemed difficult, since they spoke little to no English. The youth proved invaluable in helping to translate. However, in many respects we learned that verbal communication was unnecessary. Here’s how someone described it: “I was surprised that the language difference wasn’t as much of a barrier as I thought it would be. When we are speaking in love it is very easy to understand each other.” Here the youth also shined. Whether playing with the children or offering a hug, they acted as God’s ambassadors of grace and goodwill in a completely foreign place. When later asked the most powerful element of the trip, one of the adults didn’t hesitate: “I was most impacted by the interaction of our youth with all the kids at the jobsite and . . . the respect they showed to the Mexican people we were in contact with.” Anyway, having put up the bones of the houses, we headed back to the church for some good food, good worship, and again (not enough) sleep.