I went down to La Mission, BC. Mexico over the Memorial Day weekend with a group of about 63 people. The group, (about 23 of which were children) stayed at the Door of Faith orphanage – a beautiful home for about 100 orphaned or abandoned children – in their service crew area. They have a section of the orphanage – at least 3 or 4 acres, dedicated to bunkhouses and kitchen areas for groups like us that come in to do service work either in the community or at the orphanage itself. (I tried to take some pics of the orphanage) I also took some pictures of the countryside – of homes that other people are living in and of the utility lines (or lack thereof) there. DJ and Lynnette, the program directors at the orphanage have been there for 11 years, and when they came in, they put in the only phone line that was there for about 3 years, before it became more common.
The project, building the home, is the hardest and yet the most rewarding project that we complete down there. This year, the main framing crew got to La Mission on Thursday, so when the rest of the group got there on Friday, the house was framed and the tresses were up on the roof. With the help of several generators, nail guns and screw guns, (and of course 2 days of working before sun-up to sundown) the house was finished by Sunday morning and the keys were handed to the family at 9:00. (there are some pics of when I got there and then the progress until we got done – you will notice that the foundation was built on stacked rocks to compensate for the hill that the property was on – we had to build scaffolding to work on the house)
The family, Hector and his wife and there children, were so wonderful! Hector spoke English, so we were able to communicate directly – His littlest girl, Patricia, was a little shy at first, but she visited us on the job site and on the final day, ran through the crowd of us around the house to peak into the window of her new home. Once inside, she went into one of the bedrooms and twirled around like a ballerina. (I took a snapshot of her looking through the window and a couple of the family during the key ceremony and they are attached)
The family invited us to church after that – there were 183 of us packed into that building – We were on the second floor, and when the music started playing and everyone was standing up and clapping and singing, I thought the floor was going to cave in! I did learn that Santo means Glory….(the reddish two story building is their church)
If anyone were ever trying to figure out what life is about, then this is the place to do it. I don’t know if anyone ever figures out what it is ALL about, but every time I go to Mexico (this was my 3 trip building, and 4th trip down there) I learn more and more about life and what it is about for me. I learn about serving other people, about giving selflessly, and about trusting God. Serving selflessly and to work so hard right next to them to people a better world and then to experience their culture, their love for each other and to be embraced by people you cant even communicate with because of a language barrier – would change your life. IT IS SO POWERFUL!