What I saw

The mother of the woman we built a house for in Juarez, Mexico, came over for the dedication of that house on a Wednesday evening. She lived next door and her grandson, Jonathan, who would be living in the new house with his mother, had helped us in building his mother’s house.

His grandmother was short, about four feet tall. Her skin was tanned, wrinkled and appeared leathery. She wore a scarf over her head and wore a long dress and she carried her Bible.

She smiled during the dedication service and read some scripture in Spanish when given the opportunity. At the end of the simple proceedings there were many hugs but more tears as the house was presented to the new owner.

I didn’t think much more about the grandmother as we went to the dedication of the second house just a few hundred yards up a dirt road where we encountered another family that was truly thankful. Again many hugs and more tears.

Thirty four of us had traveled from the Philadelphia area to El Paso, Texas, where we boarded four vans. In El Paso we had stayed in a church on Sunday, Thursday and Friday nights where we slept on the floor, on pews or on chairs.

On Monday morning we went to the offices of Casas por Cristo to meet up with our project managers, Scott and Jason. After we got some tools and made plans we added two pickup trucks to the caravan and headed to Juarez, Mexico. Juarez has had a lot of crime recently and the US State Department had issued a warning to Americans traveling there.

Casas has a fairly new community center they had built in the area where we would be working. We would be sleeping on the concrete floor of this center and making and cooking our food here from Monday to Thursday.

This area of Juarez is on top of an old dump with dirt roads, run down shacks, lots of stray dogs, empty plastic bags and plastic bottles everywhere and lots of dust. There were dust storms and hot sun every afternoon.

Interestingly there were used tires everywhere and many appeared on roofs apparently holding roof coverings secure.

Casas has been a presence in this area of one million plus people since 1993, I believe. They have had such a positive influence that whenever people, whether adults or children, saw our caravan they waved and smiled.

As we loaded into the four vans on Wednesday evening to leave the second dedication we drove down the road toward the first house we had built. Up to this time I had not been moved emotionally by this experience. I was glad that I came and glad that we could do a little to help these people in such difficult circumstances.

As we passed the first house we had built, I noticed the grandmother stepping into the doorway of her house next door. I watched her as she looked at our van and clapped her hands for us – she was applauding us. She then raised her right hand high over her head and gave us a thumbs up sign.

The only thing that came to my mind was ‘what you do for the least of these you do for me’. I know it isn’t the exact scripture but I think it captures the meaning. You can check it at Matthew 25:40.

For me that was the reason we had come.