Ciudad Juarez, Mexico- The pictures show a desolate wasteland.
Garbage is strewn across a wide expanse of sand. In the background is a high wall topped by barbed wire that is the outer perimeter of a juvenile detention facility. Homes consist of cardboard boxes and thrown together building materials. They appear to be falling down. Barefoot children smile for the camera.
These are the photos the Ortonville Baptist Church youth group brought back with them from Juarez, where they went on a mission to build a home and build relationships with Mexican children.
Julieta Dominguez, a single working mother, has two children, Jesus, 3, and Janethe, 1. They live in Carlos Chavira, a community in Ciudad Juarez. Early last month they were living in a 1-room home with a dirt floor, a plywood roof that was bad and walls made of used lumber. Part of the home was a cardboard box for a 56? definition television. But then the group from OBC showed up.
On June 13, Ken Tison, OBC youth pastor, flew down to Texas with 17 teens and four adults. They went to New Mexico for a team-building session for a few days where they learned to work together. Then, it was across the border to Juarez, the fifth-largest city in Mexico and located just south of El Paso.
The area in which they would work had thousands of ramshackle homes built on a dump site. Cut glass is abundant and trash is everywhere. The Dominguez family pays $50 a month to the government for a lot here that is 25-by-50 feet. Julieta Dominguez is a domestic worker who makes $55 a week.
‘These are working families trying to position themselves for a better life,? says Tison. ‘This house and neighborhood is probably a better opportunity than where they were before.?
The OBC group began preparing to go to Mexico last October for mission work through Lone Tree Ministry, which builds a dozen homes per year. The cost for each teen (aged 14-18), was $890, which paid for airfare, accomodations and the materials to build a home. Fund-raising was done, but most of the teens and their families paid for the trip.
‘As a youth pastor, I want the kids to see a teen can make a huge difference in somebody’s life,? said Tison. ‘I want them to see that an opportunity to serve the Lord doesn’t take superheroes.?
When the teens arrived in Juarez, they had blueprints, a translator, and an adult from OBC that is a contractor. They were armed with plywood, 2-by-4s, tarpaper and shingles. No drywall or insulation was needed, because Tison says the local people think it’s a waste of money and anything that can stand should be used on its own.
They began by leveling the ground and clearing debris. They used four wheelbarrows and eventually mixed 120 wheelbarrow loads of concrete to pour the floor of the home. There was no carpeting, so it was important to make the floor very smooth. It was hot work. They started at the job site at 8 a.m. and rotated workers every 15 minutes. Temperatures were between 103 and 108 degrees the days they were there. Tison recalls they went through 30 gallons of water at the job site per day for 22 people, not including water bottles for the one-hour lunch break.
The two-room home they were building was 11 feet wide by 22 feet long. They tacked lumber, dug a trench and built walls, and sills for two windows and a door after the foundation was laid. The outside was finished with stucco and the trim was painted blue, by Julieta’s request.
‘The houses are rudimentary to us, but to them it’s like a palace,? said Tison.
While they were building the house, they were also working with the children, who go to school, but at different times of the day. The teens ran a Vacation Bible School, with crafts, games, and Bible lessons.
‘I wasn’t expecting to communicate because I don’t know Spanish, but I grew really attached to the kids,? said Tamera Dandachi, 16, who was in charge of crafts. ‘They were selfless– they wanted to give things to us and we didn’t want to take, but they would get upset.?
Tison said the teens were selfless, too.
‘They were incredible,? he said. ‘We wanted as a team to be selfless. They played soccer with the kids. The kids just wanted to be held, talked to, hugged.?
Matt Frantz, 17, was amazed at how many children were just running around without adult supervision. Many are left alone while their parents are working.
‘Here that would never happen,? said Frantz, who became known as cabaellito or ‘little horse? for the piggyback rides the teen gave the kids.’They’re self-sufficient from such a young age. They have to be.?
The teens refer to some of the children by name. These are ones they grew particularly close to. Oscar is a 12-year-old child whose parents owned a cardboard store with two aisles. In the store were small plastic toys as well as candy bars, chips and other snacks. There were also two refrigerated cases with pop– described as very good. The beverages there are made with cane sugar, not corn syrup.
Frantz said the food is super spicy and can be smelled 15-feet away. The teens were not to eat or drink food that was not sealed, but didn’t refuse food offered to them by the children and their families because they didn’t want to insult them.
The group was even invited to a birthday party for a 3-year-old child of one of the families they had grown very close to.
‘It cost a lot of money for the mother to buy a cake and it was important that we come,? said Tison.
They went and sang ‘Happy Birthday? in Spanish.
Some of the teens could speak Spanish fairly well before going and during their trip. All of them improved their Spanish skills.
During a Father’s Day church service the Americans sang two familiar hymns, ‘Forever,? and ‘You’re So Good to Me,? in Spanish. They were also touched by the sermon, which discussed fathers and encouraged churchgoers that didn’t have a father to go find one and hug him.
After church that day, the teens made another emotional stop, to an orphanage where they played and did VBS with about 40 children who not only had no parents, but no other extended family. The teens sewed bags for the children and filled them with stickers, Band-Aids, coloring books, markers, and a bead bracelet they helped the kids make.
The OBC youth group also had taken up a love offering for the Dominguez family and gave them plates, cups, silverware and towels for their new house.
The group returned to Ortonville June 23. They all agree that leaving was very hard, but they have memories they won’t soon forget.
Stephen Stothers, 16, is proud of the work they did on the home.
‘I’m a carpenter’s son, so I made it my goal to get the house done to the best of my ability,? he said. ‘We built that house with what we had and with what God gave us and it came out great. It gave us a sense of accomplishment.?