The next morning (Monday) we loaded up vans that we rented with supplies we had brought with us from Wisconsin and some that we purchased in El Paso. We drove accross the border and unloaded our things into a church that we stayed at for the week. Then it was off to pick up our tools from the
Casas' headquarters and our two teams each went to their work sites to begin the build. One team built a 3-room house for a family of 5, and the team I was on built a Sunday school building for a church.Monday's work consisted of evening out the ground of the build site, building a frame for the concrete slab, and mixing and pouring the concrete (all by hand). We had an
electric cement mixer, but shortly after starting to pour cement, it broke. We were able to rig it up in such a way that it continued to work, but for fear of it breaking again we were only mixing half-size loads. This, as you can imagine, was taking much longer than it should have. So a few of us began mixing cement by hand in a wheelbarrow to speed the process along. At about 10:30pm, we were finally done pouring our slab and headed back to the church in Juarez to shower and sleep.Tuesday's work was to build the wall and roof frames. The day's work was hindered by a tempermental generator that decided not to run at all for the day, so 2x4's all needed to be cut to length with hand saws. But, by lunch/siesta time the wall frames were assembled and up, after siesta we attached blackboard to the exterior of the building while others insulated the interior, and in the dusk the last nails were pounded to attach the roof frames.
Wednesday was the day we hoped to have the building completed. Plywood, tarpaper, and a thick green roofing paper went on the roof. We nailed chicken wire to the blackboard so that the stucco had something to hold to. Sheetrock went onto the interior walls and ceiling. Some of the electrical work was completed. And into the evening hours we applied stucco to the outside of the building. We left at about 9:30pm with just a little more to complete the next morning.
Thursday morning we put finishing touches on the sheetrock, electrical, and cleaned up the site. Around 11am we had a dedication with the pastor of the church, his family, and a few of the congregation members. A boy that had been hanging around the site all week named Benito became a friend of mine, even though we were mostly unable to verbally communicate. He was sad to see us go, and he exchanged his metal bracelet for my 'ONE' bracelet (see picture of us). We didn't get to interact with the mexican people much during our stay, but those that we did spend time with were truly amazing and have a special place in my heart.
Thursday afternoon we went to a market. It was basically a tourist market, but I purchased a nice wool blanket. That evening the church we stayed in held a special service for us. Lucky for us, one of our team members is fluent in spanish and translated so we were able to overcome the language barrier. Music, however, went untranslated and we experienced the unity of the church across cultures as those around us sang words we did not understand, but we felt the presence of the spirit and worshipped with them just the same.Friday morning we packed up the vans and headed back across the border. We borded the bus again in El Paso, and 30 hours later (Saturday afternoon) we were back in Madison and headed to our own showers and beds.
The trip was so short, yet so worth it. We built two buildings, and had our souls refueled by the service of our hands, the community within our group, and the people of Juarez we met.
