Aug 2009 Construction Team Trip Report

Duane Clapp and Hardwin Mead led sixteen folks, your author included, for a trip to build a house and staff the medical clinic in the Colonias outside of Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. We were hosted by our friends at Missions Ministries. They run the construction teams and medical clinic. (Photo above: The construction team, JCEP kids that helped in construction and the family receiving the just completed home.)

After flying into El Paso on Southwest Airlines on Wednesday, we boarded vans for the trip across the border to the Colonias. The recent drug wars in Juarez don’t seem to have touched the Colonias. Outside of a few military checkpoints, the Colonias seem as bustling and crowded as ever. Walking outside in the streets one evening, the people were out in force welcoming us and sharing stories.

On Thursday morning we rose early and after a hearty breakfast at the Mission Ministries team center, began the construction. We built for a family of four who lived within a short drive of the center. The father, Baltasar, was just home from his night shift job as a security guard for Pemex, the Mexican oil monopoly. The mother Veronica and daughter Karen, 17 and Michelle, 10 pitched in pounding nails with our team. (Photo below: The team tilts up the first completed wall.)
We were also joined by five of the kids from the Juarez Children’s Educations Program (JCEP), our scholarship programs for Junior High, High School and college students. Our twelve-person construction team was relatively small, but with the extra help we got the walls tilted up within two hours. The roof was on by noon and we insulated and dry-walled the inside before 1:30, only five hours after we began!

While we were building, our medical team was seeing twenty-five families with a total of nearly eighty patients. The team was headed by Hardwin Mead. Nurse PJ Meys and medical students Ben Murray and Timothy Purdy completed our team. They were assisted by two translators and two staff members from Mission Ministries. Dave McCombs, President of Mission Ministries and his wife Judy also worked the clinic and pharmacy. (Photo Below: Hardwin Mead and our translator Joel, consult with an expectant mother before an ultrasound.)
Following another big dinner, Leo Pineda, the director of operations for Mission Ministries in Juarez told us his exciting trips to serve the Tarahumara Indians in the remote Copper Canyon of Mexico.

Day two again started early with devotionals and breakfast. We painted the house inside and out. Normally, we don’t finish the drywall the first day and cannot paint the inside, but this time we got it done. The keys were turned over by noon in a tearful and joyful presentation to the family. Marina Clapp and Debbie Scalero had purchased house-warming gifts for the family, on behalf of the team. The rugs, housewares and curtains made excellent gifts to get the home outfitted. The medical team took a break from treating another large group of patients to help dedicate the house.

I want to thank our construction team, for their hard work: our fearless leader Duane Clapp, Marina Clapp, Steve Schlepper, Nick and Debbie Scalero, Winslow Yee and his amazing twelve-year old son Everett, Richard Wolke, Austin Mead, Rex “the drywall lifter” Finato and Brian Mead, my fellow ceiling insulation installer. We were all led be Jesus, our construction manager and driver on the team and Bill Orange our long time collaborator on all things Juarez. I should also mention that the MM team of local construction experts was there as well, tackling some of the tough things like drywall cuts and electrical wiring.(Photo Below: A family staying at the women's shelter.)

In the evening the team headed out after dinner to church service with the family. Ben gave his testimony in Spanish. A very tired group returned back to the team center for an early turn-in.

On Saturday, the team returned to California having never spent a better four days. Tim and I stayed behind to tackle a few JCEP chores. More on that in my next blog.

I have some final thoughts I would like to share. Most years, Missions Ministries (MM) hosts 35 to 45 teams in Juarez to build as many as 65 houses. They also have helped JCEP build two Libraries and have constructed many churches. They have been severely hampered by a downturn in the number teams traveling to Juarez this past year. The biggest factor is fear of the recent drug-war casualties near the U.S-Mexico Border. I have been down twice this year and have never felt safer. We do not work in Ciudad Juarez, but in the Colonias (poor villages) some twenty miles southwest of the city. We travel around the city to get to the Colonias passing through the Santa Teresa, New Mexico port of entry. The Mexican army has several checkpoints and has been instrumental in cleaning up the police force and gangs.

If you feel called to serve others, there is no better way to do it in such a short time commitment and for so little money. Please contact me if you would like to join a team or receive more information. We need to get back off the sidelines and start supporting this great cause once more. (Photo Below: The Family getting the keys to their new home from Duane Clapp.)

SRK