What we did: we built houses for poor people living in and around Florido, Mexico.   (Florido is a suburb of Tijuana.)   We worked with Mexican Caravan Ministries, and stayed at their dorm.   We built a total of ten houses. Our large group broke into two work groups, each work group built 1 house per day for five days.   The houses were basically 12' x12' or 12' x14' glorified shacks.   The Mexicans had to purchase the lot themselves, and lots tend to cost more than $1000, which would be the life savings of a common person in Mexico.   To us these houses would be nothing, more primitive than our garages and tool sheds, but the impoverished people were glad enough to have a house.   These houses were better than most of the houses they had, which consisted of salvaged scrap lumber.   Their tap water cannot be trusted, and the people have to buy bottled water in town.   We were told not to even brush our teeth with the water.   Despite the water situation, most of the people we build houses for had electricity.   They steal the electricity by connecting wires to nearby power lines.   See the photos for examples of this.  

We passed out tracks to the Mexicans, but most of them said that they were already Christians, but since the main religion in Mexico is Roman Catholicism, we really can't know this for sure.

In preparation, we had to raise the money for the food and traveling, as well as the materials for the houses.   This was done by writing letters and doing odd jobs for people around the church.   The tour bus was donated by a local company, Gold Star Tours.   Yes, we did drive all the way there, that's 33 hours of sitting in a bus ONE WAY.   But we did make a few stops along the way, seeing the Grand Canyon and going white water rafting.

Our groups with finished houses.
Group 1  (Recipients, right)	Group 2  (With the Mexicans)

To see the photos, please click on the links at the top of the page.







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