September 14, 2016
39,000 ft over the Pacific Ocean…again.
Sometime in May, John asked if we should do Esperanza again this year. My reply was, ‘Of course, but we need to go back to Guatemala first’.
A little history is perhaps in order. ‘Doing Esperanza’ means slinging 5 gallon buckets of concrete In a bucket brigade, or pulling nails, or tying rebar or any of the tasks associated with building a concrete block home for a wonderful family who is working right along side helping create their dream. Esperanza International is an organization that helps hard working families in neighborhoods south of Tijuana Mexico save money and plan for a home. Essential to the fabric of Esperanza are the volunteers, who come from all over North America, to spend some time helping the families build their dreams. Throughout the year, church groups, college and high school groups and other organizations volunteer to spend a week or more, living in the Esperanza posada and volunteering 6-8 hours a day doing the back breaking work of manually building a home.
Before a family even gets close to building, they get involved with the Esperanza organization. They must own the land that they will build on. They must have a certain percentage of the cost to build the home saved in the Esperanza savings program and, finally, they must help and provide assistance when one of their neighbors is ready to build. Esperanza helps build strong, loving neighborhoods by providing a means to save money and to give back to their community and to get a much deserved home. Along the way the families feed the volunteers and we volunteers become very attached to our families that we work with. We fall in love the parents, the grandparents, aunties and the uncles. But most of all, we fall in love the children. Beautiful little ones who are so happy to see the smiling faces and hard working gloved hands of the volunteers building them a home. The older ones walk off to school shortly after we arrive in the mornings, in their crisp clean uniforms. The younger ones are herded out of the way of the workers by the plethora of women who are hard at work making food, cleaning and just surviving in some rather dilapidated, ramshackle buildings that serve as their home. It is often the case that the papa is not able to help during the day because he is at work. Their neighbors step in and help build. Partly from love and respect and partly because they too, are involved with Esperanza and are now living in their home, or still saving and planning their home.
This will be our third time to volunteer for a week of working for Esperanza. It’s back breaking, inspiring and love filled work. We volunteers get a good dose of what day to day living is outside of Tijuana. We also get so much love from the long term volunteers, the paid employees, our fellow volunteers and, mostly, from the families we work with.
Why a trip to Guatemala first? To brush up on our weak Spanish speaking skills. Three weeks of Spanish immersion lessons earlier this year will most certainly be refreshed by two more weeks. I’m so excited this year that I will actually be able to communicate with the women and the children of the families we work with. So, two weeks in San Pedro La Laguna, then to TJ for a week, then back home with a renewed love of life, each other and of the miracles of the world.
The two Susans. With hugs, smiles, a genuine love of life and our first names in common, we hardly needed to use the same spoken language. Susan is a cousin of one of the families we worked with and was was certainly doing her share of work.
Walking in compassion, working in love, living in harmony and receiving God’s blessing everyday. What a life.
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