5 people, 1 house, 3 1/2 days

This week brought a group of 5 people from Hanover College in Indiana over their winter break to YLM to build a house for one of the caretakers at Cristo Rey in Juarez. They had set a goal to finish the house by Thursday so they could do some outreach here in El Paso on Friday. Well, they not only met their goal, but beat it by a half day, so we spent a little bit of time at the market in Juarez on Thursday afternoon doing some bargain hunting. Some of you may remember Jason, who was a volunteer with us over the summer. He was the force behind bringing the group from his school, and it was great to see him again and be able to work with his group. They were a blast to work with, and very driven to succeed. I am pretty confident that no group this small has ever put a house up that fast. Great work.

In other work, this week I was able to put the finishing touches on another grant for repairing more homes in sparks, and Erin and I, with a little advice and ideas from Krysia and Stephen, created a gift application on facebook called YLM gifts. It gives everyone the opportunity to connect with their facebook friends by sending them little "gifts" from YLM. They include a Mariachi San Pablo CD, Rita's Gorditas, a paleta, a green light entering Mexico, and even snow in Anapra from when it snowed one day when we were there for a medical clinic.

Also, if you are a ready who wants to know about Enrique, I have some information that I don't think should be shared over blog or email, so please contact me by phone so I can fill you in. If you need my phone number, or really want it emailed to you, please let me know by email.

Enjoy the pictures below, and have a fantastic week. Oh, and it has been about 80 degrees here all week. Absolutely perfect. :)

The group from Hanover getting the siding on the first wall.

Measure twice, and cut once.

Dawn, with 2 of the kids in the family, Cristal and her nephew Alexi

Lauren and Dawn are the new charlie's angels?

The Hanover group with some of the family after the first day of construction.

Lauren and Dawn, the best electricians.

Hanging the drywall.

Cristal wanted to help with the construction of her house, so she jumped in wherever she could.

Roof plywood is on and ready to be finished.

Hanging the ceiling drywall. They were so good that they didn't even need to mark the rafters on the drywall for the screws.

This was the only time that they missed on the first try. (except of course I missed even worse after I gave her a hard time about it. Karma!)

They got after the drywall for sure.

Roof is done, just need to tack in the sides.

Sanding the drywall creates a lot of dust.

Cristal and Dawn with the bilingual new testament that Dawn gave her as a gift.

The house was done by lunch on Thursday. 3 1/2 days. Very nice.

After lunch they passed out some bracelets to the kids from the neighborhood that were around and told them what each color signifies. They even left a few for them to give to their friends at school.

The group with the family that they built for. New friends forever.

The group and me-The Super Six!!!