I missed J-Town

So this blog is about a week late (sorry Barb) but if you read the newest blog, you may understand why. For 2 weeks starting on June 6th, I worked with groups in J-Town again. In case you couldn't tell, J-Town is my nickname for Juarez. With our safety precautions of not taking groups to Juarez in March, and no groups in April or May, it had been a long while since I was able to do great work in J-Town.

The week of June 13, I worked with a group of 12 from Roseville Minnesota building a house in Anapra. They were a great group of 9 energized kids and 3 chaperones. One young man from the group really wanted to go swimming, so I told them if it was ok with the leader, and if they could build the house in 4 days, we could come back early on Friday and go swimming. They definitely rose to the challenge, and by Thursday afternoon, we were handing over the keys to Alejandro and Mariela.

It was an extra special week for Erin, as she and her group built a house for Mariela's mother a couple years ago. It made her happy to learn that we would be bulding one for Mariela and her soon to be growing family (her second child is due around September I think.)

We had a lot of fun building the house, and playing jokes on each other. Although some got out of hand at the end of the week, no one is worse off, however, some tempers were raised (mainly mine), but at the end of the day, there were no hard feelings, and some awesome work was done in His name. Enjoy the pics.

We call this the level slab happy dance. The concrete was beautiful and I was so excited that I did a happy dance on it.

A shot of Mt. Cristo Rey, which sits on the border of El Paso, New Mexico, and Juarez. This picture was taken just in front of the church in Anapra.

Giving Erin a couple pointers for trimming the siding. She was great at manning the saw for the first day or so.

Everytime the leader of the group took a picture, it seemed we were just hanging out (although there are several of me working), but I especially liked this one because it looks like I am holding the wall from falling and Erin is holding the cement up.

The group getting ready to stand another wall.

They really did like each other, just looked like a great photo opportunity.

Erin putting on some rafters, it almost looks like she is hanging off the roof, but you can see the ladder under her feet.

Starting to come together, this was early in the morning on Tuesday.

It was hot, and Kaylin had the coldest water in J-Town, so she shared with me.

Getting ceiling drywall hung. We had a good team and got it done quick.

As they came down from putting the felt on the roof, I grabbed each person's leg. Erin had the best reaction, thus this is the picture posted here.

Over 100 degrees, but snow on the ground?

The week before, we had barely any tar problems, not so much the case this week. Notice how Erin is clean in the background? Right after this picture, I told the girls Erin needed a hug. That started the great tar war of June 2009.

Mariela made us gorditas for lunch on Thursday, spicy but delicious.

The group from King of Kings in Rosevill Minnesota and the family in front of their new home.