Opening Our Eyes

 I am here for the first time with my twin sister Ansley my dad John-Taeke (JT) and my mom Nicole.  There are 8 other teens here on this trip to build 20 houses. I am going to share some of my thoughts on the experience, testimonies, and points that stood out.

It has been a great experience for me personally because it has been really eye opening to see all the not-so-well-off people in El Salvador. 

It is great to hear the stories of how the new governor has changed El Salvador. Since 2021 there has been little to no gang violence in El Salvador.  But before 2021, gangs ruled El Salvador and it often wasn’t safe to be outside.

It is also really cool to hear the testimonies from the people in the community that we are building in, because there seems to be a common factor in the testimonies. The common factor seems to be 1 or 2 parents waking up 5am or earlier to go to work. One mother got up at 4am to walk an hour to work. She worked two four hour shifts in the day, and returned home in between for lunch, and to spend time with her 2 year old son. In total, by the end of the day, she walks 4 hours to and from work, 6 days a week.  She also has an even bigger pressure of caring for and helping to provide for her mom and her oldest sister (1 of the other 11 siblings in her family)

Who has a mental disability and when her mom passes she has to take care of her oldest sister. To top it all of she hasn’t gone to school since grade 6 (she is 18)

All this really opens your eyes. One family we met had to keep moving because Maria’s (mom) brother had an accident and became mentally unstable. He started to follow Maria’s husband around, saying he was going to kill him. The brother got token away by the police for a crime committed before his accident; as far as the family knows, he was killed after 2 days in prison. But now the family who was forced to move to get away from the brother, has  finally got a house back on the same property with some others in their family. Maria’s oldest sister, Celia, who is mentally disabled, and their youngest sister, Gelen are all related and got 3 different homes on the same property witch is really cool!

Some things that come to mind are:

- on one property, the Sarnia team built 5 houses over 2 days. The property belongs to the grandma. 3 of her kids got houses and 2 of her grandkids got houses.

- our team (Scott’s team) has a master builder named Rapha (pronounced Rafa) who has a great appreciation for the younger teens building because they are the people going to come again. He also has been working for or with Shelter since 2010 (the year I was born). He views his work more as an act of Service to the communities in El Salvador he just loves what we call his “job”.

- In El Salvador so many people want houses that there have been scams, like you pay $60 for a house and are told “we will come and build it for you once we receive a deposit”, but then they just take the money and not build the houses. I just think it is sad that people take advantage of other peoples housing situations, because these families may not be in that situation because of something they did. Like in our Daily debrief, someone shared that a girl got kicked out of her step mom’s house after her dad had died. She was 13 at the time. Now she is 26 with 3 kids, and is getting a house for the first time since being shunned.

But none of this would have been possible without Shelter, an organization that finds people in a community most in need of a house and shares the word of Jesus with them and gets them a house fabricated by WGM, an organization that when Shelter couldn’t keep up to the increasing manufacturing of the houses (2022)

, took over manufacturing the houses and sending workers to build them alongside with us (that is what company Rapha works for, but building the houses on the job sites for Shelter)

Over all, l it has been a good experience and as I am sitting here tonight writing this, we have 3.5 days to go in El Salvador, 2 more houses to build and hundreds of more memories to form.

Thanks to all the people back in Canada and the U.S who are praying and who financially donated! We could not build 20 houses with out your help 

Thank you 

-James

Same, Yet Different

When we consider the fact that we are building 20 identical homes over 3 and a half days, there could be a concern of the work becoming monotonous and our days becoming mundane. 

And, if that was all we were doing here, all we came to do, it’s quite possible that this would be the case. But in fact, no build is like another. Even homes that are right next to eachother are different.

The ground is different. Some houses have rocky soil. Some have just hard packed dirt. Some holes that were dug this week contained small boulders.  Some holes filled with ground water despite neighbouring houses (literally, 5 on the same property) not having any water issues. Those on our team who have been here over 15 times have also never seen water in holes before.  Digging became heavy work. 

The work crew is different. Shelter arranges for a build team of construction workers to be assigned to each build. Each recipient family contributes to helping with the build. The members of each Sarnia team assigned to a home build remain the same, but even who completes which tasks change for each home. 

The tasks are different. Digging holes. Cutting metal. Pre-drilling holes, and screwing pieces together. Assembling the walls on the ground. Raising the walls and carrying them to the correct holes. Lifting roof trusses. Carrying wall sheeting. Climbing ladders. Digging more holes for the porch legs. Measuring to ensure the house is square. Adding roof pieces (ah, some shade!!!). Screwing together all the sheeting. Putting hinges on doors and windows. Adding the doors and windows. Adding trim pieces. Applying the house number.

The number is different.  Each family gets to stick a house number over the front door of their home.  This number represents the number of houses Shelter has built to date. Over 6,170 homes so far!

Each family interaction is different. Some house builds are on the same property and may belong to members of the same extended family, but no two stories are the same. No family connection time (interviews with us and the families to hear more of their personal story) is the same. Some families are large (9 people in one home), others are small (2). Some express their emotions with tears as they share their story. Others can’t stop smiling. One family even taught us some dance moves! 

How the house will impact each families is different. Some are looking forward to having a concrete floor. Others are looking forward to shelter from the rain, no more flooding in their home, a lock that provides security, a place to call their own, or not having to constantly move. One family, before their new house was built, was sleeping literally behind their mother’s house: on a mattress, in the open air with just one wall for protection.

It’s these interactions that make the each build unique, and cause us to get up in the morning, excited about each new day. Each new build. It’s the families that cause people to want to continue to return to El Salvador to build more homes through Shelter.

But despite all of these differences, God remains the same. He is the same yesterday, today and forever. He is the same, regardless of our differences of country, race, culture or language; family unit, build site, or construction crew. Regardless of our living situation, or housing structure. God’s free gift of grace and salvation remains the same, and is offered to all. 

““For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, Jesus, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Jesus. He who believes in Jesus is not judged; he who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.”

John 3:16-18

Nicole