Local church group builds a home for family in Mexico

TIJUANA, Mexico — A group from Newton recently went to Tijuana, but not for the usual reason. Some 17 people from First Baptist Church of Newton went south of the border to build a house for a Mexican family. The Rev. Aaron Loree and son Dylan, Jack and Charlotte Maples, Rick Coffelt and daughter Amanda, Dennis Evans, Linda Martin, Craig and Julie Murphy, Kathy Peterson, Jerry and Nan Schmidt, Shirley Schuring, Nancy Smiley, Linda Templeton and Steve Van Ryswyk built the house in conjunction with Puente de Amistad, which is Spanish for Bridge of Friendship. Mike Brandt, who along with wife Cathy, daughter Mikayla and son Aaron took over the program last November, noted Puente de Amistad is under the direction of Des Moines-based Open Bible Churches. The Newton group built Puente de Amistad’s eighth house this summer. Mike Brandt said groups building the homes and the Mexican families receiving the homes get equal pleasure. “The people who do the volunteering get the pleasure of serving,” Brandt said. “The recipients get the physical blessing they can enjoy for years to come.” When a family at a local church needs a house, the pastor from that church meets with Puente de Amistad staff — which also includes Lawrence and Bertha Kelley — and Marcial Morales, the association’s only fulltime employee, and prays about the situation. “We match a group coming with the family,” Brandt said. “The number of homes built is dependent upon the number of groups coming in a summer.” In this particular case, The Rev. Jorge Gonzalez of the Dios Le Bendiga Church helped his parishoners Adan and Refugio Larios, along with teenage daughter Guadalupe, have a house built in La Quinta de Altiplano, on the Eastern fringes of Tijuana.

The Newton group flew to Tijuana from Omaha July 29, and toured the building site that day with Puente de Amistad staff and Alex Peterson from Burlington. Construction started the next day, utilizing a foundation that had been laid by Morales, whose sons Osires and Fernando helped out. Framework for the first level was completed on the first day, along with much of the siding and some painting. Power, while primitive by American standards, was sufficient thanks to the generosity of a neighbor who let the group tap into his electricity, and due to a generator. The power was used for various saws and later a nail gun. All wood had to be measured and cut on site. The framework for the second level was mostly done on the second day, July 31. By the end of the third day the framework for the roof was mostly completed, the siding was done and windows were installed. Work was completed on the fourth day, Aug. 2. In the afternoon, half of the group finished the work on the house while the other half shopped for furnishings including a futon, a bookcase, a small refrigerator and a table with chairs.

For many in the group, the highlight of the trip came on Sunday. After a church service at Dios Le Bendiga, the house was dedicated to an emotional Larios family. “It was pretty emotional to think about giving someone a new home and a new life,” the Rev. Loree said. “The group came together so effectively to give a family a new home. That couple had worked so hard. It was a great opportunity for us to serve them by building a home for them. It was a very emotional time for everyone there. “That was probably the highlight of the trip,” Loree added. “Just to see the joy, to give something to someone in part of the world that doesn’t have a whole lot, that meant a lot.” Jack Maples noted the dedication was just one of the emotional parts of the trip. “That was moving,” he said. “The family’s response of overwhelming appreciation was moving.” Loree appreciated how the team of volunteers worked together. “What was amazing about our group was none of us were professional builders or contractors,” the pastor said. “We used our areas of strengths to come together. It’s not that we couldn’t do something, we just never had done something like build a house. It was a 17-person team. Every person on the team had a skill and a place to come and use their gifts. There’s not one person that wasn’t effective in making this happen.”

The daily trips to the building site proved to be eye-opening for the Newton group, and highlighted social and economic differences between Tijuana and Iowa, to say nothing of the language differences. Many of the buildings along the way were small, and the number of both older vehicles in various conditions and wandering dogs with diseases also stood out. The area around the Larios home was accessed via extremely rough, bumpy roads with steep hills. Other parts of the trip highlighted the situation in Tijuana as well. The Newton group visited Casa Oracion on July 31, a church ministry in an extremely poor area that feeds 40 children a day. On Aug. 4, the group visited an orphanage. Maples said it was hard to say which part of the trip was the most emotional. “We went to the town where the drug addicts were living and children were living,” he said. “Or when we went to the orphanage, just the way the kids were clinging onto me. They were starving for attention, and wouldn’t let go.” Loree wouldn’t mind seeing a group from First Baptist Church go to Tijuana again. “It’s fair to say because of what we did and what we saw, it was enough to give every person enough of a taste that they liked it and want to do it again,” he said. “There’s a place for everybody, regardless of age.” Going on the trip marked a memorable 48th anniversary for the Maples. “We probably won’t do our anniversary that way again,” Jack Maples chuckled. “We’ve done a lot of special things for our anniversary before. This was a big deal in a different way. This was impacting someone’s lives. And it wound up impacting our lives.”

Craig Murphy can be contacted at at 792-3121 ext. 432 or via e-mail at cmurphy@newtondailynews.com.