Day Four

We woke this morning to another beautiful day at the posada ....
sharing a meal of french toast and potatoes with the two other groups we are here with this week.
the Cline family and members of Trinity Lutheran are fast becoming good friends.
Off to the work site where today we poured the second cement floor (bucket by bucket by bucket!!!) and moved over 200 cement blocks which tomorrow will become the walls of the new home we are helping to build.
As we created lines to move buckets and blocks we were joined by the women, men and children in the community. The children were filled with joy today and a little bit of mischevious as buckets passed they quietly collected small amounts of cement to flip or squish in their hands to put hand prints on our shirts.
We have a few bruises, scapes and sore muscles...but are filled with pride at a job well done. We are a great team!!!
We shared another delicious lunch prepared by the women in the community and played games with the small boys....much laughter and giggling by all. No language needed.
Following lunch we took a walk to visit Catalina's (one of our beautiful new friends from the community who has been helped by Esperanza's generosity) casa. She was welcoming and gracious as she showed us around her home and patio garden filled with beautiful flowers. She is proud of her home and grateful for Esperanza. She tells us she will never stop working to help others in her community. As we left she told us we would always be welcome in her home and invited us to return again some day for a party. There were hugs and a few tears....

In the evening, we went to a place called Casa del Migrante, which is a house for migrants to stay when they are deported from the United States. We spent the evening sharing a meal with the men at the house and listening to their powerful, heartbreaking stories. Most of the men that we talked to had families in the United States. One man we talked to had lived in the States for over 30 years and had 5 kids. He spent two months in a jail in California after a minor traffic violation and has been in Mexico for the past week and a half. Another man we talked to was 27 and was brought to the US as a small child. He's a single dad and has a 5 year old daughter who is now living with her grandmother while her dad waits to try to get back home. When we first got there, it was kind of awkward because we were sitting at these picnic style tables with benches on both sides. We were sitting across from the migrants and it would have seemed rude not to engage in conversation. Some of us were a little nervous because we didn't know these men and we don't all speak Spanish. What we found when we sat down was that the conversation flowed naturally and the men shared powerful stories with us. There is a special table for those who wanted to talk and share stories, so no migrant was forced to talk with us. It was a powerful experience for us to listen to these men. The migrant house is run by Catholics and Brother William from Colombia gave us an orientation and talked to us about the house. Our conversation about immigration was political and thought-provoking. When we reflected on our experience this evening , there were tears and intense emotions for the injustice that is breaking families apart.

The evening ended with each of us writing in our journals. The week has flown by and tomorrow is our last work day. We have made good friends and though we are looking forward to our return home, we will be sad to leave this place. We really feel like we have made a difference and we have seen our actions change things for people.

Love you all!
Sharry, Angela, Cynthia, and Joe