03.03.09 — A new home and homesickness

Jump to Comments

Every year, our Octane mission to Mexicali includes Vacation Bible School teams and a building team. The building team receives a family from DIF (the social services agency here) who desperately needs a new home, and they build the home in a week. The families for whom we have built homes are not Christians, but we continue to minister to them and take their children to a church for the VBS ministry.

When Amy and Mike visited Mexicali in mid-February, we were faced with a new opportunity: helping a family within the community of Christians. This is another change within the Mexico Outreach ministry – working more with recommendations from pastors and less with recommendations from DIF. Galatians 6:10 says, “Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers.”

Since Mike and Amy stayed with me at Yadira’s humble home, and because her church is one of our partners, her home naturally became a possible building project. Last Friday, Amy Carrier called from Michigan to inform Yadira that the building team would like to redo her home. Yadira took the call outside, during the ESL class, and we heard a loud “Aaah!” followed by laughter, cries of joy, and thanks to God. Yadira and Charly live in a humble home in a humble neighborhood. For the first ten years that they owned their property, they lived with their three children in one room. In the past three years they have been able to save up the money to add on a bedroom and kitchen. The addition didn’t happen overnight, though. Pastor Luna laid the brick walls over several weeks. He’s not in the best of health, so he worked slowly, and they paid him with meals each day. Yadira and Charly’s home needs many improvements. They do not have plumbing. There is one source of water in the front yard with which they fill buckets to bathe, pots to wash dishes, and connect a hose to fill the washing machine. The neighbors kindly let them rig a pipe from the washing machine to their sewer drain. They dump the rest of the water waste in the street. Don’t worry, it’s only bathing and dish-washing water – they have an outhouse. Having an outhouse and a poorly sealed house results in lots of cockroaches indoors. The roof is not finished and it leaks. There are large holes where the walls end and the roof starts. The walls are brick, but not plastered inside nor cemented outside. There are several holes where the mortar has deteriorated over time. The building team plans to add an addition on to the house, give them plumbing and a real bathroom with a toilet and shower, and redo their existing roof.

Yadira and Charly are so excited for the building team’s arrival. Every day Yadira tells me that she couldn’t sleep the night before. Upon recounting the telephone conversation with Amy to her family, she said through tears, “I never thought we would finish our home.” Immediately her mom and dad, also crying, hugged her and started praising God for His goodness and blessing on her family. This is a hardworking Christian family that simply could not accomplish in several years what the building team is able to do through fundraising for 3 months and building in 7 days.

In contrast to the excitement of a new home, I am suffering from homesickness. I want to share about this because in this blog I emphasize the bright side of things. Yes, I am inspired, motivated, and enlightened every day in Mexicali, but it does not come without a price. I miss the opportunity to go out and do something alone. Something as simple as putting gas in my car, browsing the aisles of the movie section of the library, or walking to the closest grocery store to buy a pint of Ben and Jerry’s ice cream. I miss being able to plan a day for myself, which might include spending time with my friends, then studying, then watching Project Runway. I miss Aunt Marcy’s big purple couch, and the conversations we have on that couch. The Luna family is so loving and caring, but I miss frequent visits with my family and Gracie and seeing her grow. More than anything, I miss Jon.

I am not sad. I am happy here in Mexicali, and continue to dedicate myself to the ESL ministry and preparing for the Octane mission team’s arrival. The threat of homesickness is that it will turn my focus away from of all that God wants to use me for in Mexicali, and instead place it on the calendar and a countdown to my return to Michigan. Sure, God can continue His work without me, but I want to obey and be joyful in the process. “But you, keep your head in all situations, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, discharge all the duties of your ministry.” 2 Timothy 4:5.

5 Comments

Filed under Uncategorized