Last night DJ shared his story and challenged the students to not live a boring life, do something great with it! DJ is the American director here at Door of Faith Orphanage and has been here for 25 years. He has a great perspective on life, faith, and ministry. It was great hearing from him.
Today the sun was out and it got hot! After breakfast and solitude time we headed back to Tijuana to the Canyon. Today students worked in different places than they did yesterday. We divided into the three teams of Martita’s house, serving lunch in the Comedor, and the immigrant hostel (church).
Martita shared her story. Seven years ago she was a drug addict living in the dump, looking for any medal she could find to trade for drugs. But someone built her a house and God changed her life. She got clean and now for seven years is serving her community and doing what she can to help others around her. She is an amazing woman!
We finished putting walls on Martita’s house and began constructing the roof. Andreas, a Mexican workers, will finish her house as it is more technical. A high priority of our projects is that we hire and have other Mexicans work along side us.
We served over 200 people hamburgers today at the comedor. Meat is something people don’t get very often in the canyon. If they have anything it is rice and beans. So hamburgers were a big hit today and our crew worked furiously to prepare and serve the food as well as clean up after they were done.
The other part of our team spent time playing with the children at the immigrant hostel at a local church. Sidewalk chalk, bubbles, and balloons were something most everyone played with. It was so hot today and in no time the balloons became water balloons. We all had fun tossing the water balloons around trying to catch them as well as throwing them at each other.
After our time at the canyon we drove to Friendship Park. Friendship park is one of the few places (possibly only place) along the southern border where you can walk right up to the border wall. On the Mexico side, they have turned the wall into an art piece. People have painted their feelings about the wall. Most of the paintings gives sense of hope, sadness, loss, and some anger. It is interesting as it seems as though Tijuana and Mexico has embraced the wall. On the other side, the U.S. side there is not a building for 5-10 miles. It is quite the contrast in perspective.
Tomorrow we will stay here in La Mision. We will divide into two teams. One will continue working on a house that we, Be2Live, has helped build from the ground up. The house is for a single mom and her son who attends and works at Open Arms Day Care. The other part of the team will go to Sal’s house. Sal is an older man and local pastor. He is slowly building his house on a hill side. His wife’s house burned down earlier this year and we hope to help him complete the house sometime this year.
Everyone is doing well, working hard, playing hard, and having fun.
Pictures are on Instagram and Facebook, plus a video is on the Be2Live YouTube channel.
Till tomorrow
