A Caravan of White Vans

There's not much that I would fully take control over, especially in unfamiliar surroundings but I felt the need to grab the keys and say, "Sure I'll drive." I'll drive the whole entire week in San Diego and Mexico. That's what I did. Looking back on the driving experience I am glad that I took the wheel. I never had so much fun hitting bumps on the dirt roads of Mexico. For all my compatriots who sat in the back and side seat drove, well they had a few sore noggins at the end of the week. Besides being a crazy driver on the anything goes roads of Mexico I was a leader of sorts in driving out to the work site. In fact My van was the first one into Mexico on the first day there. Traveling steep hills and cragged roads for five days, we would head out to work on a small house.


The family that we built the house for was very much a nuclear family. I don't know how many people were living on the small plot of land but there was very little space and a definite need for a house. I felt kind of bad building a new house on a piece of land that had barely any space to begin with, but I think that's my super long body talking. With many moments of measuring, leveling, hammering, measuring and measuring again, a house slowly formed on a hillside in Mexico. From where we built the house you could look out over a vast valley and massive hills and see all but desert. On occasion there would be a plume of brown in the distance covering the landscape. Fortunately we did not receive any dust storms.

What we did receive from the grandmother of the residents (Yolanda) were some amazing tacos, breakfast one day and on the last workday a surprising dish. The surprise was the fact that many of the group ate something that looked like eggs. I don't eat eggs cause they make me sick. What I would find out later is that what we thought were eggs was actually pig brains. I had a chance to eat pig brains and I missed out. But there was really good rice and fried beans so all was not lost.

Besides all the food that we ate there was a house that was built. Sure we sweated and a group from Holden Massachusetts helped us with cement and stucco, but we built a house. But the house was not so we could feel good. The house was not so we could be thanked. The house was just a symbol of what God does for us in our lives. Here in New Jersey we've got houses that make certain houses feel bad. In fact my bedroom was the same size as the house we built in Mexico. Yeah, I've got it good and unfortunately don't realize it most of the time.

The last day of building we give the keys to the owner, give them our thanks for their hospitality and say a prayer and tell them that Christ is the one that built this house. Yolanda said she would paint the house yellow since she knew we were Team Amarillo. We got into the van and that was it. Four days sweating, waking up early, drinking tons of water and trying to scrape by on limited spanish and it was all over in a minute. Maybe there's a biblical parallel somewhere in there. We drove out and completed a work that started sometime in January of this year. The physical labor may last for four days but the spiritual work takes much longer.


I don't know if I'm right in saying this but maybe right now or in a few hours a group of people in white vans will be driving in Mexico somewhere. Maybe they're coming back from a long day of work or maybe they're going out to work. Maybe they're work is done or possibly just beginning. I do know that when people saw the caravan of white vans they saw hope and love.