Building a Home, Not a House

Greetings blog readers, family and friends! Taylor & Lief here. It’s Friday, and we are en route to Sigua and then the coast for debrief! Writing on a laptop on twisting, descending Honduran mountain roads isn’t easy, so bear with us.

Sam did a wonderful job recapping our past few days, so we'll concentrate just on Thursday, our last day in Tegucigalpa, and an extremely significant one. We woke up Thursday morning at 6 am, ate breakfastat 6:30, and were on the road to the barrio of Buen Samaritano before 7:30. At the work site, we started on the massive piles of dirt in front of the house that we had built, while others started the finishing touches on the house, building the doors and windows. The dirt crews started an assembly line to get rid of all the larger rocks in front of the house, and then switched to filling 5 gallon buckets with dirt/rock and passing them down the line. It was strenuous work, to say the least, but I (Taylor) think that everyone was driven by the knowledge that this was our last day and a desire to have everything ready for the family that was going to live in this house. Because of this, from the beginning of the day, our team was so united & joyful, many singing songs & laughing throughout the morning. We even had a number of kids from the neighborhood (those not attending AFE or other schools) join us in the work.

We headed back to AFE for lunch and a presentation from the students at AFE who gave handwritten letters, sang songs, prayed for us, and, as Sam mentioned, more than filled our daily quota of hugs. I can think of few better ways to energize someone than to have over 100 students sing and pray for them. The highlights included: the preschool class presenting cards for our entire team and a card from Joan (Yo-ahn), the two year old boy who, along with his mother and younger brother, will be moving into the home we're building. Also, HS students had personal messages of thanksgiving and prayer for us. Finally, after each team member had a chance to pray over groups of 4-5 students each, we gathered in a circle surrounded by the entire AFE students & staff as one fifth grade girl prayed for our entire team (she prayed a few words, everyone repeated them, then it was translated for us). So cool to see their response & example to us!

After many emotional and heartfelt goodbyes to little ones, teens, and adults at AFE, we returned to the worksite reinvigorated to finish our work on the house. We had been planning on having the dedication ceremony at 3:00 pm, which turned into more like 4:30, as the mother who would be moving into this house was still putting in a full day’s work at the trash dump. I (Lief) remember sitting outside the back door of the home as Olan was finishing up sweeping inside. All I could think of was that the finished structure in front of me was presently "just an empty house."

When Guillermina arrived with her son Joan, there was an immediate sense that something special was happening. Guillermina Escobar Carranza is 21 years old, and has two sons, Joan, age 2, and Jonathan, age 1. Guillermina has been working in the trash dump for around two years, averaging approximately $15 a week, the exact cost of the rent she needed to pay to live in a cardboard & tin shack one fifth the size of the house we had built. Jessie had actually seen her at the trash dump when we visited on Saturday, and was struck by the change that she saw in her at the dedication. At the start of the dedication, Guillermina seemed nervous, almost afraid. It quickly became apparent that she was not afraid; she was overwhelmed, as were we all. As she began to share her testimony, she began to weep, and she was not alone in that. She shared how thankful she was for a place to call home, and how now "nobody will throw her out on the streets like they used to." She continued in tears and holding her son tightly... "thank you so much for doing this for us." I (Lief) later recalled how little we actually had "done" in the grand scheme of things. Apart from rounding up some support from a very generous group of people and setting aside some time in our summer, we didn't do much but show up - God, however, IS clearly doing a great work in and through many people to impact many lives and individual stories (just like Guillermina, Joan, & Jonathan's).

6 or 7 team members were invited to speak blessings over her and her house, and we presented her with a Bible that had been signed by every member of the team.The entire team then laid hands on her, and we prayed over her and her family together. After each and every one of us gave her a hug, we stepped outside to allow her some time alone with her family & a chance for us to hear the testimony of Antonio, one of the men who had worked with us.

Something amazing happened in the time between the time when we walked out of the house and the end of Antonio’s testimony. The "empty house" that we had built out of wood, concrete and tin was not just a structure - it was a home.. a second chance, a sign of hope, and an indelible memory. As Charles said after our visit to the dump: this is not the end. After hearing the entire team respond last night, it was clear that we all had a similar experience: we SAW & experienced that hope in a real way this week. We saw hope in the midst of hopelessness, we saw grace in the midst of injustice, and experienced a glimpse of the restoration work our great God is doing in the lives and hearts of His children all over the world- we experienced a glimpse of heaven in the midst of a very broken world.

We have been called to continue Christ’s kingdom work wherever we are, and I (Taylor) know I speak for the rest of the team that we all hope to be called to Honduras again. LuisVega, one of our Honduran hosts (whom we endearingly refer to as El Jefe) likes to joke that Sam left a piece of her heart in Honduras and that he is hiding it so that she has to come back. This place has taken hold of all of our hearts, and I don’t think we want it to let go.