Some of our favorite things

It's really hard to wrap a trip like this up in just a few words.  What we saw, experienced and did in Mexico is something that will stay with us for a long time. As we were driving through Texas, I asked each person on the trip two questions:
1) What was your favorite part of the trip overall?
2) What was your favorite project that you worked on this week?

While some of the answers were similar (a lot of people like chicken wire and framing!), a lot of us came at our answers from different angles. It's amazing how God can take the same trip and teach everyone of us something different than the others.  Without further commentary from me, here are the answers that people gave so that you can see in their words what they're taking with them from this trip:

Team Tech

Megan: Favorite part – Having Carly come on the trip (a friend from high school).
Favorite project – Working on the roofing with Carly and Kira

Hailey: Favorite part - The dedication.  It was really cool to see everything come together, and just being able to give to them and show God’s love.  It was really cool!
Favorite project: Blackboard

Jacob: Favorite part - The dedication.  We got to see who were doing it for and see their appreciation. we were the hands and feet to do it for them.
Favorite project: Drywall was a clear task: just put it up on the walls!  And it’s the finishing touch on the house.

Christine: Favorite part – Building in general. I enjoyed learning the process. 

Favorite project - I liked nailing the walls together.

Robbie: Favorite part -  Liked playing with the kids all week (from our site and from Casas families).  Favorite project - Hammering everything together.

Scott: Favorite part - Hanging out with Casas staff. Seth’s screw gun was pretty sweet.  Working with Miguel was pretty awesome, wish we could have talked more (language barriers). The soffit was good.

Favorite project - Enjoyed the soffit and the drywall.

Brandon: Favorite part – Watching everyone get to know each other in the vans. 

Favorite project - Boxing all of the supplies and crates together at Casas and working as a team to get everything done.

Kira: Favorite part - Meeting people and working as a team.  Nice to work with people in way you don’t normally get to. 

Favorite project - Sawing all of the wood. Rachel and I had it down and watching the walls go up, it was a feeling of accomplishment. 

Zach: Favorite part - I loved the dedication and getting to see the family and how appreciative of the house they were.  

Favorite project - Framing the house because you get to hammer a lot!

Philip: Favorite part - I enjoyed working with Miguel this most.  It didn’t matter that I could not understand what he was saying, but what made it special was that he was so happy helping us and sharing his experiences.  When his stories were translated, I could see how happy he was and the love he had. 

Adam: Favorite part - I really enjoyed working with Miguel. He told us he is a professional stuccoer and it was cool to see how excited he was when we started with the stucco and how excited he was to try to teach us what he knew.  We didn’t quite understand him, but it was a really cool example of leading by example and crossing language barriers.  

Favorite project - I also really liked working with the concrete slab since I’m a civil engineer.

Erin: Favorite part - This trip has been an incredible experience for a multitude of reasons.  I loved the labor aspect, learning new skills and getting to know the family.  However, I think that my favorite thing was the love and fellowship from the group.  It is something that will stick with me.  Without knowing me, both Tech and Ferris became like pseudo-families to me and for that, I’m extremely grateful.

Kayla: Favorite part - I loved the chance we got to pray together with the family – all of us at once in English while they were praying in Spanish. 

Favorite project - I cut one and only one piece of drywall and I was so proud that it fit!

Rachel: Favorite part - Hanging out with the little kids.  Their Spanish was fast and quiet and when you ask “what?” they don’t understand that they have to speak slower or louder.  But candy is an international thing! (She took a few of the girls on their site to the store and bought them some candy on one of the building days.  Instant friends!)

Favorite project - Teamwork projects like the chicken wire and crates.  

Ferris Team 1

Jon: Favorite part -  The dedication ceremony. 

Favorite project - The stucco.  It’s one of the few jobs everyone works together on.  Cool to see everybody working together.

Kelly: Favorite part - Getting to know everybody better, getting to see everyone’s talents and talking with them. 

Favorite project - Liked doing the blackboard because it looks like a real house when you get it up.

Mike: Favorite part - Going to the worksite everyday and working with our team every day.  Favorite project - Roofing on the second day.

Derek: Favorite part -  Definitely getting sick.  Just kidding.  Everyone I got to meet and spending time with all of the students and staff.  Meeting Jose and seeing how what we were doing will affect him and his neighborhood.

Favorite project - Working on drywall. It was the last thing to finish on the house so it was nice to see the house finished.

Michelle: Favorite, favorite part was praying over the house during the dedication because it was amazing to hear everyone praying for Jose, his ministry, the city and the constructed house of prayer.  Favorite project - Stuccoing! Because it’s fun and that’s when it starts to look like a house.

Evan: Favorite part - I enjoyed the hard work we spent each day building our house. I loved seeing how happy Jose was as he saw his new house coming together.  

Favorite project - Pouring concrete for the foundation and I also liked getting to know the groups and finding ways to make people smile.

Brittani: Favorite part - Liked the dedication. Jose will be using it as a house of prayer and we got to break it in by praying over the house.  His testimony was really cool too.  

Favorite project - Chicken wire.

Jordan: Favorite part - Watching the house go together on Tuesday and having Jose help them with the walls because he was so excited.  

Favorite project - Working on the chicken wire.

Melanie: Favorite part/project - Standing the walls up and realizing that the whole group needed to help with it. It couldn't be just one person. 

Sondra: Favorite part/project -  Putting up the house since all of us had something to do.  None of us could let go, or the house would fall in.  Enjoyed connecting with them.  Makes me want to rearrange some of my values and puts things into perspective. 

Ferris Team 2

Cameron: Favorite part - I enjoyed seeing the progress of our build.  

Favorite project - Framing the walls and putting them up.  Reaching a goal after hard manual labor is rewarding, especially when serving God and serving others.

Justin: Favorite part - Aside from catching up with the family I have in Texas, I would say my favorite part of the trip was speaking to the family in Spanish at the dedication.

Chris: Favorite part - Having Fernando waiting for us to arrive each day.  Seeing the joy on the family’s face and being able to give them a real house of their own where they could be safe and sound.  It’s amazing to have the chance to be God’s hands and feet in Mexico.

Mike P.: Favorite part - Seeing Fernando and Elesao (the two kids at our worksite) work alongside us and seeing their smiling faces while they did it. 

Favorite project - Liked framing or drywall.

Cassie: Favorite part - Cutberto’s smile as we were building. 

Favorite project - Sponging the stucco – makes it look finished.

Emma: Favorite part - Going through Elesao’s house.  It was built by Casas for them 11 years ago and they told us about how it was the perfect temperature all throughout the year and it was cool to see what they did with it.  

Favorite project - I liked painting the window trim with Brittany and Nadia, the two granddaughters.

Devon: Favorite part - Watching the family’s expressions as we built the house and how happy they were. 

Favorite project - Liked doing the chicken wire.

Danielle: Favorite part - Watching everything take shape on Tuesday and seeing the house come together.  

Favorite project - Working on the roof. 

Stacie:  Favorite part - Putting the walls up and watching all of us work on the project. 

Favorite project - Working on the roof with the sheeting – we had a lot of fun.

Chelsea: Favorite part - Watching how excited the neighbors and community was too.  Fernando would meet us on his bike and be waiting for us.  The neighbors joined the dedication ceremony and came to help. 

Favorite project - The soffit

Joe: Favorite part - Watching how everyone coming together as a team, no bad attitudes or anything but everyone was trying to encourage each other.  

Favorite project - I enjoyed doing the drywall and working with the other guys (best drywall day in 9 years of going on the Mexico trip!).  The framing is cool, but you don’t get to see it.  The drywall is the first thing that the family sees when they walk into the house at the dedication.

Kate: Favorite part - Loved working with the team that we had.  No one had a bad attitude or complained at all.  This whole trip has been like that and it feels like people’s attitudes are to serve each other, not seek out anything for themselves.  

Favorite project - Working on the blog and seeing how many people are excited to see what we’re doing in Juarez every year.  Favorite building project was doing the chicken wire and watching how excited our team was to finish it off.  Even though it meant coming back to the SHOC later than everyone else, we still worked hard and got the last three strips up and it was one of the nicest, tightest chicken wire jobs I’ve done in 5 years.

We're all home now and back into the routine of classes, exams and our own busy lives, but our hope and prayer is that we don't forget what we learned in Mexico.  That we don't allow the craziness of this life to take away the simple joy we felt at the end of each day knowing that we had done well in serving that day.  That should be our goal every day - whether in Mexico building homes or in Houghton or Big Rapids going to class. 

Thank you for all of your prayers, support and love for all of us throughout this trip.  We couldn't have done it without you! 

If you want to see more photos from the trip (between all of the cameras, I have well over 1,200 pictures of the trip on my laptop right now!), you can check out the Ferris His House page on Facebook and look at the Build Your Kingdom Here album.  

We'll be back next year as we travel to Juarez again - a poverty-stricken city that is still beautiful to us and has not been forgotten. 

Painball....I mean, Paintball Photos

We even made it onto the sign!

Sondra, Rachel and Erin getting ready to play

Rachel is ready to play

Baleigh looks intimidating

Danielle and Brittani

Orange team strategizing 

Joe and Kate

Playing in the castle

The many faces of Mexico Mitch

Laughing over the missed shots

Philip, Mike and Jon planning their attack

Scott and Adam

Cameron

Danielle and Rachel

Kate, Jon and Evan

Brittani

Devon and Danielle

Justin, Brandon and Jon

Sabotaged the enemy player

Brittani, Melanie and Danielle

Brittani and Danielle

Orange Team - Philip, Evan, Scott, Justin, Mike, Jon, Jordan, Kelly, Kayla, Cassie, Devon, Sanjay, Mike and Chris

Strapless Team - Christine, Megan, Cameron, Erin, Hailey, Rachel, Jacob, Sondra, Brittani, Danielle, Melanie, Robbie, Kira, Adam, Joe, Kate and Brandon

Only 518 miles to go...

We’re almost home. Of course, almost is a subjective term, but when you start a trip home with 1,715 miles to go, 518 doesn’t seem like that far. We just drove past the St. Louis arch (much more impressive than the Golden Arches of McDonalds we've been seeing for the whole trip) and are enjoying a gorgeous sunset.

We’re running a little farther behind than normal for this day of the trip, but we stopped for a few hours of painball (aka paintball) in Joplin, MO.  The place there was really cool to us and opened early just for our group to come through. They had some really good castles, forts and bunkers to use and almost all of us played.  Those who didn’t cheered everyone on and then went inside to nap on the picnic tables when they discovered that it wasn’t going to be a short war.  It takes a few hours to go through 17,000 paintballs and we have some impressive welts to show for our efforts!  I hadn’t ever been paintballing before and I can honestly say that it is a lot of fun.  Not necessarily something I’m going to want to do every weekend or anything like that, but it would be something to do again. The van ride to lunch was filled with glory stories from our paintball war and we probably looked even more homeless then we did after working all week.

We got to Chick-Fil-A for lunch which was packed with local families, but they still managed to get most of us through the line and out the door in 30 mins.  A few students crossed the street to go to Arbys, and as they crossed, we’re guessing they distracted a driver who rear-ended the person in front of them.  That’s how you know we look rough – the gawkers cause accidents!  After we finally rounded everyone back up into the vans, we headed east towards home.  We made great time the last stretch – no bathroom breaks for about 4.5 hours because 33 of the 39 people on the trip fell asleep within the first 20 minutes into the drive. Some brave co-pilots stayed awake to help the drivers navigate through Misery (sorry, Missouri) where at least the landscape changes every few miles!

We’re headed for Steak’n’Shake for dinner (it’s about 3 hours away from here) and then back on the road to just keep driving.  The GPS is saying drive time is around 8.5 hours, so when we figure in dinner and at least one more bathroom stop, plus dropping of Tech and State, I’m guessing we’ll get back to Big Rapids around 5a.  Later than last year, but with 24 hours of Spring Break left for all of us to sleep before Monday morning rolls around.

I have a lot more photos to share with you, but the tablet and camera card are declaring mutiny. Similar to the students who managed to highjack the radio and play auto-toned Muppet remixes of One Direction songs, followed by country songs that "Kate, you'll like this!" during my last driving shift. My brother knows I don't like country, but he took advantage of his co-pilot position to highjack the auxiliary cable.

We'll get photos up soon of the trip, and I'll share the Facebook link on here as well to see all of the photos we'll post there as well. In case you missed it, Ferris Team 1 was interviewed by a news crew while they were building! We found the news broadcast in case you'd like to see it: http://www.kvue.com/story/news/state/2015/03/11/students-spending-spring-break-volunteering-in-mexico/70191630/

Thank you for your prayers for us as we travel! We appreciate you greatly!

This is the state that never ends...

...yes, it goes on and on, my friends!

We’re driving through Texas right now (the state that never ends) and counting the oil pumps is quickly putting everyone to sleep.  The last few days of moving fast and hard all day is starting to catch up with a lot of us and people are glad for the chance to take a nap. 

You should be proud of our students.  They worked so hard yesterday!  At Casas, they packed all of the crates for the builds in Acuna and Juarez for the upcoming year, dug out a rock bed, washed all of the rocks and then put them all back, painted trim and moved giant piles of dirt.  They worked really hard and were a huge blessing to the Casas staff.  They went through the gift store after they finished everything and since Casas is beginning a rebranding process, I’m pretty sure we bought them out of hats and most of the sale T-shirts that they had.  Everyone was thrilled to wear a clean shirt and now we all look like a cult or something.

I got interrupted as I was working on this.  We’re now leaving Midland, TX where we stopped at CiCi’s Pizza for dinner (Brittani – great job at convincing Mitch to stop for pizza for dinner!  It was great!) and a quick driver switch.  Justin, Baleigh and Megan are going to take the next shift and we’re going to try and go for a long way and get out of Texas. We’re only 419 miles from Oklahoma City! 

We just got stopped by a family and a woman asked “What are ya’ll?”  Her son, maybe 4 or 5 years old, assumed that we were a band.  Thankfully, Adam has his ukulele on him in the van and he’s playing a song for him.  We’ve also been asked if we’re a track team (we took that one as a compliment! It made us feel in shape even after all of the gas station stops!) and someone else at Golden Corral last night automatically knew we were on spring break and asked what we had been up too.  Thankfully, he didn’t ask if we were homeless like we all assumed they would (we were looking a little scruffy).

Sorry for those sidetrack interruptions.  That’s just a quick example of how we’ve been operating this week – lots of random side comments and distractions.  It amazes me sometimes that we got all the houses up.

Quick recap of last night:  after we left Casas, we went to the church we had arranged to stay in last night and discovered that the group that had the keys was out sight-seeing and we were locked out.  So, we all took the Casas staff out to dinner at Golden Corral looking like homeless, scruffy bums (which is why we were assuming we’d get those comments.  Mitch instructed all of us to reply back that yes, we were homeless and if people offered a place to stay, we were to ask if there was room for us and a few friends.  We all got a good laugh out of it!).  Thankfully, the other group made it back to the church around 10 and we got there in time to shower and relax for awhile. 

The morning started earlier than most of us were hoping/anticipating.  Megan and Carly left for the airport at o’dark thirty and then Megan discovered that El Paso has poorly marked roads as she was doing circles on Fred Wilson Ave trying to get back to the church.  Meanwhile, Derek wound up with a bad case of we’re assuming food poisoning and really didn’t get any sleep after 3:30a.  The other group staying at the church woke up early to make it to their flights home and they tried to be quiet, but it’s hard to get 15+ people out the door quietly when you’re all staying in the same general vicinity. That woke a lot of us up and we all just kinda dozed for a couple hours until we started getting up.  The intent had been to sleep in until 8, but I don’t think many people slept in that late.  A crew left with the vans to try and vacuum all of the Mexico dirt out of them while the rest of us packed, cleaned the church and gave Derek a chance to try and rest a little more. 

We did an extra service project at Casas today – some of the crate supplies that were missing yesterday were delivered this morning and we packed those for them. (Mitch had also left his laptop there and we needed to go back to get it.  We all decided that it was an evil plot between Mitch and Jason to get more work out of all of us). Then we grabbed lunch at Chick-Fil-A with Seth and Tracey (with their 3 week old daughter, Scarlett) and Jason, Amy and their three boys, Jones, Cash and Titus.

I’m continually amazed at the level of maturity the students are showing this year.  Usually by now, people are ready to hurt each other because the personal space is gone, the van ride is long and no matter how hard you try, the work boots still smell like feet that have been crammed in there for 4 days working on a work site.  But, they’re all doing amazingly well.  No one is complaining, Michigan Tech is doing an amazing job of making Ferris students switch vans and it’s been a drama free trip.  So nice!

Time for one more random comment (I’m riding in a van with Mitch, Scott and Joe, all of whom drove the last 6 hours and are living off of caffeine at the moment).  The students are complaining about not being woken up by Mitch yelling at them to get their stinky, sorry carcasses out of bed every morning in Mexico.  But, they kept asking us for a time that we would get them up on the trip and then they would set their alarms for 5-10mins early to get up and be ready before Mitch could wake them up.  The campus ministers in the back are now scheming themed wakeup calls for each morning (pirate, star wars, etc).  They’re highly entertained. And Mitch has spent the last 20 minutes perfecting the cravass area in the van (the long space between the door and the benches) for him to sleep, but is so excited about how he got it all set up, that he’s guessing he might be too excited to sleep in the space he created to sleep.  Meanwhile, Mike, Chris, Cameron, Evan and Brandon are sharing music, Scott is streaming a basketball game on his phone and everyone else in the van is starting to doze off. Only 1,388 miles to go to Big Rapids.

Sometime within the next 12 hours, we should be reaching Tulsa, OK, where we’ll pick up Sanjay and then in Joplin, MO we’re going to take a break and play paintball for awhile!  Derek found this place that has around 100 acres of paintball courses and one of the largest paintball castles around.  We’re excited about the idea! It should be a lot of fun. 

Wow, that was a lot longer than I thought this post was going to be!  If you made it all the way through, I hope you enjoyed hearing about some of the randomness that makes up the Mexico trip.

Overheard in Mexico

Hopefully by now, you've been able to see some of the photos from each team's build site and admire the hard work that they put into each area of the house.  We're really proud of them and all the work that they did!  They have yet to complain about anything, are moving incredibly fast and overall have made this an incredible missions trip.  Now that you've seen some of the photos, here's some more of the details and adventures that we had along the way!

Justin, the FSU intern and a former Casas intern, was called upon many times to come and help his team with projects at the site.  Emma and I started calling him "Bubble Master" after he came and fixed our chicken wire bubbles. 

 On Tuesday, in the kitchen, I was making chicken pot pie for dinner.  The crockpots left on low all day had turned it into chicken soup and I had to do some fast kitchen chemistry to thicken it up.  As I was working on that, I forgot about the cans of biscuits that I had been opening and it exploded!  Biscuits hit the wall, the sink and the floor and scared Kayla and Zach, my kitchen helpers.  They had been busy creating a double boiler out of two skillets and a steamer to melt white chocolate for dessert!  Having Michigan Tech along to help with some of those kitchen challenges always proves to be a success!

 Cassie and Emma have declared that this wasn't a "real" Mexico trip.  Mitch borrowed cots from Casas for all 39 of us (a Mexico trip first!) and most people were showering every night (also not usual!)  A few of us held out and didn't shower until Wednesday, just so that it would feel more like a real Mexico trip, but Mike P. declared that he was fine with a fake trip and was perfectly content to shower earlier. 

Juarez has speed bumps along the main roads to encourage people to stick to the speed limits. Usually they are marked, but Ferris Team 2 found one the hard way when Jared, our build leader, missed one and hit it hard with his truck.  We had just enough time to slow down a little and not hurt the van too much, but all of us were glad that it was on the way OUT to the worksite and not on the way BACK with full bladders. 

Justin and Cassie, who are now "real friends" since they worked on the house together, have taken to teasing each other like a brother and sister would.  After one exchange, Justin told Cassie, “I can’t believe you think that low of me!” Cassie replied, “Well, I do think you’re short.”
    
On the way to the Casas compound to meet our Casas representatives on Monday, Mitch missed a left hand turn and we wound up going through the security checkpoint at Fort Bliss, the army base here in El Paso.  The guard found it highly amusing to have 3 fullsize vans come through the checkpoint and the students enjoyed Mitch's running commentary to himself and random comments over the radio as we traveled.          

Megan started bringing a hammock to sleep in on the trip a couple of years ago.  Last year, Jon followed suit and brought one and this year, we had a rainforest of Michigan Tech hammocks. They all swung back and forth in the breeze of the guys snoring and seemed to be a popular hangout spot for everyone.  Watching Jon crawl into his mummy bag and then get into his hammock was the nightly entertainment!

After a few hours of hearing people call for Mitch with questions as we set up the SHOC and running words together in the process, Scott and I decided that Mitch’s new name is “HeyMitch."  

Reminiscing about former alumni and Mexico trips gave Jason, Seth, Mitch, Jon, Baleigh, Kate, Jared, Joe and Scott a great chance to laugh on Monday night while the students were playing games. It was really fun to hear all of the crazy stories of students who have come on the trip and made a lasting impact on the staff here at Casas (in good and funny ways).

The students are done with their tasks here at Casas and they did an amazing job.  They didn't even complain about washing the rocks (it's like lawnmowing in MI - just an accepted way of life here in sandy, dusty Texas). They're going through the store now and then I think we're headed to the church for showers before we go to dinner with the Casas staff for our annual post-Mexico feast.  I think they're all getting excited to spend a few days just chilling in the vans and sleeping, but none of us are really excited to come home to snow. We're liking the sunshine and 70 degrees here! 

Ferris Team 2 - Cutberto and Maria

Chris, Chelsea, Cassie, Emma, Stacie, Danielle, Devon, Justin, Cameron, Joe, Mike and Kate (behind the camera)

Ferris Team 2 built for Cutberto and his wife, Maria and their grandchildren.  Cutberto was amazing - he would work with us during the day on every aspect of the house and then leave around 4:30p to go to work at night.  Maria told us he would sleep for about 4 hours and then get up and help us again.  We were so disappointed that he had to leave to go back to work before we dedicated the house on Wednesday!

All of the families that we built for this year had been on a waiting list for a house for a long time.  Cutberto and Maria had been waiting for at least 6-7 months, and their home was one of the worst that some of the Casas staff had seen in a long time.  You can see it in pictures below, but their previous house had been pallets stacked up, with sheet metal holding it all together and a couple of old doors as a roof. The couple times we went through the house to plug in extension cords, we were amazed that anyone could live in a house like this and be happy. But, both of them and all of their grandkids seemed very happy and content.  They are VERY excited to move into their new house though and make that their living space.  It will be much warmer for them!

Preparing the slab

Chris, Mike, Emma, Cassie, Chelsea, Danielle and Justin spreading the slab

Cutberto and Maria's original house

The storm clouds moving in over the site

Standing the walls

Chelsea and Devon working on the roof sections

Cameron adding the electrical lines in the walls

Mike. Chris and Fernando doing blackboard

Emma. Cassie and Chelsea

Emma and Kate working on chicken wire

Lunch break!

The hard working drywall crew

Emma, Cassie, Danielle and Chelsea with the neighborhood girls

Cassie, Danielle, Stacie and Chelsea as the roofing crew

The finished house!

Devon, Justin and Cameron in front of the finished house

The extra gifts given to each family from Ferris students

Ferris Team 1 - Jose

Mitch, Sondra, Jon, Baleigh, Evan, Jordan, Brittani, Melanie, Derek, Michelle, Kelly, Mike and Jonas

Ferris Team 1 got the chance to build within the city of Juarez this year.  Usually, we're building homes out in the Kilometers, an area outside of the city where there are a lot of poorer families.  But, the violence in Juarez has dropped significantly in the last few years and there are people within the city who need homes as well.  Mitch and Baleigh led this team and were the first ones to finish their house and be back at the SHOC yesterday!  Nice work team!

If you read our earlier posts, you're probably wondering where Jose came from since we didn't mention anything about him earlier.  Well, it turns out that Delores was actually a single man, not a single woman and he prefers to go by Jose. Jose is a pastor and has a ministry for gang members.  His testimony is pretty incredible!  Two of his three children were killed in 2012 because of the violence going on in Juarez, but he still stays there and now has a ministry in the same neighborhood where his sons were killed. The team wasn't building him a house, but a place to do ministry!  It was still the basic Casas structure, but he'll be able to more effectively run his ministry now since he has a place that can be solely for that purpose. 

Brittani, Melanie and Derek counting all of the lumber pieces

Michelle and Derek

Mike skreeting the slab

Jon can do the splits!

Any suggestions for names for Jon, Mitch and Derek's boy band?

Monday night, the storm clouds started rolling in and the contrast between the clouds and sunshine were incredible on all of the sites, but especially on this one!

Ready to stand the walls!

Getting ready for the day

Standing the walls

Jordan settling a wall in place

Kelly bracing a wall

Michelle, Sondra, Kelly and Derek working on chicken wire

Baleigh's Mexico face photo

A typical Jon Mexico photo

Mitch's classic Mexico face

Working on chicken wire

Jordan and Brittani

Looking around the neighborhood

Jon and Melanie working on stucco

During the dedication ceremony