The Grove Build June of 2009

The Grove Build June of 2009, originally uploaded by Justin and Julie Kirklin.

This past week I had the pleasure of working with The Grove Baptist Church. I have worked with this church 3 times on 3 different houses and my experience with them gets better and better as our relationship grows. They are the kind of people that are just addicting to be around. Their personality and their sense of hospitality make it easy to fit in and become part of their church family. It is one of the highlights of my year.

This year with The Grove, we built a single home which is a 22' by 11', 2 bedroom house. To an American, this seems like nothing more that the size of a common car garage but to an impoverished Mexican Family, it is a Cadillac home that sticks out like a sore thumb. We may have bruised a couple thumbs with our hammers but this house is like a kings palace to the family we were able to bless it with.

Alberto and Aurora and their son lived in nothing more that a cardboard and pallet shack. The shack was not closed up and rain and snow are able to get in the house when bad weather strikes. Not only that, the summers are desperately brutal with heat and the winters numbingly cold in a shack with no insulation or closed up walls. The floor of their shack is rough ground and rocks, and everything that they do is conducted in a single room. Their only income is 45.00 dollars a week. It is not because of laziness. 65 year old Alberto works all week 12+ hours a day. 45.00 is only enough for them to survive on.

I asked Alberto and Aurora what they had been expecting from when they heard they were going to receive a brand new home to live in. They said that 2 other ministries had promised to come either repair their old house or give them a new one. The one that said they were going to make improvements to their shack made them move all their belongings outside and then never showed up. The "promise" of God and of Christians seemed to be faulty. So one they were told that we were going to build a house for them, they had little hope.

We showed up on Monday morning with the goal of glorifying God and blessing a family that dearly needed it. It took 3 and a half days to build. Everyday there was a new challenge. The first day, getting the forms ready for concrete was a nightmare. The site had really hard rocky soil and the area we needed to build was extremely unleveled. the second day it rained and set us back a little bit. The third day it was blazing hot. But through it all, The Grove kept there composure and had excellent attitudes that kept morale up during the build.

On a side note, the Grove team held a soccer game with the local kids and then shared the gospel with them after the game. There were 22 adults and children that came forward who wanted to receive salvation through Christ. It was awesome!!! We hope that God brings those in their paths to disciple them into the kingdom.

On thursday, we dedicated the house to the family. It was probably the most heart wrenching dedication I have ever been apart of. We shared songs of praise to our God and then turned it over to the family's sponsoring pastor. He shared about the great blessing that God had given them and about salvation through Jesus Christ. Then Alberto came forward and cried with a spirit of gratitude for what God had done and how much their lives had been changed. Then Aurora came forward with tears of Joy and escorted us into their old house. She said that she wanted us to see the way that she and her family had been living and how big of a gift the house was to them. I couldn't stop tears from running down my cheeks.

We laid hands on Alberto, Aurora, their son, and the new house we had built and prayed for them. We prayed that the house would be strong and that it would be a safe haven for the family. We prayed most of all that it would be a place where the presents of God was known and felt and understood by the humble Mexico family we had bonded with. After the prayer we gave them a bible and the keys to their NEW HOME!!!!

I can't tell you how big of a privilege it is to work for this ministry and to be apart of these homes. I told God that night that I have no business being here because I am a sinful man and don't deserve to be apart of something so beautiful and so miraculous.

To the Grove and to those who support Julie and I, Thank you for your partnership enabling us to be apart of heaven on earth.

If you would like to see more pictures from the week, visit our picture site at http://www.flickr.com/photos/justinandjuliemissions/