Eleven people from McMinnville Covenant, joined by sixty other Christians from various churches, gathered at the First Presbyterian Church, McMinnville, Friday morning, March 18th. Bob DeMaster (our resident doctor), Chuck McAllister, Bob Carter, Dick Moore (supervisor and chief boss), Doug and Sam Burch, Lauren Pruett, Molly McFadden, Melaine Janssen, and Pete and Brent Strobel represented our church. At 7:00 a.m. six white vans awaited our boarding. Two white trucks crammed with sleeping bags, duffle bags, boxes of shovels, saws and other tools had already gone on ahead of us (driven by four Covenanters). A cheering squad of parents and parishioners gave us their blessing as we departed. A thousand mile trip lay before us. Many of us had never gone before, and all we had to bolster our courage and resolve were stories of past years. Stories of hard work, but meaningful work. Stories of dire poverty, but loving hearts. Stories of another culture and language, but one Lord, one faith, and one baptism. (Ephesians 4:5) That’s only a little bit of what the Yamhill Alliance Helping Others Out is all about.
We were over 70 youth and adults from seven congregations. We didn’t know everyone. But the leadership carefully devised a traveling carpool schedule that helped us to get to know one another. At rest stops someone might even climb trees, but usually not. In the evenings we’d gather for worship, singing, prayer and a chance to reflect on Paul’s letter to the Ephesians. Scripture under girded our purpose and ministry.
By the first evening we had arrived in Carmichael, CA, a suburb of Sacramento. By the second night we reached Laguna Niguel, just south of Los Angeles. By Sunday afternoon we were setting up camp in Tecate after picking up AMOR Ministries’ staff members in San Diego, traveling across the border at Tijuana, and driving past dilapidated houses that gave witness to a socio-economic status not our own. A few of us former scouts remarked that the camp wasn’t crude by Boy Scout standards, but perhaps the gorgeous trees and striking hillsides punctuated with weathered rock outcroppings had something to do with it. The center of our camp was the kitchen tent.
Monday was our first day of work. The muscles and sweat of 70 plus Christian men and women, young and old, replaced a cement truck, power tools, and paid contract workers. Pickaxes broke the soil in three different locations, 2 x 4 wooden frames painstakingly accurate, defined the borders of the concrete slabs poured by the hands that had mixed cement, sand, rock, fiber and water, with only the help of shovels, hoes, buckets and wheelbarrows. A broken rusty water truck stood near one construction site, a mute testimony to a community that doesn’t enjoy piped-in running water or even a sewer system. We smoothed the wet concrete, chased off a wayward rooster that left tracks in the slab, and re-smoothed the future floor again. Each night we returned to our campsite where our tents were huddled to enjoy a meal together before we retired to our sleeping bags: warm, dry places to lay our aching muscles and weary limbs at night.
After applying sunscreen in the morning, we headed to the construction sites, rotating our work crews so that each family group would have a chance to work on each house. Tuesday was framing day. AMOR Ministries provides the blueprints for each of the 11 foot by 22 foot houses. The missioners young and old pay for the supplies. Fortunately enough of the YAHOO missioners had had experience. For some unexplainable, divine reason, people keep returning year after year to endure the hardships in order to reap the rewards of service. With hammers, saws, levels, lots of nails, wooden boards and plywood, dreams are erected, and hope is kindled. Families receive houses, and a bunch of kids and adults from McMinnville receive immeasurable blessings. Each noon we stopped for lunch and devotions. One day a group of us even had the opportunity to lay our hands in prayer and supplication for our new friend, Juan, whose simple 484 square foot house was built before his eyes and with his help in only three and a half days.
Tuesday night the sky clouded over, the temperature dropped to the thirties, and the skies poured rain on our heads and soaked a few sleeping bags. Wednesday we drove to our sites on the unpaved roads through a slurry of mud and puddles. For the next two days we experienced typical Oregon weather, a thousand mile south of home. Bundled up in rain jackets we wrapped each house in tar paper and strung chicken wire, tightening it like a snare drum skin so that it could hold the stucco in place. Somehow we got ahead of schedule and began mixing the sand and cement for the stucco by Wednesday. Before we left that late afternoon, we’d applied some of the first coat and installed the windows. That night it rained again.
Thursday we finished the house with a second complete coat of stucco, and installed the doors. Swept clean, our tools packed up, we visited each house and left each family with a candle reminding them of Christ’s light, a blessing from our hearts, a hospitality box filled with blankets, quilts, pots and pans and other supplies. Lastly, but symbolically powerful, we gave them their keys. There were few dry eyes, and I believe we will all remember the hug that Juan gave us forever. Such gratitude is rarely seen or received in our too often cynical and materialistic society.
So why did we go? Last week during worship we sang: “The Lord hears the cry of the poor.” And so the Lord answers that cry through us, His body currently incarnate. Gerard Manley Hopkins wrote: “Christ plays in ten thousand places,/ Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his/ To the Father through the features of our faces.” Are we not the ears of Jesus hearing this cry of the poor? Are we not His feet to hurry to service, His hands eager to lift walls and slide roofs into place? It is not we who do these things, but Christ within us. We are His Arms of Love. To this we are called. Amen.
