Building Day 1- by Julia Loewen

It’s day 2 in El Salvador and already we have four houses up and finished. This is my fifth time on this trip but it’s always amazing to me how fast everything gets done. The week goes by so quickly, but the relationships built and connections made also grow quickly. We may have only met some of these people yesterday, and we may not speak their language, but somehow these hardly feel like barriers at all.

That ‘somehow’ could only be God, and today I felt very humbled that He has allowed me to be a part of this. I’m not at all a great builder, I speak hardly any Spanish, yet while I am seemingly so underqualified, God has allowed me to be on this team. How could that be??

I got to do some building today, which I love to do, but there are a few times where I’m really not sure of how to help. During one of those times, there was another group of ladies (from El Salvador), kind of just doing the same thing as me: standing around a little awkwardly, unsure of what to do. But then one of our translators came over and started showing us what we could do, and this whole group of women just came alive! There was so much laughter and joking (most of which I didn’t understand of course), but I realized that these women were just like me! So excited to be a part of this, but feeling a little underqualified.

But as the day went on, I started to understand what “qualified” me for this trip. The people here are hurting. They feel broken. Hopeless. Abandoned. Forgotten. But I know that I am loved by God. He never abandons me. He has not cast me aside, but he lives in me, and he works in me, and he works through me! God has qualified me in the best way possible, through nothing I could have done on my own! He has given me love, and hope, and joy, to share with these people. To share with the excited team of women I got to build with. To share with the families receiving homes, the church we work with, and even the team that I came here with. Because God has not forgotten these people, and he is using this team to do so much more than build houses- he is using us to bring love, and hope, and joy to a people in desperate need of all of those things. 

And I am so thankful to be a part of it.