Where Have I Been, Anyway?

OK, so I was gone for a while. Took a little "vacation" of sorts. Traveled in vans with 27 other people across the country to Juarez, Mexico, just across the border from El Paso, TX. It's about a 9-day total experience, one that I've participated in around 15 times or so (I've lost count). This one was special because 4 of the 5 of my family went along. First time for Trevor, second time for Corbin. It was awesome, as it usually is. If you're unfamiliar, we go into poverty-striken neighborhoods and build houses. Not the typical "American" house. But typical for the other 95% of the world. That's part of the experience - learning that we literally have everything we could ever imagine yet still aren't content, and learning that people who have next to nothing are content. Here's the family we built for this time. Single mom raising 3 kids. I'm terrible with remembering names, but the little guy is Edgar, and the older, very shy son is Tony. They're standing in front of the finished product, a two-room, 11 x 22 house that we built in about 3 days - concrete floor, slab & stucco walls, solid roof. We attached this to their older, much smaller, 1-room house (made of pallets and covered with insulation), so now they have 3 rooms.

I don't know if you've done much of this sort of thing, but you should. Yeah, you'll change the lives of a family. But you'll benefit so much more. And so will the world.

(PS - Me and the fam are in the back left of the group photo...)