Our first day there, Nathan took the team to meet some of the families he has built houses for. We walked from his car down a dirt alley, which opened up to a dirt soccer field. Houses crowded the field, pouring back into a huge canyon. Some kids from the field recognized Nathan and ran up to meet the visitors. We continued into the mass of houses, at first sturdy block, but giving way to corrugated tin over wood posts the further down we went. We noticed some conspicuous retaining walls which Nathan had built around the houses of some church members to prevent further mudslides from washing into their houses. Our visit received several reactions, from silent disregard to a warm welcome. Many had been helped by the church’s programs, such as food, tutoring, medical, and house building. The notable absence was the lack of men. The dysfunction in this neighborhood has made it a breeding ground for gang members and drug addicts. It was sobering to think that the young boys following us would soon hit an age where all kinds of pressures would begin hitting them.
Their education is woefully inadequate, as schools cram up to sixty of them into a room that often lacks in desks and books, the work available for them is low paying and inconsistent, their living conditions couldn’t get much worse, and few of the fathers stick around. All of this makes escaping through gangs or drugs a temptation to even the most resilient kids, and perpetuates the cycle. Nathan’s vision to remove the boys themselves from this environment, while keeping the families connected through the local church, sounded exactly like what was needed.
With this experience fresh in our minds, our team put our experience to work. Nathan had bought some land in the safest part of Guatemala for the boys, near the city of Antigua. At the beginning of the week, I spent most of my day with the surveyor, providing a very necessary topographic map. With land around Antigua also being some of the most expensive in Guatemala, the most affordable site Nathan could get was much steeper than what we would be used to in the US, with slopes between 3:1 up to almost 1:1. Being the crazy person I am, I actually enjoyed scrambling/sliding across the slopes to get the survey. Later in the week, I helped translate for our structural engineer, who was learning about differences in construction and investigating what was available in the hardware stores, so that our design would be cost effective and attainable.
After our team presented our final design to Nathan, we were delighted to hear his praise for our design. Having done so much construction in Guatemala and having dreamed of this with his wife for the past eight years, he was full of ideas, and we were able to catch his vision and improve it, providing not just a shelter, but a place the boys could call home and be proud of. I myself was grateful for the chance to meet another son of missionaries, hear his testimony, and see how God has been using him.As we return to work on the design, would you pray for:
- The boys in Paradise to choose freedom in Jesus, not slavery to gangs and drugs
- Shalom’s ministries, spreading not just physical aid, but bringing people to Jesus
- Finances to supply the construction, which Nathan wants to begin this summer
More pictures:
One of the kids had an Argentina soccer jersey!
Houses range from concrete block to corrugated tin on wood posts:
Some of the homes we visited:
Keeping my balance during the survey:
And getting a chance to run the total station myself
Parcel #1
Parcel #2
Brad Hoy, the structural engineer
Conceptual layouts
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