Written by Katie
DTS Student
On the outskirts of Cancun, you find numerous slum villages. One of these is Cuna Maya, a place that only a few years ago was empty land, but is now filled with dilapidated homes made from whatever hotel construction debris was dumped there.
Uneven dirt roads that can barely fit a vehicle, if it can even make it over all the dips and bumps, lead to the main, wider but equally bumpy road.
It is here in the dusty, hot community of Cuna Maya that we spent many hours over the course of the past three weeks. We performed skits, helped children with their homework, painted, visited families, and got to know the kids, among other things.
One family in Cuna Maya lives in a wooden structure with a cement floor. There is a curtain dividing it into two rooms. In this small home lives a family with three young daughters.
They had lived in numerous places, but were always kicked out because they could not pay the rent. Finally, they were able to have a plot of land to call their own.
We had the opportunity to bless them in a way that they really needed – building a home for their family. Another team had done a lot of work on it before us, but we were able to mix and lay cement for the floor as well as continue to build the wooden walls.
On the inside, Michele and Jack hammered flattened cardboard boxes to the walls as insulation against the weather and bugs.
It doesn’t look like much of a home. If shown a picture, people might ask if that is the old home or the new. But to this family, it was a blessing, meeting a need that they had. We were more than happy to fulfill it!