The Juárez I Know

Kathy Palomino is one of our Team Casas participants and has built number of homes for families in Mexico.  She recently wrote an article about her experiences for the Dallas Morning News.  We want to share that article with you here.

This week, I was coming home from work and a low, dark cloud bank on the horizon looked exactly like the mountains around Juárez. This happens to me often, and I get a déja vu feeling that I am headed west again. Once again, Juárez is calling me — pulling me to a place that has inexplicably become a second home to me. I am not alone; since 2001, my husband and I have worked with a large nonprofit agency called Casas por Cristo that has answered the call to Juárez since 1993. They began to build houses for the homeless to “provide tangible expressions of God’s love and provision,” hoping to make a lasting change for good in the world. The first time that we crossed the border into Juárez, I was terrified. I had no idea of how the landscape changes once you cross the Rio Grande. El Paso is a beautiful city, but I can only compare Juárez to Baghdad — right down to the bullet holes in the walls. Graffiti is rampant, and abandoned vehicles are everywhere. There is blowing trash and glass in the sand, and feral dogs fight for any edible scrap. 

I didn’t sleep much that first trip, I was too nervous. We were laboring in 100 degree-plus temperatures from dawn till dusk, however, so I put my worries aside during the day. In three days we built a two-room home, fully insulated, stuccoed and wired for electricity. I was too busy cooking, translating and taking care of my 2-year-old son to have time to be scared.  

In those three days, I learned to see a quality in the people that we serve that is not often found in the United States. The people I met gathered together to praise God for what they had, and they spent very little time whining over what they didn’t have. I felt that I had jumped off life’s treadmill and learned to value the things that were truly important: God, family and a roof over your head. I was completely taken by surprise in my wonder at this world, and now I can’t stay away. When we put the keys of the home into the hands of its new owners, the tears of joy that run down their faces (and ours) make me understand that love really does conquer all. 

Casas por Cristo is struggling, because so many people are afraid to cross into Mexico. It had to cancel its intern program because there weren’t enough groups coming to build. Luckily, the interns-to-be decided that they couldn’t bear giving up their mission, and they banded together to raise the funds for the new homes on their own. With a building goal of 10 homes, these 20-something youths have currently raised enough money to build six. We think Juárez is about drugs and violence, but it is about finding beauty and peace in the middle of ugliness. Maybe the words of one of my favorite songs in Spanish explain it better — “Los caminos de la vida, no son como yo pensaba, no son como imaginaba.” (“The roads of life aren’t the way I had thought, aren’t the way I had imagined.”)There is another side of Juárez, and it will teach you that the roads of life aren’t as you had imagined.

Kathy Palomino is a first-grade teacher at Rowlett Elementary. Her e-mail address is kjpalomi@garlandisd.net. For more information about Casas por Cristo, visit casasporcristo.org.