Joel Jacob (11) spent his Veteran’s Day weekend in a camp 45 minutes south of Tijuana, volunteering in a small rural community in Mexico. 

From Friday to Monday, he and 17 other high schoolers slept in tents, carpooled half an hour from their campsite in the morning, and spent all day constructing a house. By the time they drove home Monday afternoon, the empty lot they began with had transformed into a house for a family of five.

“They didn’t have their own home,” Jacob said. “There was a mom and a dad, two little kids, and a four-month-old baby. The house was small, about the size of a two-car garage, but it was a house and it was free.” 

Through LifeBridge Christian Church, Jacob and other teenagers from his church connected with Amor Ministries, a religious nonprofit organization aiming to build houses in Mexico. In Spanish, the word “amor” means “love,” and in one long weekend, Jacob and his friends constructed a home, sharing their love through this act of service. 

When the group had arrived at the campsite that Amor provided, they set up their tents and prepared for the following days. With guidance from Amor and determination to complete the project, Jacob and his group built the home from the ground up. 

“They had a foundation for the home, but it was just a concrete slab,” Jacob said. “We barely used any [machinery]. We didn’t use electric saws; we cut the wood by hand for the walls and the roof.”

The house was assembled with solid wooden framework, requiring Jacob and his team to manually hammer wooden planks together to form the walls, which left a margin for error. 

“I’d say the most difficult part of the process was putting together the framework, hammering the wooden walls, because we messed up once and almost had to restart one of our walls,” Jacob said. “We had to make everything by hand and it was with [manual] tools. So if we messed up a nail, we had to take [the planks] out and redo them.”

Once the wooden framework was complete, the team wrapped chicken wire around the house to act as a base for stucco, a concrete-like plaster that Jacob and the group prepared from scratch.

“We churned our own stucco from dirt, concrete, and water,” Jacob said. “We put it on all the walls. For the roof, we put tar and a tile-like material.”

 They then sealed the windows with stucco and fitted a door to the house. 

Jacob said that the majority of the work was executed on Saturday and Sunday. The team worked quickly, motivated to finish for the family that would receive the home. 

Over the four days he was there, Jacob and his church group grew closer to the family with the help of a Spanish-English translator. The team connected with the community, also bringing gifts like soccer balls and other toys that were donated by LifeBridge Christian Church. 

Jacob came to know one of the parents, who worked as a barber, and the other, a hairstylist. Jacob said he returned to San Diego with both a fresh haircut and a new perspective. 

“They had a lot of customers while we were there, but I even got a haircut,” Jacob said. “It was obvious that their lives are a lot harder than mine, but they still seemed really happy. It was beautiful to see that.” 

Jacob said that his time in Mexico left him with a greater appreciation for his own home. He said he will take the lessons he learned from that weekend with him for the rest of his life. 

“Seeing where some people come from, the way they might be struggling, lets me see just how lucky I am,” Jacob said. “We have a lot to be grateful for, and we don’t always realize it.”