2,453 Homes of Hope and counting.... Let's make it 2,456!

At the 2008 Annual Company meeting, Dean laid down a challenge before the staff to build a home for a family in Ensenada, Mexico.

On October 22, 2009 Dean will be leading a team from Horizons Community Church to Ensenada, Mexico to build a home and then in January 2010, Hanson Builders will travel to Mexico to build two homes for families. To make the dream of home ownership possible for these families $40,000 is needed to complete the project, but we are aiming towards $45,000 for extra furnishings and supplies for the families. We will be setting aside $1,000 per home sold to go towards this project.

As a staff we will be traveling to Mexico the end of January 2010.

YWAM San Diego/Baja is a growing organization with more than 90 full time, non-salaried staff that currently live and work at the various operating locations. The projects they facilitate for the thousands of annual participants who join them, include orphanages and prisons, soup kitchens, food and clothing distribution, migrant camps, juvenile hall, youth projects and rallies, as well as the most well known Homes of Hope program.

This fall three of our staff members went on two trips to Ensenada, Mexico to build two small homes for poor families.

Note from Catherine Hanson:
Dean & I were a part of a 15 person team from our church to travel to Ensenada, Mexico where we partnered with YWAM (Youth With A Mission- San Diego) to build a home for a single mom (Norma) and her 18 month old baby (Marco), her 74 year old father and her 16 year old nephew. Norma and her family were living in a makeshift shack made from any material they could salvage, this included car parts. It was one room with no windows, a blanket for a door, and a partial dirt floor. They had electricity but no indoor plumbing.

Before we got there YWAM prepared the site next to her house with a poured cement floor and delivered all the building materials and a biffy (thank goodness). We got there on Thursday morning and met Norma and Marcos. She was so excited! We were there to make a dream come true. In her eyes we had wings and believe me that's a powerful thought.

In only two days a family's life was changed. Hope replaced despair! And I was part of that. I got to be "Jesus with skin on" to Norma and her family. It was an incredible experience that even now as I write this brings me to tears. I am so grateful for the opportunity and I can't wait to do it again. Dean & I have set a goal of building a home a year with YWAM. They build homes all over the world. We'd love to have any of you join us.

 Look for more exciting information to come on how you can help support this organization.