Our speaker last week was Reverend Dave Stechholz, who spoke of the mission trip with M.O.S.T. Ministries to Juarez Mexico, and how it all started with a conversation between an El Paso Rotarian that Rev. Dave met on an eyeglass mission earlier in the year. Here is the story written by Rev. Dave of the latest mission trip reprinted from the May 24th issue of Meeting Notice and Club News.
My sincerest thanks to our Livonia A.M. Rotary Club in serving and partnering in a Mexico mission trip. We partnered with MOST Ministries out of Ann Arbor, a “MOST” mission team from Christ our King Lutheran Church in Saline, and YLM (Ysleta Lutheran Mission) in El Paso, Texas. We also partnered with the Zaragoza El Paso Rotary Club (who provided the key contacts, three translators, and volunteers alongside of the mission team), and the Club Rotario Cuidad Juarez. The Juarez Rotary made up the $3,000 added costs on the project, which totaled $13,000 for the re-roofing and added foam to end the Winter storm water leakages. (The $13,000 did not include the mission team’s transportation and other costs, just the newly-redone roof [above], foam, removal of the old materials, etc.).
The project at severely impoverished Kilometer 30 on the outskirts of Juarez, Mexico was to repair and repaint the roof, new ceiling, and outdoor and indoor walls of the Community Center. The owner of the Center is Corinna. The key people who linked everyone together was Ofelia of the Zaragoza Rotary Club, Julian of the Juarez Rotary and his architect/contractor firm, Scott McClelland of MOST Team 2308 (liaison and foreman) and the Saline Lutheran congregation, Kelly Bone (the MOST Team 2308 leader), and myself on Team 2308 and member of our Livonia A.M. Rotary Club. All of these named give our sincerest thanks to our LAMR and District 6400 for $3,000 and $2,000, respectively, plus my wife and me ($1,000) and an anonymous Rotarian with whom I shared this project ($3,200+). Corinna was in tears of joy at the huge restoration of her Community Center, which serves the 5,000-plus people of the Kilometer 30 area, who have no clean or potable water, no paved roads, no proper sewage (except a crude septic tank), no street lights, signs, or addresses, no medical or dental facilities, and high unemployment. Yet the children and young mothers and families use the Center almost daily, which previously had holes in the roof, ceiling insulation coming down on their heads, and walls and ceiling with black mold.
Here are a few before and after pictures, the before pics from our July 2022 eyeglass mission trip and the after from our April 2023 repair trip.
In short, this was a great mission project uniting several partners, with Rotary being a greater player. Here are some “after” and on the job pictures and some of the nearly completed work.
Dave Stechholz
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