Mexico—March 15, 2006

Flying into Mexico City at night is like slowly diving into a huge chest of sparkling coins. The lights below spread out like a giant sequined blanket, illuminating the activity of some 20 million people who call the city home. The lights almost wink in a collective Buenas noches!

I am traveling this week with Torre Nelson, area vice president for our Latin American and Caribbean office, and Christy Stickney, regional Habitat director for Central America. Our flight from Santo Domingo connected in Miami, and I wish I could have said the same for our luggage! Evidently, it wasn’t as eager to get to Mexico as we were, and decided to catch a later flight. Fortunately, we straightened everything out the next day and averted what, in the whole scheme of things, would have been just an inconvenience.

I spent the first full day meeting with HFH-Mexico staff and board members. I was quickly impressed by the plans they have to grow their house-building substantially over the next few years—a total of 10,000 “housing solutions” combining both new construction and repairs.

I like the phrase “housing solutions,” which they very intentionally use to describe their work through 14 affiliates across the country. It’s becoming a more common phrase across the Central American region and around the world because it reflects the larger direction Habitat for Humanity is taking in order to serve more families.

We realize we can’t solve the world’s housing need by ourselves, nor can we meet it through the same house-for-house, new-construction model that has been so successful for 30 years. We have to seek new “solutions” to create decent, affordable housing opportunities, all while adhering closely to the core principles that have sustained this organization for so long. So while we don’t want or need to abandon the traditional Habitat model, it’s time to seek additional, creative answers to poverty housing and community transformation. It’s exciting to see committed partners doing just that.

During our brief time in Mexico, we met with a number of partners and interested groups to discuss ways in which Habitat-Mexico could expand its service to families, including representatives from local government, corporations and other nonprofit organizations. We also attended a dinner to say “thanks” to several of them and to celebrate the potential of Habitat in the country.

For me, a highlight of any trip is to get out into the field, to meet the volunteers and homeowners who are working so hard at the grassroots level to transform lives. Mexico was certainly no exception.

We traveled to Amecameca, a small community just outside Mexico City surrounded by at least a couple of volcanoes, their peaks cloaked on this day in mid-morning clouds. The build site sits on a rural landscape of mountains, fields and Christmas tree farms. I was delighted to meet the soon-to-be-homeowner, Harim Melo Cuevas who, for the last 10 years, has been renting a house only steps from her new Habitat home. She lives there with her 15-year-old daughter, Haylim.

They share a small bedroom and a bathroom. She said her roof leaks when it rains and that a lack of insulation provides for cold winter nights, as she crossed her arms, grabbed her shoulders and pretended to shiver. At the back of the house are a kitchen and another bedroom shared by five members of another family. The interior walls were the same as the exterior, brick block. There was a rack of cassette audio tapes in one corner, a shelf or two on the wall, and two beds took up most of the concrete floor space. Harim and her daughter share a similar smile and appearance.

When I first met young Haylim, she asked me, “Why have you come here?” “Why are you doing this?” The simplicity of her question struck me because in its answer I find a profound meaning that reaches to the very purpose of Habitat’s work—and to what inspires me personally in my Habitat involvement.

I told her that Habitat believes everyone is of equal worth and equally deserving of a decent place to live—because we are all one under God. I told her that our commitment is to live out the teachings of Jesus Christ, to serve one another. And I told her that I was doing this because each time I had the chance to work along side someone like her, it changes my heart and gives me a glimpse into the kind of community I believe Christ calls us to.

I had never been asked this question directly by a child. I was moved by Haylim’s honesty. Our exchange reminded me of the context in which we should place all of our encounters on behalf of Habitat for Humanity—whether those exchanges occur between affiliate and donor, volunteer and partner family, staff and volunteer … or 15-year-old girl and CEO.

It is profoundly inspiring to me to experience the work of Habitat in the field around the world, to experience people like Harim and Haylim. Because building houses is a good thing – and desperately needed. But just building houses wouldn’t fulfill our mission of transforming people and communities. Without relationships, Habitat would have no purpose. There would be no meaningful exchange. It’s always humbling to be reminded of this and to reinforce my sights on the important things in Habitat’s world: God’s children in need and those called to help meet that need through an honest partnership with them.

Not unlike our trip to the Dominican Republic, our visit to Mexico was brief, but I’m only the better for having made it.

I’ll write again from Guatemala, one of Habitat’s very first programs which has built 10 percent of all Habitat houses in the world. Thanks for reading!