Labor for Lent

Churches use the 40 days before Easter to carry on mission projects

Alex Richbourg usually gives up something for Lent -- chocolate or coffee.

But this year, the 41-year-old computer programmer from Apex decided to take something on.

He and 17 other members of Raleigh's Church of the Good Shepherd spent a week in Mexico building a home for a poor family.

It didn't matter that Richbourg knew very little Spanish and had virtually no construction experience. He came with willing hands and an open heart.

"Being down there, working physically next to the people, and seeing the house rise -- it felt really good," said Richbourg. "We were building walls and, symbolically, tearing down walls."

The trip to the tiny farming community of Pahuacan, several hours south of Mexico City, was the first time the downtown church had ventured on a mission trip outside the United States. But it corresponds with a greater interest among Christian churches to use the 40 days of Lent, a time of repentance and reflection modeled on Jesus' 40 days in the wilderness, as a way to give back.

The idea for Lent Build 2008 was ambitious. Four Episcopal dioceses -- three in North Carolina and one in Virginia -- envisioned building 40 homes during the 40 days of Lent. But it turned out the small Mexican towns where the Episcopalians were to work couldn't accommodate that many people in such a short span.

Nevertheless, when Lent ends on Easter Sunday, March 23, the effort will have resulted in 16 new homes built by the North Carolina and Virginia Episcopalians in conjunction with Habitat for Humanity International. Participating churches, including eight in the Episcopal Diocese of North Carolina, which extends through the Piedmont region, also donated a considerable amount of money.

For each fired-clay brick home -- each about 500 square feet, with a bathroom and a kitchen -- churches contributed $8,000. Habitat and the Mexican families each added $4,000 more.

The 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. workdays consisted of mixing cement and mortar, pouring the foundation and laying the bricks, which resemble cinder blocks. Professional masons worked alongside the work teams supervising the work. Each of the families slated to live in the homes contributed sweat equity, too. A woman in a nearby town cooked meals for the work crews, who ate in her home.

A reversal of roles

"They opened their lives to us and took us in as family," said Emmita Lyford, 23, the church's director of youth and young adult ministries who took the trip. "For people who were strangers five days before, that's a powerful experience."

It didn't take long for many in the group to notice a role reversal: Many Mexicans come to the United States to work construction; these American faithful headed to Mexico to contribute physical labor to build homes and bonds.

Lyford, who is fluent in Spanish, said tears welled in the eyes of a girl who told her she hadn't seen her father in four years because he was working in the United States to help provide for his family.

"I could see what it's like for a family," Lyford said.

The workers, ages 20 to 65, said they would gladly go back next year. The experience, they said, deepened their understanding of the hardscrabble life of many Mexicans, who, like the families they helped, farmed corn for use in feed lots.

On Sunday, members of the team will present a slide show of their trip to fellow Good Shepherd members. Across town, 10 others from St. Mark's Episcopal Church will have just landed in Mexico as part of their own building exercise.

The Rev. Robert Sawyer, the rector at Good Shepherd who also went on the trip, said he planned to build his Easter sermon on his experience in Mexico.

At Easter, Sawyer said, Christians celebrate the resurrection of Jesus.

"I experienced that in a new way," he said. "On this mission trip I can fully say I saw Jesus in the people, in the laughter of the children, in the hospitality we were given, in building together. It was a transformational time for each person in the group."