MED Builds Hope in Nicaragua

With her work boots, gloves, and sunscreen packed, Strauss, her husband, and teenaged daughter left in mid-June for a 10-day building project in the Nicaraguan coastal village of San Cayetano. Nicaragua has one of the highest housing deficits in Central America. Along with a team of 8, Strauss made and poured concrete, mixed and laid mortar (for which she and her teammates each earned the title of Albañil), hauled and stacked cinder blocks, and built friendships in the 95-degree heat as they built a home for a family of four.

Like their neighbors, this family lives on less than $2 a day, earning most of their money from their small tortilla business. Replacing the family’s former tin and wood home, the 800 square meter “seed home” is built to withstand the region’s frequent tremors and designed to be expandable by the family. The new home project also included the family’s first-ever flushable toilet and shower. Strauss says the work was the most physically demanding but also some of the most rewarding she has ever done and has broadened her perspective of what it means to be of service in the world.

As promised, below are some photos from that trip as well as the names of sponsors to whom Strauss, her family, and her new Nicaraguan friends wish to extend their sincere thanks.

The following sponsors helped make this project possible. Thanks!

-        MMIC (Marian Hagerman)

-        Right at Home, SE South Dakota (Tony Mau)

-        Carla Campbell

-        Dr. Paul Amundson

-        Corbo Design

-        Wendy Phillips

-        Steve Kuiper