Miguel had just finished middle school when his parents applied and were approved for a Faith Ministry house; at 15 years old, he stepped up as his family’s sweat equity volunteer. At the time, the family of five was living on the $75 his dad made each week running a food cart. A group from Wake Forest, North Carolina, visited Reynosa during a scorching hot week at the end of July, and block by block, they worked alongside Miguel and the other volunteers to build his family’s house.
Several years later, Miguel met Monica, who would become his wife, and the two of them began dreaming of their own house. But they didn’t have their own piece of land, a requirement for a Faith Ministry house to ensure it’s fully owned by the family. Shortly after, Miguel’s aunt in southern Mexico passed away, and Miguel and Monica sacrificed their own plans to travel the 800 miles to take care of her burial. Without any money to return to Reynosa, they ended up stuck there for months, their dreams deferred.
Miguel and Monica made the best of the situation, working and saving to return home. Once back, they struggled to find a safe place to live in Reynosa, a situation that became even more urgent when they learned Monica was pregnant with their first son. With this news, Miguel’s parents agreed to gift them a portion of their own land next door, land the two could put in their own name and build a family on.
This year, a now 25-year-old Miguel applied and was approved for his own family’s Faith Ministry house; he again stepped up to volunteer as sweat equity. During a similarly warm week in June, a group from Austin, Texas, traveled to Reynosa to lay block alongside Miguel and the other volunteers, building a house for him, Monica, their now four-year-old son José Miguel, and their second son due this fall. Last week, on another scorching July day, a group from Charlotte, North Carolina, poured the roof on Miguel’s family’s house.
A group volunteer stood next to Miguel and watched the wheelbarrows of concrete pour into the rebar and wood frame, one of the final steps of his very own home. The volunteer asked Miguel how they planned to lay out the house. “With the joy and delight of a man who had just won the lottery,” he later recalled, “Miguel began explaining where his and Monica’s bedroom would be, and where his son’s bedroom would be.” Then Miguel paused, and with a big grin on his face, said, “Actually, where my two sons’ bedroom will be.”
For Miguel, this house isn’t just four cinderblock walls and a cement roof. It’s the home where he and his wife will raise their children. It’s something of their own. “No one can come and claim it’s theirs. No one can take this away from us. We finally have something that’s ours.”
Finally, their dream come true.
Stories like Miguel’s happen because people like you show up, not just when a group is on a job site laying block, but every single day in between.
We just wrapped our busiest season of the year. Team after team came through Reynosa this summer, and homes like Miguel’s went up block by block, family by family. Now, as the groups head home and things quiet down here, it might look like the work slows too.
It doesn’t. More importantly, the needs don’t go away.
Every day, with or without a group here, families depend on the ministry continuing its work: meals are shared, medical care is given, groceries reach families who need them, and communities gather for worship and prayer.
This “slower” season is exactly when your support matters most. It’s the season when fewer people are watching, but the needs, and the work to meet them, remain the same.
Your gift today keeps that work going: homes like Miguel’s, meals at our community center and clinic, students growing through sponsorship, and the quiet, faithful presence of Bible study and prayer.
Your support makes a difference, one family at a time.
Visit faithministry.org/give to make a gift or sign up for a monthly donation.
You can also send a check payable to Faith Ministry to PO Box 756, McAllen, TX 78505