PEÑITAS — Rosaura Juarez held her granddaughter in her arms as she stood outside, watching several men build a house in her front yard.
Juarez, 39, is the recipient of a new home that volunteers started to build two months ago in the parking lot of Valley Ranch Baptist Church in Coppell. The home was then disassembled, brought down to the Rio Grande Valley, and is now being reassembled for Juarez and her family here.
“I’m really happy,” Juarez said in Spanish. “Everything on God’s time; we already knew they were going to help us but only God knew when.”
About 35 volunteers with Valley Ranch Baptist Church and a few with First Baptist Church of Garland came down for Spring Break to work on the house.
The church is donating the home to Juarez in partnership with Buckner Rio Grande Valley, a faith-based nonprofit located in Mission that serves vulnerable children, families and seniors.
About a year ago, Juarez began taking courses at the Buckner Family Hope Center in Peñitas. The classes included family and financial coaching. Having completed the courses, she became eligible to receive the new home, free of charge.
However, going through the program does not automatically qualify a family for a free house. In fact, Gabriel Flores, the missions and humanitarian aid manager for Buckner Rio Grande Valley, said qualifying for a home takes a lot of moving pieces such as connecting them with the church, the right volunteers and the right donor.
“There’s a lot that goes into it and that is more of an internal process but the family, when they go through the program, like I said, not everybody that goes through the program gets a house,” Flores said. “We look at a lot of other factors like poverty levels, the risk that the children are facing.”
An example of that risk is when a home is deemed unsuitable because it might be dilapidated.
“For example, this family lives in a one-bedroom house and it’s a family of four,” Flores said, noting that that can cause privacy issues but also insufficient space, especially as the children grow older.
“Kids can’t do their homework, they don’t have a place to do their homework because all there is is a bed and maybe a couch and that’s all that fits in the house,” Flores said.
But safety for the kids is the most important factor, Flores said, such as whether the home is properly insulated and can protect them from harsh weather.
Also, to be able to gift them the home, the family must own the property where it will be built.
From Ciudad Victoria, Juarez has lived in the Valley for 25 years, including four years in Peñitas. She currently works at a local grocery store.
She has four children ages 23, 22, 14 and 8 years old. Only the youngest two live with her and her boyfriend.
Watching the volunteers work on the new home, she said, was exciting.
“I’m very grateful to God,” she said.
Arthur Mendes, the adult pastor for Valley Ranch Baptist Church, said that while they’ve been working with Buckner to serve the area for nearly 15 years, this is the first time they’ve started constructing a home remotely and then transported it to its final location to be completed.
“It’s like a puzzle with many Lego pieces,” Mendes said. “We hope to be able to finish all the exterior of this house by the end of this week and bless this family with this resource.”
After they finish their work on the exterior, Buckner is expected to have another group of volunteers finish the interior.
However, volunteers are expected to be in short supply so Flores said the home likely won’t be finished for another four to five months.
“So mid-year, this family should be moving in,” Flores said.
In total, three homes are currently being built through the same remote-build process through partnerships with Buckner.
In addition to Juarez’s home, the other two homes are being built by Stonebriar Community Church from Frisco and by University Baptist Church of Houston.
The idea to begin construction on these homes at their respective churches’ locations and then transport them down here was prompted, at least in part, by the COVID-19 pandemic.
“We always came here and built the house from scratch but during the pandemic, all the churches had to stop, press pause in coming here to the Valley,” Mendes said. “One church here in Texas came up with this process that they developed that made us able to build the house in the parking lot and transport it here in pieces and help with the process of getting the houses done so when we saw that, we saw that would be a great opportunity to step up and share our resources.”
Because of this new process, they were able to involve a lot more people. In total, Mendes estimates they had about 250 volunteers at the church to put the home together.
And while this is the first home they’ve built in this manner, Mendes said they would definitely do so again.
“It’s a great way for us to serve,” Mendes said. “We have this in our DNA, in our church, to serve the community, and this is a great opportunity for us to be able to do that.”
