Messiah Lutheran members build homes in El Salvador, Costa Rica

Virgil Wade digs with other volunteers in El Salvador. Wade, his wife Marsha, Tim Burrer and Susan Burrer helped with Habitat for Humanity homes. (CONTRIBUTED)

MADISON – Messiah Lutheran Church members volunteered with 2014 Habitat for Humanity builds in Latin America.

Tim and Susan Burrer and Virgil and Marsha Wade joined other volunteers from across the United States to build homes and relationships in Latin America in projects affiliated with Thrivent Financial for Lutherans.

For the fifth time, Susan Burrer returned to El Salvador, then on to a new experience in Costa Rica. “Building in El Salvador will always have a special place in my heart,” Burrer said about her first Third World build and seeing the family’s gratefulness.

In El Salvador, volunteers first visited friends at Cristo Rey Lutheran Church in Santa Ana began for the Lord’s Supper.

“House No. 1 (of 2) was on a mountainside just outside Santa Ana for Guadalupe, her father Luis and brother Jolio, probably the most difficult work site so far. Everything had to be hauled down the slope in pails,” Burrer said.

After clearing stumps and laying rebar, they mixed mescala to lay the block and chespa to fill the block. The completed house has a front living area, two bedrooms (nine by nine feet) and a bathroom.

“Guadalupe is the only one of the three able to bring in income at $125 per month,” Burrer said. “The payment back to Habitat is adjusted somewhat, but they still have to put in sweat equity. They invited us to stay with them when we return because they now have plenty of room.”

In Costa Rica, they traveled to the village of Biolley, near Panama. “This is a new community, Sabalo, of 44 houses,” she said. They worked on three houses, each about 450 square feet.

“Doing these trips is like a big giant snowball, rolling, rolling, picking up new workers as it goes,” Burrer said. “It’s so amazing how each volunteer’s story inspires someone else to join a Thrivent Builds/Habitat trip.”

“We cannot individually change the world’s housing deficit, but we can as a team make a difference for some, one family at a time,” Burrer said.