Read this letter from Amor’s founders, Scott and Gayla Congdon, to learn how to support our Pastors!

Don’t we all love to hear a feel good story that causes goosebumps to run up and down our body?  It’s one of those stories that can’t help but bring a tear to the eye when you hear it.  Let me share one with you.

One of the first communities that we built homes in was Cerro Azul just outside of Tecate, Mexico.  And one of the first families to receive a home was the Ureña family.  Mere Ureña was a young boy that didn’t want anything to do with the church.  His heart was hardened toward anything that had to do with Christianity.  His family was living in extremely poor conditions and he had no desire to serve a God that didn’t seem to care about his family and how they were living.

His family applied to receive a home and they were approved.  As Mere saw the house being built by an Amor group his heart began to soften.  He saw that house as the gospel message and he decided then and there that he wanted to know more about this Jesus who had provided him and his family with this home.  That was 25 years ago that Mere Ureña gave his heart to Christ.

Right now, Pastor Mere is busy collecting family bios for Amor’s Mexico Ministry Planning Board in preparation for our upcoming spring season.  He pastors a church in Tecate where he has served the past 21 years.  Who would have thought that one of the first homes that Amor built 25 years ago would impact a young man’s life in this way?  And Amor has been able to be a part of that from the time that Pastor Mere was a young man until now as he pastors families that were just like his own.

Amor has the Angel Fund that is named in honor of Angel Dominguez who passed away several years ago.  Angel was the very first pastor that collected family bios for houses built in the Tijuana dump.  His dream was that the building of an Amor house would bring people to Christ and very possibly raise up someone like Pastor Mere.  Angel’s dreams came true!

Every year Amor is committed to providing close to $50,000 to serve with our Pastors as they reach their communities in Mexico, South Africa, and the Apache Reservation in San Carlos.  Even though each pastor is supported by their own church these funds are used to provide monies for their travel as they collect bios, car repairs, and medical issues they often face.  We also have a commitment to each Pastor to provide $100 per month for the food bank – whether the Project Hope funds are there or not.  In recent years, the Hunger No More program has been significantly underfunded and the Angel Fund helps make up the difference. In addition, it allows us to fulfill the passage in James 1:27 by providing for Angel’s widow, Consuelo.

As we go into our busiest time of the year please remember that our pastors not only serve the groups that come to build but their local congregations as well.  Your gift to this fund affirms to them their significance in giving the gospel message in the form of a house.  And just possibly another Mere Ureña will be the recipient of that house and fulfill Pastor Angel’s dream!

These crucial funds are needed now more than ever! Prayerfully consider a generous gift to the Angel Fund in honor of this Easter season.

In Him,

Scott and Gayla Congdon

Amor’s founder and CEO, Scott Congdon, will be writing the eNews for the next six months as Gayla works on her book!  Here is Scott’s first eNews.

Amor didn’t start out building homes for the poor.  Our first work began serving at an orphanage in Tijuana, Mexico.  However most of the children there were not orphans.  Many of the children had a parent or parents who lived in or around the Tijuana dump.  Gayla and I would often visit the families whose children were living at the orphanage because they had no home, or means to take care of them.  The children at the orphanage repeatedly reminded us that they truly would rather be living with their family than living at the orphanage – even though they had enough food and a roof over their head at the orphanage.  They wanted to be with their mom, their dad, and their brothers and sisters.

This is why Amor is, today and always, committed to helping keep families together.  It’s why our future is firmly dedicated to providing sustainable housing for the poor, the homeless, and those living in inadequate shelter.  Having a stable, safe, comfortable place to live is important to a person’s  well-being.  The effects of homelessness can be devastating: tearing families apart, serious illnesses, and depression.  Homeless families often have difficulty finding employment and can become chronically unemployed.  They can experience poor self-esteem and self-confidence.  They often end up lonely and socially isolated.Twenty five years ago Amor began working in a community deeply entrenched in poverty known as Cera Azul.  A young boy living there had negative ideas and views about the gospel, the church, and
anything related to that.  “I know it was ignorance on my part.  I didn’t believe in the gospel or the church or anybody,” he said.  At that time the families living in Cera Azul mostly lived in dirt floor shacks made from cardboard, old wood, and rusty materials.

While many missionaries from foreign countries began visiting nearby communities, this little boy remembers seeing houses being built by Amor.  He recalled someone from Amor talking to his father and asking him, “Don’t you want a house for you and your family?”  For this little boy the thought of a house was amazing!  It was hard to believe.  Yet sure enough his father and their family received a home from Amor.  “It was the first home that Amor built in that community,” he later said.  Seeing the joy on his family’s face was kind of like a light, “I had a bad experience and this helped clear things up regarding Christianity.”Shortly thereafter he attended a church service in his community and accepted Christ as his savior.  He began working with the youth of the church and three years later he became a pastor of a church.  This little boy whose heart was softened and healed after receiving a new home from Amor went on to become a pastor and is one of Amor’s longest serving members of our Mexico Ministry Planning Board.  This little boy, who today is known affectionately as “Pastor Mere,” says that the way that Amor is impacting their communities is literally opening doors for them as pastors. It is impacting their lives and bringing many people to Christ.  Pastor Mere recently said, “The Mexican pastors working in the communities, I want to say very humbly, by having the tool of giving a home to families in need in their communities has given us as pastors respect and make us honorable in the community with the families; even with the local authorities.  We can say we have the grace and the love of the community because of Amor and what Amor has done. The work that you have done will be rewarded in heaven.”

Keeping families together, sharing God’s love, and building hope is what Amor is all about.  “Keeping families together” means fewer children have to grow up in orphanages or are forced to live on the streets.  “Sharing God’s love” means that the transforming power of God’s love and grace is enveloping home after home, family after family, and child after child.  “Building hope” means a better today as well as a better future by pulling families out of homelessness, out of abject poverty, and into a community with greater security and opportunities.

It goes beyond loving your neighbor as yourself.  It captures the ethos of lifting families up above their dire circumstances to a greater reality of a better life here on this earth and even beyond.  It means more children will be parented by their mothers and their fathers.  It means more children will go to school and get an education.  It means more people will get jobs and provide better nutrition and better medical care for their families.  It means more families, more parents, more children will be able to serve alongside other families in their very own communities through their very own local churches.  Transformed lives, transformed communities, transformed futures.

Sometimes the need is so urgent that one of our pastors will request that we expedite the construction of a home for a family.  Often we will have a waiting list of 50 or even 100 families requesting a home.
In a recent case a Mexican family’s condition was so desperate that the father was getting ready to leave his family and go to the United States to find work.  He was going to put his children in an orphanage near the border and send his wife back to a small village to live in southern Mexico to live with family.  Could anything be worse than ripping a family apart like this?  Our pastors decided the need was so great that this family should move to the front of the list.  Their home was built, the children moved into their new home, their mother and father moved in with them, and their father found work in a nearby community.  Years later the family started attending a church and now they are leaders in their church.

Studies repeatedly show that helping families move from homelessness to home ownership drastically improves their conditions.  According to Habitat for Humanity, homeowners in the United States are 12 times wealthier, 10% more likely to attend church, their children are 25% more likely to graduate from high school, and their children are 59% more likely to own their own home after 10 years of leaving their parent’s household.  A home is a tool to a better today and a better future.  It’s why Amor has spent the last 32 years building more than 17,000 homes.  It’s also why Amor needs your continued prayers and support as we continue to change lives and invite you to “Come. Build. Hope.”

Scott Congdon
Founder and CEO

P.S. I am so excited to be writing the eNews for the next 6 months and that I have the chance to tell you all about Amor!

This letter was sent to some of our donors to ask them to be monthly supporters of our ministry.  We wanted to put it on the blog as we want all of you to join with us in ministry by financially supporting the work of Amor.  Visit www.amor.org/give/founders to give today!

Have you ever had a dream come true only to see it taken away for some unforeseen reason?  This is what happened to the Bustillos Marquez family – whose story you may have heard this past Christmas.  In 2008 they realized the dream of a home for their family when a group from Amor arrived to build them a house.  Then three years later that home was destroyed by a fire.

Pastor Eladio brought this story to our attention at our Mexico Ministry Planning Board meeting in Puerto Peñasco in November.  He told us that if we could get the materials, he would lead his congregation in rebuilding this family’s house.

Honestly we didn’t have the funds to do that.  But we stepped out in faith and trusted God to provide those resources and He did!  We genuinely believed that if this Mexican church was willing to take care of the Bustillos Marquez family by providing a place for them to live until they received their home and then willing to build it themselves, we had to trust God to give us the funds for the materials.

Over 32 years ago God gave Scott and me a dream to build houses so that families could stay together.  This past fall that dream was challenged and your generosity has kept that dream alive.  And we are so grateful to you from the bottom of our hearts.

We are now writing to ask you to prayerfully consider becoming a monthly donor to our Founder’s Fund if you aren’t already.  The monies in that fund would allow us as a ministry to respond immediately to requests like this one from Pastor Eladio.  If every person that responded to our urgent appeal made a commitment of $100 per month we could significantly expand our ministry.

The Bustillos Marquez family has once again realized their dream of having a home.  In the first week of January, Pastor Eladio and his church rebuilt their house with the materials provided by Amor because of the generosity of people like you.  We have included with this letter a picture of the before and after so you can see what your gift could do on a regular basis.  Please keep this as a reminder of the blessing you have been.

Go to www.amor.org/give/founders to become a monthly member of the Founder’s Fund.  Join with us as we build homes for families in need and see dreams come true!

In His Service,

Scott and Gayla Congdon

The Bustillos Marquez family in front of their house that burned down.

The family in the new house.  Their dream has come true again!

What was the gift that you dreamed most of receiving for Christmas when you were a little kid?  Were you like Ralphie in the “Christmas Story” yearning for the Red Ryder BB gun?  Or did you hope for a desk and chalkboard where you could make your younger brother play school?

Most likely, a house was never on your Christmas list.  Having a home is just something most of us took for granted.  It would have never crossed our minds to ask for that.  But that is what the Bustillos Marquez family of Puerto Peñasco is asking for right now.

In 2008 they were approved to receive a home in the community of San Rafael.  They were paying for the land so their house could be built with an income of about $80 a week. With three children, including one with autism, this family was living in one room with a dirt floor and a damaged roof.

The Amor bio of the family says that they were “eagerly awaiting the arrival” of the group that was going to help them build their new home.  And the Bustillos Marquez family wanted to say “thank you so much for your help and the blessing this house will be to our children.”  Over three days in November of 2008, the family saw their dream of a home come true!

But three years later this dream was burned to the ground.

As you can see in the picture the Bustillos Marquez family no longer has a home to bless their children.  However, they have a Pastor, Eladio Calderon, from our Mexico Ministry Planning Board that cares about them and has asked us to help this family rebuild their dream.

Our pastors in Puerto Peñasco are eagerly awaiting the funds so that they and their church members can build this family a new home.  We are personally asking you to give this holiday season to help not only this family, but also so many others that are in need.

In a couple of weeks children will be opening the gifts they dreamed of receiving for Christmas.  And as you and your family sit around your tree in the warmth of your home, wouldn’t it be a blessing to end your year by making the dream of this family come true once again?

Click here to give, knowing that your gift will allow our Pastors to help this family and more this holiday season!

In the true spirit of Christmas,
Scott and Gayla Congdon

By Gayla Congdon

The last line from Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire is “I have always depended on the kindness of strangers.”  I can just imagine that is how the man traveling from Jerusalem to Jericho in the parable of the Good Samaritan felt after being beaten, robbed and left for dead.

The injured man maybe never heard that two professional religious workers, a priest and a Levite, not only passed him by but had moved to the other side of the road to avoid him.  So much for the kindness of strangers. In the parable a stranger from an unlikely place, Samaria, helped a Jewish man that day on the side of the road.  This was an out of the ordinary act of kindness by a Samaritan for a Jew.

This past month I was traveling alone from Nice, France to Luton, England.  As is typical for me, I got on the plane and picked my seat closest to the bathroom.  I then sat down, opened my Kindle and began reading until the flight attendant would tell me to turn it off.  I normally get lost in the adventure of what I’m reading and don’t notice the commotion around me.  On this flight there was unusual commotion as a gentleman was being asked to leave the plane and he was looking through all of the overhead bins for his suitcase.

Scott often tells me I should be more aware of my surroundings and on that day he was right.  Before I knew it the man opened the bin above me and pulled out his suitcase.  And all I remember is being hit very hard in the head with the suitcase.  I woke up to someone that looked like a rugby player asking me, “Are you okay?”  I still don’t know why that man was asked to leave the plane.

But what happened after that reminded me of the parable in Luke about the Good Samaritan.  A complete stranger, very likely from Britain, reached over and took my hand and asked if I was okay and if I needed any help.  He gave me a Kleenex to wipe my tears as I cried over the pain caused by the impact of that 30 pound suitcase.  And throughout my whole flight he was there taking care of me.  At that moment I was living the last line from A Streetcar Named Desire, as I was depending on the kindness of that stranger.  On that day – a British man helped an American woman.  Two strangers who were brought together by an act of kindness.

Each June families descend on Mexico from all over the United States as part of the Amor Family Camp.  The six houses those families built this year came as a result of kindness by a group of strangers.

That is what happens each time you serve with us in one of our locations.  I believe, especially now when so many people are passing by our neighbors in Mexico and “moving to the other side of the road,” that those of you who continue to come are in the truest sense of this parable, Good Samaritans.

During the last weekend in July, a group of women from all over the U.S. came together for training as small group leaders for next year’s Women of Strength Mission Trip in South Africa.  That Saturday three vans of women traveled from Phoenix to Globe, Arizona where most of the group of 22 worked on building a pop stand for Apache women to sell their fry bread.  They worked in excruciating heat with a goal of completing a new place for Apache women to work and make a living for their families.  Those of us that served that weekend, in a variety of ways on the reservation, saw it as a privilege to give acts of kindness to our Apache neighbors.

In Luke 10, a discussion begins between Jesus and a man who is an expert in the law.  Jesus asks the man what is written in the law about receiving eternal life and the man’s answer in verse 27 is “love your neighbor as yourself.”  The man asks Jesus, “Who is my neighbor?” – which leads into the parable of the Good Samaritan.

Christian author, Warren Wiersbe, says the question we must answer is not “Who is my neighbor – but to whom can I be a neighbor?”  And he goes on to say that our neighbor is anybody who needs us, anybody whom we can help.  Those who are desperately depending on the kindness of strangers.

May we always live the life of a Good Samaritan.