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It's NOT too late to sign up still for the June 24-28th trip!! See the
registration page to the left for details and the registration form. This
will be a smaller trip with some 150 people so a great time for first
timers to jump in and experience the Club Dust adventure in giving!
Urgent- Please see the "Passport Requirements for Land Travel"
if you will be attending Club Dust. Passports are required to reenter the
U.S. from Mexico starting in June.
We
are receiving many questions about the swine flu and how it may affect the
upcoming trip in June. We recommend that you monitor the sites below
as well as any other ones that you trust and rely on for health and travel
info. The plan is to hold the trip as scheduled and take all reasonable
precautions that are recommended at the time of the trip. We will issue
credit to a future trip or refund money to those people that decide by
June 15 not to go. We will update this home page of our website between
now and the start of the trip as we learn more about the situation and how
we can best serve the families in need there.
WebMD News Alert [WebMDBulletin@health.webmd.com] or you can check out
http://wwwn.cdc.gov/travel/contentSwineFluMexico.aspx.
Please see the statement from the World
health organization re NOT restricting travel at http://www.who.int/csr/disease/swineflu/guidance/public_health/travel_advice/en/index.html
Watch
our Club Dust Video to learn best what we are all about !
Club Dust 2009-a service adventure
done in God's grace and love
We will miss our good friend Alan
Ankerbrand who went home to his new address in heaven this May.
We have a next trip
planned for June 24-28th. We will be building at
least 3
portable and 3 foundation homes along with giving away 1500 pairs of
shoes and a load of furniture that we build on the trip itself. You can
see pictures of recent trips at snapfish.com Use the login
of Ray@clubdust.org and use the
password Mexico to get access to the folders that people have set up
there over the past few years. You can also see pictures of past trips
at Angel photography at
http://www.onlinepictureproof.com/angelphotography
There is also
a great video download by clicking on the buttons to the left. This
video tells the story of Club Dust in sight and sound very
accurately!
The
evening program theme is a fun one called the
Hidden Valley Safari. Think
Indiana Jones meets the little rascals sorta scene! Please sign up early so we can reserve the correct number of buses and
vans to haul us all around with enough food and Gatorade. We do need
funds to buy the material for the homes , latrines , casitas and food. We hope to get shoes and socks donated again but all
the rest rely on donations that folks make who have already been on a CD
trip in the past. The cost of the foundation homes is
$5559.57 including the latrine that we supply with each home we build. The casitas
are $1700 and the food costs approx $1500 for the beans and rice and veggies
that we give away. The church funding is managed by Randy Strong. You
can reach him via his email at
Randy@csbuild.com The budget for the upcoming trip with 10 homes to
pay for is over $40,000 so thanks for being part of where it
comes from. We have a list of creative ideas and sources if you want to
help with this. Ray is easy to reach at
Ray@clubdust.org to discuss ideas or get some history on past
sources for funds. One idea is to have everyone who comes on the trip
raise $250 personally. With 200 adults coming this would generate
$50,000 and would allow everyone to have a financial investment in the
homes built and food given in Christ's name. You will be pleasantly
surprised how easily you can raise that $250 if you
share with people in your daily lives what the money will be going
towards.
Club Dust invites anyone interested in serving the families to join in
on the trip. It is a simple but very effective way to help others and
experience the joy of serving with others from around North America.
To
register please click on the registration link to the left, print out
the registration and waiver forms and fill them out. Mail them to
Anita Strong at the Santa Cruz address along with your check and you are
part of the show! The itinerary starts with a 5 pm meeting at the San
Diego airport on June 24th and returns back there by 1 pm on June 28th.
Plan your travels to and from the Airport accordingly. The days at Club
Dust are busy but require a bit of flexibility, grace and fun but not a
whole lot of planning or thought on your part. You will eat well, work
hard and sleep soundly after a day's work building or helping with food,
furniture or donations. Check out the itinerary link for further
details and stay tuned to this website as the trip gets closer.
Club Dust Winter Trip 2008 Wrap-up
Thanks
all of you who were involved in this trip. We think it was the best
overall trip in our 29 year history. The mix of giving, building, laughter and
worship made for the best 5 day new year's party imaginable! This trip
in particular was filled with first timers who stepped out and plugged
in with hands on gusto. We had lots of comments and thanks from women
in particular who took on new skills of building.
This was often done at the
encouragement of the building leaders who taught
their team members how to do various
building skills throughout the trip.
Thanks to Scott,
Mark, Susan, the Moores and Sierra for loading your pictures on
Snapfish.com already. The login name is
ray@clubdust.org and the password is Mexico. When you load your
photos it'll help if you prune out the ones that are near duplicates,
poor quality photos or ones that shouldn't be seen to the outside world. I don't
know if that includes those shots of friends waking up with sleep hair or
caught in embarrassing "throne" shots, I'll leave that to your discretion
and willingness to take revenge from your dorm mates and friends. Do label
your folder in Snapfish with your name , and trip id,
ie "Frans
Schnellskier, Club
dust 08" Also if you can orient pics
for viewing it will make the slideshow feature even more effective as
folks look over the trip together with others at work and in
conversation over the next months. The new shirts that James designed
were made to facilitate that conversation too. It tells clearly the
Biblical directive on the front (James 1:27) and on the back shows the
website and a great graphic that will facilitate some questions and
comments. Use those questions to have the conversations that are
meaningful and deep with those you encounter
throughout your daily life.
It is fun to think
of the 10 families who have been sleeping in their new homes and will
for many nights to come. If you come back to CD sometime please visit
these families
as you would any family friend and see how the house has become a
home. Our hope is that the homes will be hooked up to electricity and
that the community will have
water brought in by pipe in the near future. There were several improvements
added to the homes with plants and brick patios, furniture and curtains.
This summer we hope to increase the number of shoes donated as well as have a
burrito / watermelon feast alongside the donation line to serve the
folks that are waiting for their turn.
These
new ideas came from people who had the suggestions of how CD could be
better and were willing to take the responsibility to make it happen!
The fun part of our organizational structure
is how we welcome and accept change and new
ideas which causes a never ending flow of change
making each trip better and better. We hope
that your time at Club Dust will encourage you to reach out and help
provide solutions to the needs that you see
around you throughout the year. It can be a really fun experience
that will be life changing
as you find yourself considering becoming a youth group leader, volunteer for habitat for humanity, server
at the local mission or a hundred other places to plug in.
The highlight
memories from this trip are a great collage of people engaged with a
whole variety of projects including:
Ken's furniture
factory on steroids. 11 sets of tables and bunk beds, all built to the
Ken Payne highest standards of Furniture construction!
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5 new casitas given
to families living along the railroad tracks |
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A new latrine and
roof for Ezechial and his wife Maria |
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A new roof for a
mother and her 7 kids living in a single room garage door house
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More work completed
on the Pedregal church. Roof is almost ready to go on |
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5 foundation homes
including latrines |
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Over
1000 pairs of new or like new shoes donated from Sketchers and bought
with donations from club dust members
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2000 new pairs of
socks donated by Mountain High sock company |
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3000 lbs of food
donated by folks on the trip |
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Soccer clothes and
balls donated by AYSO to orphanages and a school for the deaf in
Ensenada. |
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Porch
bricks bought from one of the casita recipients and made into
porches for the foundation homes. |
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Countless
fingernails painted by the Club
Dust teenage girls
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Approx 20 plants and
fruit trees bought from one of our local families in TJ and planted at
the foundation homes.
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The stories behind
Club Dust are great to hear and we welcome any ones that you can share
with us . The
contacts for Club Dust are available on the
www.clubdust.org site. It also has family profiles, maps of where
we are building each trip and building plans. You can see pictures from
Club Dust trips over the past 10 years and can download the
Club Dust
video to get the feel of Club Dust in sight and sound.
Thanks again for
being part of it all, for working hard and long , for laughing loud and
full and for contemplating your own relationship with God and thus with
each other as His creation.
We have a next trip
planned for June 24-28th. The theme is a fun one called the Orient
express. Think Kung fu panda meets flying dragons and leaping tigers.
Please sign up early so we can reserve the correct number of buses and
vans to haul us all around with enough food and Gatorade. We do need
funds to buy the material for the homes , latrines , casitas,
church
blocks and food. We hope to get shoes and socks donated again but all
the rest rely on donations that folks make who have already been on a CD
trip in the past. The cost of the foundation homes is
$5559.57 including the latrine that we supply with each home we build. The casitas
are $1700 and the food costs $1500 for the beans and rice and veggies
that we give away. The church funding is managed by Randy Strong. You
can reach him via his email at
Randy@csbuild.com The budget for the upcoming trip with 10 homes
and church work is over $40,000 so thanks for being part of where it
comes from. We have a list of creative ideas and sources if you want to
help with this. Ray is easy to reach at
Ray@clubdust.org to discuss ideas or get some history on past
sources for funds. One idea is to have everyone who comes on the trip
raise $250 personally. With 200 adults coming this would generate
$50,000 and would allow everyone to have a financial investment in the
homes built and food given in Christ's name. You will be pleasantly
surprised how easily you can raise that $250 if you start the planting
now, 5 months in advance of the trip.
In closing we are
sending a link to 2 videos that were made by the same mediameister that
made our Club Dust video.
To view these just copy and paste these to your browser,
These will help you to carry on the Club
Dust feeling throughout the
year and share with others as a way to invite them to join in on future
trips,. Using these videos with others
can
help to facilitate conversation and thought of what this world should
be like and how we can live in it while making it better for everyone.
Email Ray if you are
interested in a day trip throughout the year or
if you want to provide some help
for any of the families that we have already built
for on one of the past CD trips.
God bless you with
grace, love and joy during this interesting time in
our history. We'll continue providing decent homes, food and support for
families living in extreme poverty and welcome your being a part of it
in God's name and love.
The Club dust
leadership team
Our Mission
Serving God's people in simple
obedience to James 1:27 "Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and
faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to
keep oneself from being polluted by the world"
No if's, and's, or
someday
- Just Do It!
The Word on the Street
From a Mom who
recently returned from her trip with Club dust.
Thank you
for your support and vision with Club Dust.
I believe it is good for my soul to build a house for someone in need
and Club Dust makes it possible. I
thank you for that.
My family benefits from the experience beyond anything else I could
come up with to make us grow together. I want to continue to digest
the experience and hold it in for a while before I return to my routine.
Yes, we will return if you will have us next year.
Peace to you and your family. I hope you have a great start to
the New Year.
From a teen ager from Northern
California
Hey! Back from Mexico as you
know. Thank you once again for the money that you gave to send me on the
trip.
This trip that I took was
amazing, probably one of my best experiences ever. It really opened up
my world view, I have not realized before the sheltered world that I
live in.
Of course I knew I was
sheltered but I have never seen this type of thing with my eyes. Every
day we got up at six and went to the houses to start
painting/framing/roofing etc. (I mostly painted, my hammer skills are
not exactly the best). The last day I went to the donation
center. The donation center is full of food, clothes, shoes, socks, toys
for the kids, and other random items that people put in the donation
bags. There were six stations for six families to come in one at a time
while one of us washed all of their feet and put clean socks on them.
This was to symbolize that "we are not the great white people here to
come and rescue the poor Mexicans." We should not have that attitude
that because we come from more blessed households that we should somehow
be better than others. Getting on our knees and washing their feet was
to humble ourselves and show them that we are all equals. Also just an
interesting fact to throw in there, one pair of shoes for us costs them
about a weeks salary, therefore it made a world of difference that we
came in, and gave them socks, shoes, clothes, food, and toys for the
little kids.
The line for the donations
center had hundreds upon hundreds of people in it and it never got any
shorter throughout with whole day.
When I was on the railroad
tracks looking out from the bus at the houses, if you can call the tarp
covered, four wall, thin wooded, shacks, actually houses, a woman from
our group made an
observation. The people were so poor but the families were all gathered
together and looked, amazingly enough, happy. The woman commented
something like how we as Americans have advantages and disadvantages.
The people in Mexico have awful living conditions yet us Americans are
wonderfully blessed. Then again, family is all that they have and the
people are forever grateful for their family. We sometimes get so caught
up in the hustle-bustle of city life that we forget that which is so
important: our family. A family is supposed to be something that sticks
together no matter what,
that overcomes hardships no matter how hard, soley because of love for
each other. I thought
what this women said was so true so I just decided to share it with you.
:-)
(for those who don't know, that is a smily face on its side)
This trip has helped me see
with clearer eyes:
1 First of all, it let me
finally full understand inner beauty verses outer beauty. Outer beauty
is nice while it lasts, but it does not stay. Inner beauty, if you reign
it correctly, stays forever, and is much more rewarding than looking
nice.
2 Second, we all should be
grateful for what we are given. Don't take anything for granted.
3 Third, what the problems out
in the real world are. I have only been to Mexico, not even to a drastic
place like Africa or South America. If little trip can blow me away I
can only imagine how large the needs are in the greater world.
4 Fourth, this is definitely
not my last trip. Hopefully
I will go to other places too.
I know that I am just one person yet I want to try the best as I
can to make a difference in the world.
Christ has blessed me with
such a wonderful, loving, and supporting family. Thank you so much.
I know this is a really
cheesy letter but I mean every word
From a Mother who just returned from
Club dust with her husband and kids
> I've been trying to describe to friends here what exactly it is that I
> find so inspiring about you all
at Club Dust . It has something to do with the lack of
> time and space you put between the thoughts or feelings that come to you
> and your steps towards action. Action that is immediate and relevant and
> straight from the heart. There is NO extra time when you're on the these
> trips and yet so much of the decision making of who gets the pop houses
> and who receives the donations happens on the spot. And then there are
> the families like the one you and Craig and Sarah spoke with and built a
> patio and latrine for. That just came up. You literally walked into that
> situation. You were there, open and ready. Amazing. It's that immediacy
> I think that pulls us all into the present moment which is really what
> makes us feel alive and able to connect to the families we are there to
> help. I feel like in my regular life back home, the spark of an
> idea...it's energy and it's passion, can get drowned out in all the
> "thought" of how "Best" to move on the idea. Is it the right move? Is
> there a better one? Is there someone better who can do this than me?
> Should I consult with 800 people before I move? By the end of all that
> internal dialog, the original idea is so diminished or drowned out. You
> guys don't seem to do that at all. And on the flip side, you don't get
> too hung up on all that you can't do. Seeing Heidi at the dump, where
> Ellen and Edith and I were bombarded with requests for pop houses and
> feeling so full of that powerless feeling....how can we get all these
> families a house...feeling overwhelmed and guilty that we couldn't house
> them all....Heidi remained clearheaded and still open to what we were
> there to do....meet Olga, deliver a few goods to the people we could and
> to observe with compassion...this unbelievable life these families have
> there. On my own...I'd just be wracked with questions I'd mull over
> endlessly and emotions that would tie me up in internal knots all of
> which take me completely out of the present moment and certainly don't
> move me into action. You guys MOVE. It's really amazing to be around and
> to learn from.
>
>
> My kids have a great book called the Three Questions where a young boy
> wants to know
> What's the most important thing to do?
> Who's the most important one?
> What's the most important time?
>
> The wise old tortoise helps him see the answer he already lives/
> knows....The most important time is NOW, the most important one is the
> one you are with and the most important thing to do is to help the one
> you are with.
>
> >
Contact Information
To see all of the Club Dust
leaders e-mails address click below
Contact Us
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