Millard & Linda Fuller Blitz Build 2008 – San Luis Talpa, El Salvador

Day Three

On Wednesday, Dianne Fuller, FCH board member and the daughter-in-law of Millard and Linda, led devotions, which she dedicated to the masons. “The challenge is not the bricks and mortar; it’s not the food and water, the plans, or the materials. We always have enough resources when we do God’s work,” she said. “The challenge is believing that we can do it. Believing that we can work together to eliminate poverty housing.” The blitz builders were up to the challenge because on hump day, the walls were almost done and the roofs were starting to go on. Everyone began to relax and enjoy the gracious hospitality and hard work of our Salvadoran hosts, who were led by one very unusual American with a huge heart for the needy in El Salvador.

Salvadorans are among the most friendly, hospitable people in the world, and without them the build itself and the great time we had in El Salvador would not have been possible. From the homeowner ladies who did double duty laying block and serving soft drinks, to the kids from the neighborhood who hosed the site to keep the dust down and filled our water bottles, our local teammates did not miss a beat.


The dozen masons, led by maestro de obra (master) Luis, deserve special mention. The masons are paid by the piece, and the desire to make as much money as possible to help their families means they work long and hard days in the unforgiving tropical sun, starting well before our volunteers did and staying afterwards to clean up any mistakes. The masons had never seen anything like the blitz build. A hundred people (most of them not in the construction business) coming all the way to El Salvador to work for free for five days to help people they don’t even know? Several were moved to speak at devotions or to give a blessing, and the themes were always gratitude and awe.

Project Assistant Carmen Gallardo deserves a huge round of applause not only for hosting our group but also for hosting numerous work teams that came before us. Carmen, who is a trained chef, famous for her paella (hence our fantastic meals on the site) and who studied in Canada (hence her fantastic English), coordinated logistics for the entire event: hotels, buses, catering, t-shirts, hats, signs, you name it.

Finally, Mike Bonderer and his wife Zuze (pronounced “Suzie”) kept things running, quietly and with little fanfare, and special note should be made of Mike’s story and how he got to The Fuller Center.

To say that Mike’s life is like a telenovela (Spanish-language soap opera) is putting it mildly: only a ballad could do it justice, not this paragraph on our Web site. Briefly, Mike survived a series of unfortunate events, including some close calls with his health. Eight years ago, he decided to thank God for keeping him around a little longer by devoting his life to helping others, so he loaded up his truck and drove to Central America with his dog Jake. Misadventures ensued, but things straightened out when he met Zuzelinda, the lovely Nicaraguan who is now his wife, and Zuze’s daughters, Marley and Wanda, whom Mike adopted.

Mike had been in the construction business for years in Kansas City. He brought equipment down, and with the backing of businessmen from his hometown, he formed Homes from the Heart, a humanitarian organization that has built some 300 homes for the needy as well as schools and clinics, including a Patch Adams’ Clinic. When FCH decided to do this year’s blitz build in El Salvador, Mike began working with Trish Stoops, who had done a a terrific job of getting things started in the country, to ramp up for the blitz.

“I had never heard of a blitz build before, and I though you guys were crazy at first. But it was a great experience and we did it,” says Mike. “I have to admit, I was kind of happy to pass the trowel to Lynda Spofford (representing next year’s host, The Chattahoochee Fuller Center Project), on that last night, though.”