The villages outside of Oaxaca City are home to thousands of impoverished families. Life is harsh for these families and their future is dim. Each home is a small mosaic of corrugated metal, no larger than a 15-passenger van. Many survive by shoveling waste in the city dump, which sits on the edge of the village. The poverty is appalling and deadly illnesses strike often. Many have lost children to preventable illnesses because the dirt floors they live on are invested with bacteria.

Forward Edge teams help to meet the basic needs of the poorest of the poor in Oaxaca, specifically in these villages. Volunteers pour concrete pads, pisos in Spanish, in the dirt-floor huts of the villagers, diminishing the risk of disease and restoring the families’ pride in their homes. On a seven-day trip, Forward Edge teams can pour approximately 12 pisos!

Due to the instable Oaxacan school district, many children are home during the day while their parents work, and they are hurting for attention. Forward Edge teams spend time specifically with these children, developing friendships, playing games and sharing Christ’s love with them.

In 2005, another local ministry pulled out of Oaxaca and asked Forward Edge International to manage a clinic they’d built for impoverished Oaxacan families. Manos de Ayuda, Hands of Help, continues to serve hundreds of poor Oaxacans each year. Forward Edge volunteer teams help to repair and improve the property. Medical volunteers perform life-changing cataract removal surgeries—a medical miracle in a developing country like Mexico.