Doxa creates opportunities for people to serve Tijuana through
house building, education, and long-term community.
Doxa creates opportunities for people to serve Tijuana through
house building, education, and long-term community.
Today is Giving Tuesday and also the launch of Doxa’s 4th Annual December Matching Campaign. If we haven’t met before, I’m Alex Knopes and I have the privilege of serving as Doxa’s executive director. Part of Doxa’s vision is to see people in Tijuana flourish relationally and economically. We’ve found house building, education, and long-term community as rather effective tools in achieving this vision.
A new house for a family can be life-changing, allowing the parents to focus on providing for their kids instead of worrying about tomorrow’s rain forecast and a leaky roof. A new house allows the children in the family to focus on school and just being a kid, instead of repeated illness from living on a dirt floor.
A Doxa education scholarship can be the cornerstone to breaking the cycle of poverty, allowing children to have a better life than their parents have had. While the material items (like school supplies, uniforms, shoes, and backpacks) are essential to success in the classroom, mentoring and tutoring these students on a daily basis is where real impact happens. Over the course of this year, Doxa has expanded its number of tutors to allow for more individualized attention.
Building long-term community does not happen overnight; and Doxa’s 33-year existence is a testament to that. Doxa’s community center provides a place where everyone is welcome and can grow in relationship with each other and with Christ. Dance classes, summer camps, sports, exercise classes, field trips, community events, parenting workshops, and access to counseling are some of the offerings. Over the past year, we’ve taken a renewed focus to partnering with more specialized organizations. For example, Dunamis is a local organization that brings Kids Club once a month. A Saturday of fun and games, with a meaningful message about Christ for everyone.
Doxa’s board of directors has generously pledged $42,500 in matching funds, so all donations up to that amount will be doubled through the end of this year.
Over the next few weeks, we invite you to follow along as we take a deeper dive into Doxa’s impact throughout Tijuana, focusing on a new story each week. You can help by sharing Doxa’s message with others during this season and also prayerfully consider donating before years’ end to double your financial impact.
Donations can be made online through Doxa’s website. We also accept various other types of donations.
Muchas gracias!
Greetings on behalf of the Doxa Board of Directors. We come to you with gratitude for your partnership and support and with humble eyes to see what God is doing in this chapter of our organization’s history.
In February, the Board completed its annual retreat and first quarter board meeting in Tijuana. The board members cover their own travel expenses to San Diego where we cross the border to Tijuana each January or February. The remaining three quarterly board meetings are now conducted virtually as the board is becoming geographically dispersed. Many board members travel to Tijuana at other parts of the year to participate in housebuilding trips, educational programs or community events like summer camp.
While in Tijuana this year, we had rich discussions with our Doxa staff, our partners at Unidos por Siempre, Rancho, and Hogar de Los Niños. We attended the first church service in ten years on the campus of Rancho and were blessed by the pastors of Grupo Unidad, the church that owns and operates Rancho. Pastor Marco spent time with us and credited Doxa with breathing life back into Rancho with our investments and the church has a renewed energy for its programs there.
Breaking bread or tortillas together has the ability to bring people together to build relationships and this year we were shown hospitality with tostadas at Unidos por Siempre, a wonderful taco dinner we shared with Doxa’s staff, partners and their families at the Doxa Community Center and breakfast provided for us by the staff at Hogar de Los Niños. Each of these encounters nourished our spirit and were rich in conversations along with good food. We cherish our time with our friends in TJ and they make us feel at home.
We have diversified our board with many members joining from outside the Seattle area. Over the last couple of years, we have enabled long time board members, Andrew, James B., Sharon and Ben to roll off the board and have made room for new board members to implement the strategic plan they developed and complement the work with their own innovative ideas to grow the mission of Doxa. We now have members on the board from Seattle and Spokane, Washington; Chicago, Illinois; Los Angeles, Ojai and Oakland, California. Each of our board members brings a unique perspective and a unique connection with the people of Tijuana. We have members in ministry, banking, education, investments, nursing and business. We’re here to learn from our team in Mexico and from each other while using our gifts to help others. Get to know our board (and Doxa’s entire team) by following this link to their profiles.
We are excited for 2024 as we continue to see housebuilding teams coming back and increasing in numbers. We are excited for our community programs and the growth of programs like the dance team and summer camp. We’re excited to provide meals and educational support to young students on both the East and West sides of Tijuana. We are also looking forward to making progress on the Community Center plans and to accelerate our fundraising efforts to bring that vision to life.
God has been at work in Tijuana long before we got here and He will be here long after each of us is gone. Let us be faithful to the part He has designed for each of us and let us work well together with humility and praise for His good work.
With gratitude,
Patrick McCallister
Doxa Board Chair
Starting in 2017, Doxa expanded house building operations to a second location in East Tijuana. Explosive population growth and economic development trends led to this expansion. In East Tijuana house building is a primary need, whereas on the West side it is no longer as big of a need as it once was. As the community’s needs change, so must Doxa.
This gave rise to the need for an East Tijuana Home Base: a place where house building groups could arrive, stay, plan, and be sent out with all necessary resources and materials. After bouncing around for the first couple years, Doxa found Rancho. Part of a local church called Grupo Unidad, Rancho’s property is extremely large at about 20 acres. When we found Rancho, we immediately recognized the opportunity that God had put before us.
Rancho is located on a main road with great access to many surrounding neighborhoods and has lots of open space for programming. In getting to know Marco and Jaime, who are both primarily responsible for Rancho’s operations, we found some kindred spirits. People who were motivated to more fully activate Rancho and turn it into a focal point for the local community. We worked on a rough vision, where Doxa is one member of the team that helps to give life to Rancho’s spaces and buildings.
In addition to a close partnership with Doxa, Rancho hosts a soup kitchen, church, rehabilitation center, summer camps, and monthly community events. Marco recently said that “prior to Doxa, many people at Grupo Unidad forgot about Rancho. Doxa coming alongside helped to wake us up and see this great opportunity!”
Doxa’s intention is to grow with Rancho and continue to more fully activate the spaces!
Throughout 2023, Doxa has worked on some larger projects at Rancho that help to turn it into a great home base. With these projects complete, Rancho is setup for the foreseeable future to competently host and send house building groups to all East Tijuana neighborhoods. These projects include a new materials shed, bridge for better vehicle access, enhanced entrance ramp, and kitchen appliance upgrades.
The new materials shed is capable of storing 14 houses worth of lumber and has multiple access points so more than one group can use it at a time without being on top of each other.
The bridge provides easy vehicle and semi-truck access to the shed; thereby allowing vehicles to park for loading and unloading. The enhanced entrance ramp helps to make Rancho’s driveway accessible by semi-truck and easier for smaller vehicles to enter and exit the property safely.
While still small, Rancho’s kitchen is fully equippd with everything needed to cook for groups of 100+ people. This specifically includes increased refrigerator and freezer space, commercial convection oven, larger sink, more countertop space, and storage shelving. It’s been awesome to see Rancho’s transformation over the past few years and a privilege to be a part of it. A partnership where the Holy Spirit is actively leading! We’re excited to see where we go next together!
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