I guess it first hit me when I saw the girls coming home from school.

Wearing white blouses and knee stockings, black shoes and matching skirts, and carrying their books, they walked into the compound as happy as any American schoolgirl.

I couldn't help but compare them to the kids who walk past our home near North Ward -- make that McCook Elementary -- twice a day.

In ways, they were no different. They came home, helped with laundry and cooking, did their homework, and, if there was time, watched a TV show or two.

Of course, there is poverty in McCook, but nothing to compare to what we saw in Mexico last week.

Thanks to Wayne and Marilyn Devries, a "retired" Cambridge builder and kindergarten teacher, dozens of members and friends of our church have had the experience of a lifetime.

Formerly RV'ers, the Devries got involved in Mexico when they were invited to help with a project of their own. Since then, Wayne has put his skills to work building a half-dozen church buildings south of the border.

Six of us flew out of Denver a week ago Thursday to Mazatlan and returned a week later, I think it's fair to say, as changed men.

For me, it was my first trip out of the country, and my first good look at a culture other than my own white-bread middle America.

The Devries are helping a local pastor and his wife and their five children improve living conditions in the mission they have called home for the past several years.

It is a former drug lord's compound with high brick walls, steel doors and a small structure, formerly including a vault, that serves as the pastor's home.

Children sleep under a corrugated tin roof, and cooking is done in an open-air kitchen on a propane stove, and the varying number of residents share a single toilet.

But if not for the mission, many of the children would be living on the street. About the time we arrived, a mother, who could no longer endure the abuse of her husband, moved in, along with her five children.

We knew we were not even making a dent in the needs for Mazatlan's million or so people, but we put our skills, such as they were, to work mixing concrete and mortar by hand and laying locally produced red bricks into the rough shape of a new bathroom and shower facilities that eventually will serve the boys dorm.

The bricklaying was undertaken much to the quiet chagrin of our skilled builder host and the amusement of one Mexican bricklayer who visited the compound.

Optometrist Tim Burrows, who fitted about 100 pairs of donated glasses during our visit, said the bricklayer reported unusual vision problems.

Everything looks wavy, he told the doctor, for instance, that brick wall going up over there!

Lest my companions accuse me of giving the wrong impression, our delegation underwent few hardships -- other than my sleeping habits -- during our visit. We slept in comfortable beds, ate delicious meals and enjoyed swimming in the cool Pacific and shopping in Mazatlan's tourist and traditional markets.

While I contend there was tight competition in the snoring department, one of the top critics of my sleeping technique was the same guy who slept with his hearing aides in the bathroom.

By the time we left, we had completed the brick walls of the bathroom, plastered the inside walls and poured a concrete floor for the new kitchen.

We're counting on a couple of more delegations -- the first of which leaves early Thursday morning -- to pick up where we left off.

But I know there will always be a lot more work to do in Mexico, and I know at least one guy who will be ready to go the next chance he gets.