HELPING THE POOR IN A CONCRETE WAY.

Byline: DENNIS McCARTHY

You don't forget the faces, they say. The faces stay on your mind long after you've come home to your real job and comfortable lifestyle.

Last November, it was the faces of two elderly sisters, one of them crippled. They were living in the hills outside Tijuana in an 8-by-10-foot shack with a dirt floor that flooded every time it rained.

``They slept together on one cot in the corner with a river literally running through the middle of the shack,'' said Rick Hall, a member of the Church of the Valley in Van Nuys.

Hall and 25 members of his congregation traveled to the poverty-ridden village of Lomas del Valle, about 10 miles south of the Otay Mesa-U.S. border crossing, halfway between Tijuana and Tecate. There, in one weekend, they built a house for the women - four times as big as the shack and set on a concrete slab.

``As we were pulling away in our vans, the sisters stood in the doorway crying and waving at us,'' he said.

``A couple of our people were crying, too. It was pouring rain outside, but those sisters were going to sleep dry in their new house that night - and every night.''

Last weekend, the congregation returned to Lomas del Valle and built a similar home for Fortino and Luz Maria Gomez, both 22. The couple and their three young children, with twins on the way, had been living in a 12-foot-square room with a dirt floor and no windows.

They, too, stood in the doorway of their new little house, waving as the church vans pulled away Saturday night - their grateful faces etched in Kat Ferson's mind.

``It gives you such a different perspective on your own life, and makes you realize your problems are nothing compared (with) these people,'' said Ferson, a member of the church.

On Saturday, she was in Mexico helping to build a tiny home for a poor family. On Monday, she was back to work as a Los Angeles travel agent, booking month-long European vacations for the well-to-do.

``All these people have the fire in their belly, the passion to do something wonderful for other people who have absolutely nothing,'' said Paula Claussen, who runs Project Mercy, a nonprofit organization that has built more than 100 homes in some of Baja's poorest areas since 1997.

Besides a few churches, like the Church of the Valley, the organization relies heavily on volunteers and groups like Rotary Clubs, which also make trips across the border to build homes.

``Within a day, the Gomez family went from mud and dirt to a small basic home that's a castle to them,'' Claussen said Monday.

``While we were building it Saturday, a woman we had built a home for last year said to me that no one in the village could ever imagine that poor people like them would ever have a beautiful home like this.''

As Ferson said, it gives you a different perspective on life.

``In 24 hours, you've changed someone's life forever - and your own,'' said Hall, who works as an actor.

On Thursday and Friday, he was in New York shooting a commercial. On Saturday, he pushed trucks stuck in mud up the hills so Church of the Valley members could build a home for a young family they didn't even know.

``On the way back to the Valley we were all talking about what this tiny home meant to that family, and one of our members - a big, strong carpenter - started crying,'' Hall said.

``You don't realize how much all this affects you until you look back as you're leaving - and see those faces,'' he said.

Anyone interested in more information on Project Mercy, located in Poway in San Diego County, can reach Paula Claussen at [phone].

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Photo: (1 -- 2) At left, the dirt floor in this Mexican shack shared by two elderly sisters flooded in wet weather. Above, in one weekend, members of Church of the Valley in Van Nuys built a new house set on a concrete slab.