Habitat for Humanity fun

Today we got up early at dawn and put on our tennis shoes, t-shirts, and jeans, removed our jewelry, and set out to help build a couple houses with Habitat for Humanity. I’ve always wanted to help build a house, I’ve just never been taught how… until today! It was so cool getting up on the ladder and hammering some nails into the framework where the ceiling and roof is going next. Sometimes I’d make the mistake of hammering a nail into the 2×4 where another nail would be hiding underneath where the stud is – which resulted in a few bent nails, which thankfully were rehammered very quickly. There’s something very tomboy about wearing a toolbelt, so I wore it with a humorous sort of masculine pride that reminded me of Home Improvement’s Tim Allen. I even used a circular saw for the first time, even though I have one collecting dust at home. It was empowering and awesome.

After a while, the project supervisor, Adrian, asked some of us volunteers to follow him to a second house which is yardwork-away from being done. And when I say yardwork, let me tell you, it was a lot of work. By the end of the day, I could practically ring my shirt out with sweat just from beating the ground with a rake – and I loved every minute of it because my body felt good to exercise outdoors, plus the weather decided to be a perfect 80 degrees. There was satisfying release digging my hands into the ground to pull up rocks, hay, metal, glass, clay, and all sorts of unidentified objects (the house was built on an old junkyard). When little earthworms would dance on their bellies, crawling on the rocky surface, I couldn’t help but be fascinated by their abilities to live so far underground. It quickly reminded me (and humbled me too) of a world of life that lives beneath our houses, in our yards, underneath our footsteps. I can’t wait to see what the house looks like when it’s done from the outside because a few weeks from now, the grass will begin to grow (I even seeded the ground with grass seeds with this cool hand-crank thingy) and the new owners will feel a sense of accomplishment and pride. We handpulled and raked rocks out of the hamburger-textured ground after unloading 4 hours worth of straw from the dirt (if you look in the background of one of the photos, you’ll see that giant haystack we made!).

Habitat for Humanity is one of the coolest charities there is, in my opinion, because they are local and they give gifts that keep on giving – even the tenants not only help build their house, but they also donate “man hours” worth of sweat towards helping other people get their houses built. It’s a perfect circle of happiness. Everyone there was tactful, polite, and full of authentic smiles (which trust me, if you spend time smiling at people at a crowded intersection, it’s easy to realize very quickly who is genuine and who is not). It was such a relief to be in an environment where everyone was helping everyone. Even language barriers didn’t prevent our Spanish friends from communicating with us.

An elderly gentlemen who, with tears welling up in his eyes while hammering wood together to make a column on the porch, said his wife of 50 years is – at that moment – dying in a nursing home. He listed her ailments, which could fill an entire page, and said she only started getting sick 2 or 3 months ago. Although her life is hanging by a thread, he still chooses to build the house cause he knows it’s what she wants. Their 50 year anniversary was last week – and she’s on her death bed. It was a bittersweet story, and on some level, I wasn’t really sure what to tell him because I felt nothing I could say could possibly empathize with that. I mean, 50 years. How could I even conceive that. The best I can do is pray and send lots of positive thoughts to him and his wife, and write about his story here in my blog in hopes others also will send healing vibes their way. The dirt on the back of my pants may eventually come off, but a higher level of compassion and more resourceful house-building skills will always remain with me. It’ll be nice when we go back and spend the day with them again, which will be very soon!

Here are some photos from our experience:

Love

Isabella

xooxoxox