We’re on the plane to New Jersey on the first leg of our trip home. We had such a great day yesterday. We worked again at the same home we were at Thursday. On Fridays, the other teams go on what is called an Excursion Day, it’s a fun day at a local river/water fall and resort. We’ve never done those, we always opt to work one more day, we’ve always felt that we come here to work, we can have our excursions on our own time. Anyway, at breakfast there was a young woman from one of the other teams at the table next to ours, she is from Connecticut, her name is Jessica. She and other women from our team shared sleeping quarters with Stephanie and Stacey. I had on a Habitat for Humanity t-shirt. She commented that she’s always wanted to do Habitat. She also said she knew we had been doing construction all week and she’d love to do that. Their team had been doing kids activities and strategic village time. It was about 8:00 and we were both heading out at 8:30. She was dressed for her excursion. I told her, if her team leader was OK with it and she could change quickly, she was welcome to join us. She said, I’m going to do it and was ready by 8:05. She was such a terrific addition to the team. She worked with Reggie applying stucco to exterior walls all day and she was working like a pro by the end. In fact, she and Reggie had met last year during her first trip to MOH. At the end of the day she said she had been communicating with a friend at home, and they’d love to join us next year. It seems like we’re always recruiting team members from other places.
This year, like many, we were blessed with additional funds sent by others for ‘anything that might come up’. When we arrived at the site yesterday morning, the pastor told us that we would not be able to do as much as originally planned because they had run out of resources and did not have the sand and concrete needed to put the new floor in one of the rooms. I asked him, if we had the money, can we get the materials? He made some calls and an hour later a truck rolled up with what we needed. We finished the walls we’d started Thursday, demo’d a broken concrete floor in a small room and prepped another room for new concrete. We were able to stucco a large exterior wall as well as finish the interior walls of the new room and finally got the concrete mixed and poured for the new floor. Everyone worked so hard, it was so rewarding.
At the end of the day, the mother, Fatima, explained to all of us that she had been waiting 8 years for this work to be done. Since before her youngest daughter was born. They have been living in half the house with the other half collapsing and open. She was very emotional. I told her that we were honored to have been able to come and work with her family and they would always be in our hearts. I could barely get the words out, and there wasn’t a dry eye in the group. More heavenly treasure.
Last night we had quite a fun 4th of July celebration put on by MOH with great food and really great fireworks. There was a DJ with lots of singing and dancing, especially by the young folks from some of the other teams. There were about 300 people there, they invite all the pastors they work with as well as the interpreters and their families. After, we had an extended team session with snacks, cribbage and conversation. But quite frankly, we were all too exhausted to be much good at any of them. I return exhausted, but blessed and proud of my team. As I do every year, I pray to God for just one more trip next year. Dave Berg
