Week 2 Day 6 / Week 3 Day 0

If you read yesturday's post, you know that week 2's crew finished building the house to which we were assigned and now it is a home. You will also know that we got a head start on next week's house by working a couple of hours in the afternoon.

Today we went back to next week's house in order to get an even bigger head start. The issue here is that we built this family a home 2 years ago, but it was destroyed by a mudslide last year during Tropical Storm Agatha that brought so much havoc to an already impoverished area. We decided to rebuild it this year, this time much stronger, which requires a lot more work, hence the "head start."

Why not just build it out of harms way? That would make a lot of sense, but this little peice of land is the only land this family owns. It's either build it there or not at all. The week 3 crew decided unanimously that we ought be like the Lord Jesus in this weekend's Gospel and say to the family, "Do not let your hearts be troubled, in our Father's house there are many dwelling places. If there were not, would we have told you that we are going to prepare a place for you."

Almost all of the From Houses to Homes workers joined us today in order to preapre the foundation, which is much more intricate, deep and labor intensive than usual. Here is where I want to say something to you readers (all 4 of you). Saturday and Sunday are the workers' day off, yet they all came to help prepare this house so that our group would be able to finish before we leave next week. Granted they are getting paid for it, but watching these young men work together, laughing, joking and and seemingly enjoying themselves, it struck me that this is not the disposition one would expect of people who have to work during the weekend (physical work at that!). If only I could find that same disposition within myself the next time I have to do extra work that is unscheduled.

It was a hard day, but building homes is why we are here, and it's the "hard" that makes it great.

-Fred