"Habitat is not a handout, but a hand up."
We say this every morning after morning prayer before the carevaners and college teams split up for the work day.
Carevaners are people who travel all over the country to volunteer with Habitat. The other college team is from a junior college in Maryland. There are 50+ people here volunteering! The collegiate teams split up into 4 teams (2 groups at both schools) and that is our group we will work with all week. The groups rotate each day to four different work sites.
On Monday my group and I went to the Habitat Restore to help move around furniture for the ice cream social that night, and to help organize clothes and other items. After we ate our sacked lunches we made that morning we washed a dirty RV camper that was donated!
The Restore is where Habitat raises money for the mortgages for the houses. We also learned a lot about the Habitat staff in that not everyone is a believer. It's hard to stay positive while doing insignificant tasks when there are negitive forces around you. Please pray for our team to be encouraged to stand out for Christ while were here!
Tuesday my group went to the Lacoochee area where Habitat had bought homes on a piece of land across from an old lumber mill company that went bankrupt. The houses we worked on were already built a few years ago by a man who went bankrupt. Habitat is going to make them and the neighborhood livable for people to move in and make a neighborhood.
After lunch the site leader took us on a walking tour of the neighborhood. I didn't take pictures of the houses (mainly because I didn't have my phone), but also because I didn't want to take pictures of the homes. There were nice houses, and the habitat houses are making the neighborhood look better, but the style of living is completely different than ours. As we walked through the dirt roads I could have sworn I was back in Moldova again. One house was an old chicken coop. Imagine living in a one room chicken coop! I didn't have to travel overseas to love on people in poverty, it's in our very own backyard (our backyard 16 hours away), but also in our own city.
Habitat is meeting their physical and financial needs, but what about their spiritual? These houses can be torn down in a second by a tornado or a fire, but their souls will live forever either in glory or fire. No matter how many "good" things you do (or how many houses you build), none of it matters over our spiritual need for Jesus Christ to save us and cleanse us from every brokenness we have.
Today is day 3, our second to last work day. Please keep us in your prayers to be an example to the Habitat carevaners, staff, and other college volunteers that our wok is more than just to give back. We're doing this to love people because Jesus first loved us.
"Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the LORD rises upon you. See, darknes covers the earth and thick darkness is over the people's, but the LORD rises upon you and his glory appears over you." -Isaiah 60:1-2
In Christ,
Molly Rae
Day one: Habitat Restore in Dade City
After day one of work we got to put our hand prints on the wall where a sign will say "it takes many hands to build a home."
Day two: painting and priming
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