Nicole - Habitat for Humanity - Blog 2

When I first arrived to the site on Tuesday, I couldn’t believe my eyes. All I saw was what looked to be an outline of what was going to be a house. I could see straight through the front door, and I really didn’t know how we were going to complete this task. Before coming to Habitat for Humanity, I had honestly never built, or even attempted to build anything in my life. However, I was very excited to tackle this project because I knew that I would feel so much better once it was done. As far as diverse and different backgrounds of people go, I would say that this day was the most apparent. The contractor was explaining what we should do for the day, and then he broke into prayer. He told us that it was a “Christian site” and we couldn’t curse, and kept thanking the Lord. I thought that was very special because many a times we forget to give back and say thank you for the things that we take for granted. There was a Jewish girl in our group and she told us later that that made her feel uncomfortable, but I just assume that’s part of life. This entire experience was out of all of our comfort zones, and the people who were helping us respected our boundaries and beliefs, and we should do the same for them. As I began building, I couldn’t believe how well I was doing. The other builders and volunteers kept encouraging me to keep going, even at the end of the day when I felt like giving up. And keep in mind, this is still the first day, and we had an entire week left at this point. It was good to have people not judge me on my appearance, and treat me like I was a veteran rather than a rookie. And I say appearance because I don’t have the look of a builder, per say.