Habitat for Humanity Essay

Habitat for Humanity originated at Koinonia Farm, which is a small Christian farming community located outside of Americus, Georgia. Clarence Jordan brought the idea to Millard Fuller, who is the founder and president of Habitat for Humanity International. They developed the idea of â€Å"partnership housing,† calling for families in need of a home to partner with volunteers to build affordable homes. In 1975 Fuller and his wife Linda established Habitat for Humanity with one clear vision in mind â€Å"a world where everyone has a decent place to live.† Habitat’s ministry is based on the conviction that to follow the teachings of Jesus Christ we must reflect Christ’s love in our own lives by loving and caring for one another. Our love must not be words only – it must be true love, which shows itself in action, this is the full forces that lead Fuller and his wife to establish this organization. Habitat provides an opportunity for people to put their faith and love into action, bringing diverse groups of people together to make affordable housing and better communities a reality for everyone. The idea of Habitat for Humanity is to work in partnership with God and people to build decent, affordable, houses in which people can live and grow into all what God has intended. The Fuller’s vision has become a successful reality that has presently helped build over 500,000 homes and helped over 2.5 million people worldwide. Habitat for humanity is operated based on two main sources: donations and mortgage payments of the homeowners. Donations generate from individuals, foundations, and businesses – their monies are used to purchase land and materials. The no-interest mortgage payments made by current Habitat homeowners greatly contribute to support the construction of additional Habitat homes. Some organizations such as Ameri-Corp may pay their volunteers with school courses and materials in return for their time. Habitat for Humanity’s crucial point is not just to build a house and help people to be under a roof, but their main goal is to build a clean, dece nt, and stable house for families: these families can provide stability to their children, the sense of dignity and pride grows for these families; health, physical safety, and security improves, educational and job prospects. My experience at Habitat for Humanity was a powerful and passionate one. Amazingly, one of the most precious gifts we can give one another is – time. A couple of hours or days can translate into a lifetime of hopefulness and commitment to strive and I had the opportunity to experience this reality, throughout my experience at the Habitat. I have learned what the meaning of passion is mainly because I’ve had the genuine sentiment to finish the work I’ve started, along with many other people that shared this experience with me. The other thing that I discovered about passion is how easy it is to be a family with people you have met for the first time if you open your heart to them and let them be part of your life. The other thing I found about passion is the skills that I have that would help to repair the universe. In this experience I found something that has deepened my faith that God created each one of us uniquely with specific skills that not everybody has; therefore, this experience helped me to find skills that I am going to use to help building the world again with passion and also the experience and realize that the simple usage of my hands can a the life of a family. The people that I met at Habitat for Humanity were dedicated to their jobs. As I approached the job site, I noticed several groups of people who were putting their time and organization into this home-building project. They invested hundreds of hours of sweat into building houses to help low income families. Some days, community volunteers spend more than eight hours working on the houses. To complete their jobs, volunteers overcame obstacles such as: lack of supplies, unusable wood, and lack of enough workers. The employees and volunteers I met were motivated to overcome obstacles to help families in need. Though they may not have had the best materials, they used what they had in order to complete the job. Many of these materials come from the Re-Store; this store sells donations mostly given by the community. The funds collected are used for materials and other services that are required. Volunteers must be willing to work in the heat and endure a lot of intense physical labor. Wall-framing, installing dry wall, plumbing and roofing are skills that the organization needs from volunteers. The volunteers I worked with were willing to endure the heat and physical labor in order to help low income families who need a home. If you are looking for a place where you can make a huge impact on society, Habitat for Humanity is the place. People of all backgrounds, races, and religions are invited to build houses for people in our community. Habitat for Humanity is capable of working with each volunteer’s skill level. Don’t be afraid of hard work. No matter what goes on in your life, you will always remember all of the positive things you have done to help out in your community. In conclusion, Habitat for Humanity does such essential work and by that work they recognize the concept of passion and Christianity, and the other thing about them is they recognize that there are needs in the world and these needs should be met with their work. My experience helped me change my idea about service and the real meaning of service, and it let me be familiar with the big three R’s- restoration, reparation, and reconciliation – that are the keys for service. The three R’s were spoken among many of the volunteers that I met, indeed the R’s simply describe this experience, the other thing I found is that dedicating myself is another important part of service because without dedicating myself, the work that we need to do to repair the universe would not be as perfect as how it should be.