Day 4 and a house blessing

As we get to the building site, it takes my breath away as I see what we have built so far. We actually have a house standing before us built by us. Wow. That’s all I can say. Yesterday, we marked up walls for the sidings, today we actually put up the sidings. We work in small teams, some to hold the sidings up, some to measure and some acting as ‘runners’ who take the measurements to get them cut. Very exciting if you are not used to this and even more so when you get to use the air nail gun. Today we needed to get the siding finished so it is ready for painting tomorrow, we did not finish them today so we will have to turn it up a gear in the morning.

The couple, Sam and John are again on site watching us build their house. It is great to watch them watching us and the joy on their faces is unbelievable. As we survey the inside of the house at the end of the day, it was amazing to see what we have built in just 4 days.

We finish early today as we have a house blessing planned. Armed with marker pens, we are given licence to graffiti the walls with messages for Sam and John and I mark messages signed from London and Dublin. As ‘London’ has been my nickname all week, they will definitely know which messages are mine. At 4pm, Wendy McDonald, Hancock County Project Manager for Habitat for Humanity/Metro Jackson does a welcome speech and introductions followed by remarks by Mark Scott, Construction Manager and representatives from SEI and the Cincinnati crew. Sam says a few words on behalf of her and John which is heartfelt and brings a lump (the size of an apple) to my throat and tears to my eyes. Mistie, our Construction Supervisor, leads the blessing and presents a bible to Sam and John signed by everyone on site. May they be blessed with peace, love and happiness in their new home.

Tomorrow will be our last day on the site and it will be a long, hard slog as we still have lots to do but I have faith that we will pull together as a team and will achieve everything we need to. With Mistie barking orders at us, I have no doubt we will do it. It will be sad to leave as we have achieved so much, bonded really well and made some great friends. Tonight, we have some light entertainment as we go bowling so let’s see how tight the new friendships really are when the bowling starts….let the competition begin. Watch this space.