January 31, 1998

HABIJAX

I had gotten into Jacksonville, FL yesterday afternoon and found my way over to the Habitat for Humanity affiliate "HabiJax". HabiJax is one of the largest affiliates in the country with regards to the number of houses built. Over 269 houses had already had been built. This year at least fifty families will move into new houses by year's end. By the year two thousand, they hope to build a hundred houses a year.

I rode from the volunteer house over to the neighborhood where the affiliate's houses are being built southeast of downtown. By 9:00 a.m., almost seventy people were assembled to work on five houses. After a short devotional and prayer, I was grouped up with twenty other people to work on house #272.

I helped to put up plywood panels on the outside of the frame. Also, I had a great time helping build some of the inside walls with one of the other guys. I was getting good with a hammer and wasn't missing too many blows or bending very many nails. I must have pounded in about ten dozen nails.

We worked on the house for about 5 1/2 hours and by that time we had all but two walls built and connected to the outside frame. For my reward, I was given a neat gray t-shirt with the affiliate's logo up front and in back was a blueprint of one of the affiliate's houses and the phrase "These are my plans for Saturday". Also, the volunter coordinator slipped me nine dollars.