Back from the City

I've given myself a week to recover and reflect on my trip to Milwaukee-- and man, was it a great trip!

We stayed at the United Methodist Church down town, where our church groups have been staying for close to 20 years every summer. What I first seemed to notice coming into this city was how old it looked compared to the Twin Cities. You go to Minneapolis, and they hardly have any of their original or historical architecture left, but Milwaukee still has the old two-story houses and tall brick buildings standing. But then with age and tough times comes neglect, abandonment, and vandalism. I saw so many businesses and homes boarded up, windows broken, and yards unkempt in the remarkably struggling area of Milwaukee we were in, and it was sort of a jolt for me.

I mean, I've been through rough parts of the Twin Cities, and heck, I've been to Africa, but this for some reason hit me differently.

On Monday morning we got up early, still recovering from the long drive, and went to the Habitat work site, about a 15 minute drive from the church. Part of Habitat's 25th anniversary was celebrated in Milwaukee by hosting what they called Blitz Build Week, the goal being to frame seven houses in the week we were there.

We started out with hammering together walls, putting together window and door frames, and lots of heavy lifting. It's so exciting to see the walls being lifted up! We weren't the only people working on the house, of course. We had anywhere from four to seven adult House Leaders that week, people who were trained and experienced and actually knew what they were doing, and willing to share their knowledge with us. We had such a great time talking and working with them. One of them was Mac, and when I was on the top of the second level nailing down these boards I asked him, "Now what are these things called again?" All of it was just wood to me. "Well," he says, "These boards are called OCB's, though I call 'em sheathing, and what we're gonna do is nail 'em down so..." and on he went like that. If you had any question he would stop whatever he was doing to tell you what something was called, what they were being used for, when it was supposed to go up, how we were supposed to put it up, and whether it was behind schedule for being put up. He made me feel like I was always being of use, and that is a wonderful gift.

One of the most awesome things for me on this trip was meeting the future owners of the house we were building. One of the adult leaders from my group had come up to me and said, "Guess what! You know Hassan, the home-owner? He's from Somalia, and he speaks Swahili!"
"Really?!" I said. What are the odds of a random white girl who just happens to speak Swahili finding another person who speaks it in Milwaukee, Wisconsin? I was kind of over the moon.

Hassan eventually found me that day and pointed at me. "Do you speak Swahili?"

"Ndiyo!" I said. From then on, we would make a point of having small conversations every day. He kind of assumed I was more fluent than I really was, though, so lots of the time I was saying "Slower! Say again?" He told me that he and his family had fled the violence in Somalia for a refugee camp in Kenya (where Swahili is the national language), and they lived there for ten years before they came to the U.S. It was nice to have one less barrier between our group and the people we were serving.

Over the next few days we nailed, drilled, carried, got muddy, sweaty and gross and achy, but every day we did something that could help with the build. On Thursday afternoon Hassan brought his wife Zara and their four children to visit the work site. Zara just looked at the house and kept saying, "Wow, it's beautiful!" Then Hassan told her I spoke Swahili, and you should have seen the look on face. We started to speak with each other, and she was very encouraging and quite surprised, although I was relieved that she spoke it a lot slower and clearer than her husband. Then she asked in English, "Tomorrow, would you all eat African food if I brought some?" And I, remembering the yummy East African fare, enthusiastically replied, "Yes!"
The next day Hassan pulled up to the house and brought two aluminum pans, one filled with samosas, and the other with cardamom rolls, and I was trying not to flip out. Word spread through out the work site that we had some darn tasty food, so people from the two next store Habitat houses came by, but even after we shared we still had leftovers!

This week was an experience where we were helping people in a very tangible and permanent way, and nobody came home feeling their time was wasted. I believe there are few mission experiences that are like that. It's very humbling to find out how much it takes to build a home, and even more so to know how much joy it can bring to a family. It was nothing elaborate, but it was decent and dignified, someplace where the family could stay, after being uprooted from one country to another and to yet one more.

We met some amazing people, too. There was Jim, John, Mac, Chris, Bob, Carol, Pat, Jessica, Ann, Katerina, Hassan and his wife Zara...all these people were immensely hard working, fun to be with, kind, devoted to their faith and how they lived it out, and I feel so blessed to have spent my week with them.