Blitz Build Day 1

Today was an AMAZING day! We got to the jobsite at 6:30 am for the kick-off ceremony. When we walked by our lot, someone asked us if that was going to be our house and as we turned to see, there was a huge poster with our picture on it! 

Oh my goodness, we were overwhelmed and so excited. There were hundreds of people there ready to work and build. Several Habitat for Humanity employees came up and introduced themselves, saying they were so excited to meet us. We also met the Mayor of Oceanside to welcomed us to the city as new residents and told us how much he was excited for us. There were also several news stations there and when the ceremony began, one of the Habitat guys prayed first to ask the Lord's blessing and protection on the day. Then the mayor of Oceanside came up and thanked the builders and all of the volunteers. He talked about how glad he was for all that Habitat was doing for the city and said that he couldn't wait for Friday's dedication ceremony. He said its one of his favorite things to do, come and hand the new homeowners (that's us!) the keys to their new home. 

After the kick-off ceremony was done, all the workers got right to work. Within an hour, half of our outside walls were up.

Another hour after that, this is what it looked like. When I walked by, I saw they had nailed that poster to the outside, proclaiming to everyone who they were building for! We feel very humbled and overwhelmed. We can't believe the blessings the Lord is showering on us. 

A little while later we were talking to the supervisor from Swinterton Homes in charge of our house this week and he told us they were donating an air conditioning unit to us and they would be installing that for us this week. We were also told that we were getting solar panels donated to us and those would be installed as well. So basically, we get all of our electricity for free! I almost lost it when I learned that! God is so good!

Channel 10 interviewed us asking what it meant for us to being building and getting a new home. We talked about what a blessing it was and how excited we were. My sister saw the news story on their midday edition and told us the story was actually about how Habitat had misused some money donated to them and it was kind of a negative story. My sister told me that they did show our interview and that part of it was positive and good that they were showing a family getting a home, but we were disappointed to hear that with all of our excitement, the news story was a little slanted. Oh well, we moved on from that and got to work on our duties for the day.

Today, I worked on the house next to us (the same one we've been working on the last two weeks) putting caulking on the baseboards and moulding inside the bedrooms. Andrew stayed busy all day installing cabinets in the kitchen.  We had 4 people working for us today, including my dad and Andrew's brother Jon. By the end of the day, we had racked up 42.5 hours, which get doubled because of the Blitz week, which makes the grand total, just for today, 85 hours.....added to the 63 we already have makes 148!! We are making so much progress towards our 500 hours goal! Move in day is looking closer and closer!!!