On Saturday at the work site, we met a group of volunteers from a local church, Quail Springs United Methodist. After only knowing us for a day, they invited us to their Thanksgiving celebration! The next day, Sunday, we went to their church after service had ended and enjoyed the huge potluck feast with them. Their hospitality meant so much. We ended up rescheduling our tour of the Oklahoma City National Memorial Museum since we wanted to rest and enjoy the potluck on Sunday.
We had a short work week - just Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday! We spent all of our time in Hope Crossings, the Habitat neighborhood, finishing up a bunch of houses. Habitat is trying to get as many families in their new homes for the holidays as possible. I will miss working during our Thanksgiving break, but this rest will be good for my body. It is definitely an adjustment to typically be working a 40 hour work week on my feet! I know I'm getting stronger every day, though.
This week for my team's service learning activity, I did research and put together a presentation about Habitat for Humanity's history. What I found really inspired me. In the early 70s, Millard and Linda Fuller, a young married couple who were self made millionaires, gave away everything they had in search of a more authentic Christian life. They moved to a sort of Christian commune in Georgia, where they developed the concept of "partnership housing" in which homes were built and sold to families at no profit and no interest. When they succeeded in using that model in their community, they tested it out further in Africa for 3 years. When that succeeded, they came back to the United States and officially created Habitat for Humanity! Since then, 500,000 homes have been built that house 2.5 million people worldwide. Pretty amazing, right?
Central Oklahoma Habitat for Humanity will build their 700th home early this coming spring. Here's their facebook page.. it has some cool pictures of homes that have been recently dedicated. Also, if you scroll down a bit, you'll see a picture of my team and me! http://www.facebook.com/COHFH?ref=ts&fref=ts
Here's something else you might find interesting. This map shows where all the teams of the Southwest Region are, and what type of projects they're doing! http://www.batchgeo.com/map/b50780772de499d93ef6870f9ba47216
One of our Habitat for Humanity supervisors invited us to spend Thanksgiving day with him and his family. It was really nice to get to know them better, and it was kind of them to invite us to share their special day. I was pretty homesick and missed my family a lot; this was my first holiday ever away from home. Going to the Thanksgiving party helped distract me a bit; staying busy helps. And it was just fun in general. =) We ate a ton of delicious food and played corn hole and Scattergories.
I made my Aunt Karen's famous pumpkin rolls as a dish to pass. I think they turned out well, but they weren't nearly as good as hers!
Close-up picture for Aunt Katdon. Thank you for your help. I love you! Let's make these together sometime.
Corn hole! An Oklahoma classic.
The Thanksgiving party. On the left is our supervisor Mitch, his daughter Kate and his grandson Chance. His granddaughter Lexi is in the bottom right. Mitch's wife Janice took the picture.
This morning a lot of us went out to help at the 13th Annual Oklahoma City Turkey Trot. It was a 5K race and family fun day that raised funds for the Special Olympics and Eagle Ridge Institute, a substance abuse recovery center. The race began at the beautiful Myriad Gardens. I got a sneak peek, but I hope I get to explore them more soon! We helped guide runners through the course, hand out water and clean up.
Part of the course involved OKC's new SkyDance bridge. Its design was inspired by Oklahoma's state bird, the scissor-tailed flycatcher. It lights up at night, and changes color based on seasons and holidays.
We spent the rest of the day relaxing, except for an adventure to Sonic. A lot of us had never been there before, including me. Tomorrow we're going to explore the downtown and Bricktown areas. I hope you all had good Thanksgivings. =)
This picture's for Mom. The apartment is starting to look more and more like my room. See my window daisy and window prisms? There are rainbows on the wall. We put up a thankfulness tree and wrote on the leaves, just like you did at school last year. =)
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