Habitat Wake Happenings

Last Saturday, I found myself sandwiched between a 12-year old Michael Jackson wannabe and the southern hip-hop group, Nappy Roots, on stage at NC State's back-to-school celebration, Packapalooza.

Since 1985, Habitat Wake has built 500 new homes.  We are dedicating 7 more this week.  Yet, 28,000 Wake County families remain in need of affordable housing.

I saw Darrell Daigre, co-owner of Savvy Homes, on our Builders Blitz site this week.  I thanked Darrell for his company’s generous partnership in donating a new home to Habitat Wake in each of the last four years—a gift of at least $200,000!   Darrell responded enthusiastically saying, “We’re just getting started!”

Last month at Habitat for Humanity’s national conference in Atlanta, Habitat Wake founder and current VP of Program Ministries, Rick Beech, led one of the day with some devotional thoughts.  Rick reflected on the very early days of Habitat Wake, the organization that he helped found in 1985 while a student at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest. At that time, Habitat was a relatively unknown organization and there was a strong sense of relying on God to provide the resources needed to meet the serious housing needs of many Wake County residents who were literally living

This past Wednesday at Habitat for Humanity’s biennial U.S. national conference, Rev. Andy Stanley of Atlanta’s North Point Church provided some teaching around the story in Mark 6:30-52. Andy is a gifted teacher and communicator and he opened some new insights for me as he suggested that this was not primarily a lesson about abundance and scarcity or even miracles, but rather one of Jesus teaching the disciples what it means to depend on God and not on their own human efforts.

Yesterday, I was overcome with sadness.  And that sadness is still with me this morning.  You see, three of the Triangle's brightest and most enthusiastic young people were killed in their own Chapel Hill neighborhood in a quick and senseless act of violence.

Since Thanksgiving, Habitat Wake has celebrated home dedications with 14 families.  Praise be to God for that!  A home dedication is a time when we celebrate with our homebuyers the completion of their home and we thank God and our volunteers and sponsors for making it happen.

So, we’ve been completing a lot of homes lately.  Families are reaching a long held dream to own their own home.  Volunteers and sponsors are proud of the work they’ve done.  Things are definitely coming to a culmination after literally years of struggle for some families.

"You will bring them in and plant them On the mountain of your inheritance-- the place, LORD, you made for your dwelling, the sanctuary, LORD, your hands established." Exodus 15:17 Ever since we established this blog in 2010, we've been looking to give it a name that captures the deepest sense of Habitat Wake's mission to give families an opportunity to provide a place for each of their family members to grow into all that God intends for them.

About a month ago, I received a call from a long-time Habitat colleague. I always love the opportunity to connect with others who share my passion for Habitat's mission, so I was happy to hear from him. This call exceeded my expectations!  It turns out that Habitat for Humanity has a major donor who became very excited when Pope Francis was elected Pope in 2013.  His faith in the Church skyrocketed when Pope Francis began to focus on a Church built on women and men in service for all people, especially the poor.