I'm hoping to send a few blog entries this week from Santa Rosa de Copan, Honduras where I am spending the week working on Habitat house with 19 others from the Triangle area. We arrived late Friday and began work yesterday. Our group is split between working on two new homes. Our group began by helping local masons mix mortar, pour footings, and tie re-bar. The home is being built in partnership with Enma and her children on property owned by Enma's family and right next to her parents home. This is a very common situation in Central America. The home we are constructing is 450 square feet, built of cinderblock with a concrete floor and tin roof. There will be two bedrooms, a bath, kitchen, and living area. The yard is filled with banana plants and is very lush and tropical. It is located in the village of El Rosario, near the city of Santa Rosa in the northwestern part of Honduras. I spent the morning on Saturday cutting 150 pieces of rebar with Bernice (an NC Central staff member) and then switched over to mixing mortar with Jesse and Preston, a Duke alum and Duke student-athlete respectively. Today (Sunday) we travelled to the remote village of Belen Gualcho and worshipped with our group in the Catholic church built in 1680, led by Rev. Keith from the Duke Chapel staff. It was a blessing to be able to worship together and praise God for allowing us the opportunity to travel to Honduras to serve among those in such great need. The Habitat affiliate in Santa Rosa is currently building over 100 homes per year amidst a need that is immense. Habitat Wake tithes 10% of our undesignated donations to support Habitat work outside the United States. We are now designating our donations to support Habitat's work in Santa Rosa. It is awesome to see how much difference the few thousands of dollars Habitat Wake provides can make such an immense difference in the lives of the people in Honduras.
