Twenty years ago on Christmas day a tsunami took 230,000 lives in eight minutes. At the time, I lived near the ocean and decided to do something to help. Habitat for Humanity trained me in Plains, Georgia to become a Global Village Team Leader.
While there, I (third from right), met President Jimmy Carter (far left) and Mrs. Carter (far right) at church that Sunday where President Carter delivered the sermon before teaching Sunday School, as he always had in his home church. Afterward, I visited the home, now a museum, where he had grown up directly across from the railroad tracks. Everything about the house was as humble as he was when I stood up to shake his hand and he smiled that wide familiar smile and said: "Please sit down". He was not a tall man, but he was a big man.
Many people think President Carter was the founder of Habitat. He was not. The non-profit Christian organization had its beginnings in his hometown. The Carter's became life-long volunteers building affordable houses around the world. It was a project close to their hearts. They put their hands and hard work into it because they believed in Habitat's mission that everyone deserves a decent, affordable place to live.
I have had a long relationship with Habitat for Humanity. My first build was with my daughter's youth group who helped build a home for a friend. When the walls were raised, we wrote messages to the family on the studs. They lived in that house with our names in those walls throughout their school years. Working alongside others for a common cause taught me the value of community. I learned something about painting, too!
This coming year seems like a perfect time to have a Do It Yourself Project 2025.
There are many, many worthwhile projects meant to help others in our own communities. Most are looking for volunteers, people like you and me, to help fulfill humble missions: delivering food, tutoring children, teaching reading, growing food.
Last week I visited my son in Asheville, North Carolina. It was three months to the day that Hurricane Helene had taken that mountain city by complete surprise in the same way the Thai people had been met with a rogue hundred-foot wave in 2004.* Nothing could stop the water from rushing over their homes and town, taking everything away within minutes. In Asheville, the aftermath of strewn cars, trucks, shipping containers marks the landscape. Tree trunks and boughs and limbs once standing tall have been reduced to piles of sawed logs. Mud-filled shops and restaurants still struggle to clean up. Conversations with store clerks, cafe workers, hotel staff each referenced the pain of a year none will ever forget. In Thailand, the fateful day when life changed from a peaceful place to a project, could be seen six months later in that "thousand-mile stare" replacing their "land of smiles". Despite the trauma, these people were very grateful for volunteers from around the world who came to help in what was the greatest response ever to a natural disaster. Many have helped the city of Asheville by donating needed water, clothing, food. Habitat Asheville has begun its work on the ground building homes and hope.**
During my flight home from North Carolina I spoke with a woman my age who like me had grown up in Massachusetts. She had been visiting her own family in Asheville. Neither hers nor my family had suffered damage for which we were grateful. Knowing where she hailed from signaled to me it was probably safe to comment on the upcoming 2025 changes we will be facing as a country. She immediately said that she and her granddaughter had decided to"plant a garden, read books, play games and do something in the community". She had already created her own DIY Project 2025!
If we each create our own Do It Yourself Project 2025 we will not only help our community, but we will reap the rewards of reinforcing the positive in our lives, in our family, in our neighborhood . . . in our country. Together we can build hope!
I would be interested to learn about your own plans to face down a rogue wave that is on the way. Please share your DIY Project 2025 in the comments section below.
Happy Hopeful New Year!
*https://www.worldvision.org/disaster-relief-news-stories/2004-indian-ocean-earthquake-tsunami-facts
A wonderful reminder about how to get on, and stay on, a positive path!