I Helped Build a Roof

While serving in Egypt, our team partnered with Habitat for Humanity International. For four glorious days, we volunteered in small villages in central Egypt, along the Nile River Valley. With small town populations of about 1000, our presence became the village spectacle. Each day, we would report to the Habitat offices, gather up our tools and assignments for the day, and head out to the home site to build.
Habitat for Humanity in Egypt has some simple goals in mind when helping improve the homes of the region. First, they work to separate the animals from the people inside the home. Many of the villagers live all together with their animals, kids, grandparents, etc all in the same room and/or the same first floor. For sanitary reasons, this is not a healthy living situation, so Habitat tries to educate the families about the need for separation. (the photo below is of the first floor of someone's home... not a barn.)
Second, they work to bring running water and sewage to the homes. We heard reports of one village in particular where indoor toilets were not common… when the women would go out to the fields after dark to go to the bathroom for the day, they were getting raped—8 women even got pregnant as a result and subsequently committed suicide. Who knew indoor plumbing could be so valuable in a community.

And third, because many of these village homes have been in the family for generations, they are very old and made of mud-brick. Many of the homes are all but collapsing in on the families. So, Habitat tries to educate the families about good, lasting, and safe building materials and designs. Simple concepts, simple goals… together they make a major impact on a community in the areas of health and safety… simple ways to serve these families. (the photo below is of a mud-brick home that is falling apart.)
Some of the tasks our team did: shoveling & sifting sand; hauling sifted sand from the street upstairs to the room we were building: troweling cement/sand mix onto the brick walls; assembly line moving bricks and stones from the street upstairs to the roof to add another story; and finally, roofing—which turned out to be my favorite!

Many of the homes in the villages had inadequate roofs—just a few wooden beams draped across the tops of walls with giant piles of dried palm branches and other tree branches laid on top to create a make-shift roof. These roofs didn’t do much to protect the family from the elements of hot summers or cold winters, or from the usual Egyptian sandstorms. Not to mention the occasional snake that would fall through the branches onto the family inside. (the photo below shows the make-shift palm branch roofing typical in the village.)
Habitat gave us a two-day assignment of building a new roof for a family who had just added a second story. Scary as it was, because the wood was super-thin, we hammered down giant 1” x 6” pieces of wood onto wooden beams laid over the tops of the new walls that were built. We were all up on top walking and working on our new creation as it expanded. In two days, we finished the whole roof. After you lay down the wood layer, then the family would lay plastic over it and pour a thin layer of cement on top to seal it. Very basic… very. But it was a major improvement for the family.
(the photo above is of a team member, Heather, building the roof; the photo below is some of the team standing on what they built after the first day.)
Our time spent working in the villages was so enjoyable. The work was easy and fun. The families whose homes we worked on were so kind and sweet. And the rest of the people from the village were a joy to meet and spend time with. Every day we would gather a small crowd of on-lookers who were curious about our work. (in the photo below, you can see the small crowd of bystanders watching us work.)
On multiple occasions we were asked: “Why are you doing this?” Which was such a great opportunity for us to tell people about Jesus. He loved us, and so we loved them, and wanted to demonstrate our love for them through serving them. An easy answer, and a joy to declare over and over. Each girl on our team connected with someone from the village every day, and we were able to use the universal language of love to bond and befriend. Working with Habitat was such a unique chance to do a tangible act of kindness while also getting to share (with those who asked) where our motivation comes from… love.