Many of you already know that Mom and I, along with my dad, lead a group of friends every year to some part of the world to do a project for people who are much less fortunate than we are. My parents have been doing this since 2000 when they went to New Zealand with a Habitat for Humanity group. Then they became trained leaders and decided to break away from Habitat and form their own group. Habitat concentrates on building new homes, and my parents wanted to be able to help any way there was a need. I, along with my husband have been on several builds with them. My brother even was able to join us for one. For the past three weeks we have been in Burma, and Mom is now on her way home.
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The way it works is that we pick a country we want to go to or return to and then find an agency there in need of help. We have done volunteer work in South Africa, Egypt, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Mongolia, Costa Rica, Mexico, Romania,Argentina, Haiti, New Zealand, and now Burma (Myanmar). We have built homes for people living under tarps, remodeled the apartments of widowed mothers living in the slums of Cairo, painted and added additional rooms to schools, and repaired orphanages. In Burma, we will work at an orphanage.
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Our builds are not religious missions. Our friends (we call ourselves The Fix-it Friends) are very diverse and include Buddhists, Quakers, Mormons, Catholics, Protestants, and even an atheist here and there. We are from all over the country, England and Singapore. We see each other once a year when we meet up in a foreign country. Nearly every year there are one or two new folks, and nearly every year one or two of the regulars have to sit it out.
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Mom, Dad, and three of their friends are traveling to Burma early to do a week of traveling before getting to work. Mr. Spring and I are going to do our work and then travel on to Thailand for a week. Don’t worry, though. The blog will be posted its usual five days a week.
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When we get home, we’ll share some photos and stories with you.
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Cheers!
Looking forward to hearing and seeing about your great work!
I think that is such a wonderful thing that you all are doing. I know that it is a real blessing to all the people you help!
I am just curious, but do you ever provide this much needed assistance here in states?
My parents have helped with Habitat builds in the USA, and my mom has been on the local Habitat board. Also, I rode my bicycle across the country three times to help raise over $600,000 for the New Haven, CT local Habitat affiliate. We choose to help out people in other countries because we enjoy combining the volunteer work with a vacation. We realize that there are lots of people in the USA who don’t like to travel and can therefore focus on the needs in this country. Also, we feel this is a way to do some PR work for the USA. When the people we have helped think of our country, hopefully they will think of us (rather than what they see on television) and think of the USA with love.
Thanks Jordan for your response. You two/four are awesome. I really appreciate your enthusiam for humanity and family.