Zihan

“Yes, we did it! I can’t believe that is true!”

“This is so much fun,” Bailey said, “I am going back to this next time.”

I looked at that piece of wood we just put on the left part of the roof. I felt extremely happy looking at what we have done as Engineering students. I couldn’t even find the exact words to express myself. My heart was going to pop out because we were building a family’s home! We were making a difference! We were helping people make their dreams real, and it really makes me happy and energized.

We started this morning with the 30 degrees and sunshine. Our mission was to help build a home for the Iowa Valley Habitat for Humanity. It is a process to build a home for those in need with this charity organization and lots of volunteers. The family will also help in the building process, but most of the designing and coordinating is done by professional trained leaders and volunteers.

My partner Bailey and I picked up our hammers, and they put us right to work. The job for us was to stabalize a long stick on the top of the roof. This kind of job is different from the normal hammer work: we need to lift the wood up to the roof and hammer the nails in at the same time.  That looks crazy to me and I don’t know if I can handle this as a person that never touched a ladder and a hammer before.

Before we actually started to knock the nails into the roof, we measured the distance from the corner of the each stick to the point where they needed to be out really carefully. We knew this was not building sand castles. We were building not only a home, but also the trust of that family. Team spirit has built house, as well as the enthusiasm and excitement to witness their dream coming true. I was a little afraid of the ladder, and the hammer in my pocket when I stood on the top of the ladder helping Bailey hold the other end of the wood in order to knock the nail in.

It was my turn to hammer the nail in now for the other end. I picked up a nail and aimed it on the intersection of the two sticks while Bailey was holding the stick for me. After several times of knocking, the nail was just into the wood little. It was hard. Nevertheless, I never thought about quitting because I knew I was going to knock this tough guy in. That’s what I was there for. This day was so special! I love it!!

Here is our group!

This entry was posted on Monday, October 19th, 2015 at 7:48 am and is filed under Academics, Campus Life, Events, . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.