On a beautiful Sunday afternoon, December 10, over 100 people crowded into the new home of Niki Sly and her daughter Zoe. The crowd came together in Eldora to dedicate the first house built in Hardin County using the combined efforts of Thrivent Financial for Lutherans and the Central Iowa Habitat for Humanity Chapter.
Working primarily on Saturdays beginning in June, crews from St. Paul Lutheran in Eldora, St. John’s Lutheran in Hubbard, St. Paul Lutheran in Alden, St. Paul Lutheran in Buckeye and Immanuel Lutheran in Iowa Falls took turns building on the Habitat house. On a few Saturdays there were also crews from other churches and civic organizations and individuals who hammered and sawed and made the house happen.
This Habitat house was a labor of love for all the church members and Habitat chapter members who have been planning for a couple of years to partner in building a home for a qualifying family. The project received a major boost when Thrivent Financial for Lutherans decided this past year to become a major sponsor of Habitat home building. For the Eldora house, Thrivent committed 70 percent of the cost of constructing the house. The local Lutheran congregations committed to raising 10 percent of the funds needed and the last 20 percent of the bills were paid by the Habitat organization.
The way Habitat operates is that volunteer workers and financial supporters construct low cost but high quality houses which are then sold to partner home owners with a no interest loan. The partner homeowners invest several hundred hours of their own labor in the project and undergo training in mortgage responsibilities and home upkeep. The house payments they make are channeled back into future Habitat houses. In the past 30 years Habitat has built more than 200,000 homes for over a million people this way in more than 3000 communities around the world. It is a winning formula and for a mother and daughter like Niki and Zoe it is an opportunity to have a place they can call their own.
The Eldora Circuit churches contributed to the Habitat house through all the work crews that built on Saturdays. Morning and afternoon coffee breaks and noon lunches were provided by various ladies groups. Pastors led opening devotions before work would begin. Fund raising went on in each church through activities like benefit dinners and VBS and Sunday School offering projects and door offerings.
As Pastor Jay Jaeger of Alden/Buckeye noted in one of his opening devotions, EVERY HOUSE IS BUILT BY SOMEONE, BUT GOD IS THE BUILDER OF EVERYTHING (Hebrews 3:4). Many people were involved in building this house for Niki and Zoe but truly God was the one who really made it happen!
