Quality is Important Too

The work sites have provided this youth mission team with the challenge of patience. This organization that we are working through operates on both homes that need to be gutted as well as those that already have been restored and require the final touches such as painting and hanging doors. Their mission is to use volunteer labor to bring the residents back to their homes as soon as possible. It was our understanding that the homes we would be working out would be near completion, and that our tasks would involve very specific details. We were shocked and appalled to find that the groups that worked on our homes before us did so in a hurried manner with no concern for quality. My group was given the assignment to paint the interior of our home, however we found that the home was nowhere near ready for paint because of a lack of dry wall. It is a blessing to my group that we have a large task at hand where as other groups have had trouble finding jobs for everyone, but also it is a blessing because we are treating this home as our own and the quality of work and attention that we put to the house is nothing less than what we would expect of our own. It has been a tedious job involving measuring, cutting, placing, screwing, sealing, and mudding thin dry wall strips. The work has demanded large amounts of energy and time, but the four inch hole that has ran in between the floorboards and walls of the entire house gradually disappears and the sense of accomplishment and progress is extremely rewarding. We have been challenged with finding the patience to move past the frustration felt in regards to the poor job done by the group before us, but our commitment to mission and the goal of improving a life by restoring a home has allowed my group to complete tasks that we have never taken on before. We are reminded of our loved ones at home when at the end of the day we shake off clouds of dry wall shavings and dust similar to dust storms back home and I wish my family the best and send my love.
- Steven Henglefelt