Cincinnati, Ohio -- Laquina Johnson, a single-mother and Iraq War veteran, will have a home of her own by the end of this week thanks to a former US president, a Christian ministry to help low-income families build decent, affordable housing, and hundreds of volunteers from more than 50 churches throughout the state of Michigan. Nobel Peace Prize laureate Jimmy Carter and his wife Rosalynn are leading volunteers from around the world in Benton Harbor and Detroit, Michigan, to build more than 40 homes during the annual Jimmy Carter Work Project, from 19 to 24 June.
"It's been a mind-blowing experience," Johnson told Ecumenical News International. "Yesterday we started on the house. We got the walls up and the roof on. My wrists were so sore. I pounded in more than 1500 nails. It was the first time I was ever on a roof. And it is MY roof."
Johnson returned from Iraq in 2004 and began working for a communications company in Detroit but could not afford her own home. She applied to become a Habitat homeowner and was accepted.
"The people who have helped me have been just beautiful," she said. "After this is over, I plan to volunteer for Habitat so I can help someone else."
Johnson will meet the former president at the end of the week when he presents her and her 6-year-old daughter Sakinah, with a Bible and the keys to their new home.
"He's always been my favourite president and now this man has given me a new lease on life," she said of the man who led the United States from 1977 to 1981.
The project has received support from Lutherans, Episcopalians, Presbyterians, the United Church of Christ, Disciples of Christ, Baptists and many non-denominational churches including Willow Creek Community Church near Chicago, which is sending more than 200 volunteers and sponsoring two homes. Bob Edgar, general secretary of the National Council of Churches, will be working at one of the sites as well.
On 21 June in Detroit, His Holiness Karekin II, Supreme Patriarch and Catholicos of All Armenians, presided over an announcement regarding the Armenian church's partnership with Habitat for Humanity to build in Armenia and the United States.
Habitat for Humanity International, based in Americus, Georgia, is a multi-denominational Christian ministry dedicated to eliminating poverty housing.
By the end of 2005, Habitat will have built its 200 000th house and more than one million people will be living in Habitat homes they helped build and are buying through no-profit, zero-interest mortgages.
Carter has sponsored his weekly work project since 1984 and has worked on homes throughout the United States, as well as South Africa, Korea, the Philippines and Mexico.
