Kyu and Ban Ho

 Whatever you do or wherever you are, aren't your memories most shaped by the stories of people you meet? Today I want to talk a little about a partner family where the wife has worked every day with us and her husband as he can.  A partner family is one who is working the program to qualify for a Habitat house. Beyond the needs assessment, the partner must volunteer 300 hours, of which a minimum of 100 must be construction hours on houses other than their own. They also have to take financial management classes as well as other classes on "paperwork"....all the nitty gritty of home ownership. I met the wife, Kyu, at lunch my first day. I grabbed a seat at the table with Kyu and a few friends of hers. Lian, who had been in the US the longest, 5 years, explained that they were all Burmese refugees who came to Ft. Wayne via refugee camps in Thailand and Malaysia.  Kyu has been here for 2 years but her English is limited, and out of shyness speaks very little. According to a local Habitat volunteer, Catholic Charities has sponsored many Burmese in the area and now Ft. Wayne has the largest immigrant Burmese population in the U.S. Kyu is a "background person." She wants to be helpful but due to limited English she stays in the background  sweeping out the rain and mud from the house, picking up trash or "spotting" folks up on ladders. Whenever she catches your eye, there is a shy smile.   On Saturday she dragged another Burmese young man over to introduce me to her husband, Ban Ho.  His English is better, but still quite broken. He is the opposite of Kyu--he wants to tell you his story. He now works at a chicken processor where there are "many, many chickens". He often makes deliveries to local stores.  He likes that better than his first job at a warehouse. He told me about his escape from Burma, when he had to run through the forest at night, always watchful for the Burmese soldiers who would shoot at him. He ran for many nights...for either 7 or 70 nights...I couldn't quite figure it out. His journey to  safety took him from Burma to a Thailand refugee camp, then to Switzerland, then New York, then Chicago and finally to Ft Wayne.  There was some bit of pride that he traveled to so many places.  He and his wife are happy now, but they don't like the winter too much. :)

Today there was a lot of progress made on the outside of our house. Lisle helped install windows. Scott and I were working on different roofing crews, each crew on a different face  of the roof. We probably would have finished, except another rainstorm swept through, bringing with it lightning and thunder. So it forced everyone inside and all work had to stop. Other crews finished up the tyvek (not sure if garage was finished as well) and started siding.