• It will be Christmas in July!
• Like the Phoenix who rises from the ashes
• Our only source of heat was a wood burning stove.
• I dreamed of living in a house.
• All hope seemed gone.

It will be Christmas in July!

Rhonda has lived in Decatur all of her life, yet for the first time ever she is about to experience Christmas in July. That's when her new home, sponsored by Cargill and Habitat, will be completed if the weather cooperates and keeps construction on schedule. Rhonda and her son Patrick, age 17, and daughter Gabrielle, age 15, have lived in the same rental apartment for five years. When the neighborhood started to go downhill a year ago, she started talking to others about her dream of moving out of the neighborhood into a home of her home. About that time, she saw a flyer at work that talked about Habitat for Humanity and how families in need were helped to work toward their dream of home ownership. She put in her application and the rest, as they say, is history. The Smith family was chosen to be the 34th Habitat family in Morgan County. "I still can't believe we were chosen", Rhonda explained to a Habitat board member recently. "Out of so many people, we were picked!"

Besides living in substandard housing, the Smith family was selected because of Rhonda's stable work history. For seven years she has worked at Wayne Farms as a packer, a job she finds a great deal of satisfaction in. Rhonda describes herself as a quiet, private woman who likes to retreat to her house after working long hours. She takes pride in keeping a very clean house--well, except for Patrick's room! Patrick will be a senior at Decatur High in the fall and is interested in going to college for architecture. In preparation for this career he will be able to not only see his new house be built from the ground up, but will help to build it. His sister Gabrielle will enter high school in the fall and just learned she got accepted into the flag corps! Though she isn't old enough to help build, she is looking forward to helping her mom pick out paint colors, carpet and other things Habitat helps them select for their home. Gabrielle and her brother are both extremely excited at the prospect of living in a home of their own. In a conversation with their mother, they were explaining how the phrase "home sweet home" will mean so much more to them.

Because of her work schedule, Rhonda will not be able to join her son on the construction site very often. She plans on earning the rest of her 400 required sweat equity hours by volunteering as a tutor at Decatur Youth Services, her church and elsewhere in the community, hopefully working with children. Though hard times are no stranger to the Smith family, Rhonda has always stressed to her kids the importance of seeing things through with faith and hard work. She tells her kids that going to school will mean nothing unless they work hard, stick it out, and graduate. This philosophy is especially meaningful to her as she goes through the home building process. "We'll not only have a place of our own, we will have helped establish it. That means a lot to me. It will be such a blessing after we help build it from the ground up to be able to walk into our new home. It will be like Christmas - Christmas in July!"