Standing in the doorway of her new home, Rosa Graciela Lopez Vasquez wears a big smile. This house, where she lives with her husband Santos Elias and their 6 year old twin daughters Erika and Nataly, was built by Habitat and a group of Thrivent Financial volunteers in September, 2015. Rosa looks after the house in the mornings while the girls are in school and her husband is working as a state police officer for the PNC (National Civil Police).

Before having their new house built, the family of 4 lived with Santos Elias´ parents and various other family members in a simple house made of adobe (a type of clay made of water, dirt, and organic material). Adobe is better suited to dry climates and can be damaged easily during the rainy season in Guatemala. The house was small and very cramped with 8-10 people sharing one bedroom and a small kitchen. For a bathroom they used a latrine, and shared between that many people this wasn’t a clean nor a healthy sanitary option. Rosa worried about the health of her daughters, especially during the rainy season when their roof would leak causing rain to enter and they suffered a lot from the cold. The girls also had no space for healthy play. At 6 years old, play is an important part of their integral development, fostering creativity and imagination among other valuable life skills. For these reasons, Rosa and her husband decided to solicit the help of Habitat.

Rosa´s father-in-law works for Habitat and told them what the process of building a house involves and of Habitat´s low-interest loan program which would allow them to pay off the house little by little in monthly installments that incur low interest rates only to account for inflation. It was the perfect solution to their problems.

Now, Rosa says they are enjoying their new home. ¨Thank God we were able to build this house. Without Habitat we wouldn’t have been able to do it,¨she says, explaining how the costs of materials, labor, and permits would have been too much. She’s always conscious of making her monthly payment on time, but this is a responsibility she is happy to have because it signifies her steps towards independence.

In the kitchen, Rosa shows off her new stove. Made of concrete block with a chimney and a plancha (stove top) with 3 burners it allows her to cook for her family with ease without inhaling any smoke. In the old house she used to cook outside in the open air because it was too cramped inside and they would have all inhaled the smoke; they had no stove, just an open flame. ¨Here it is a lot better because whenever I want to make something I just light a small fire [under the plancha] and it heats up quickly,¨ Rosa says of the new stove. Habitat stoves are fuel efficient and economical, heating up quickly to reduce cook times and the amount of firewood needed. The house is also equipped with a bathroom.

These days the family sleeps much more peacefully. The girls have their own bedroom for the first time in their lives and they have decorated it with pictures they have colored. Sitting in their living room Rosa pulls out coloring books from the shelf and shows page after page of the artwork done by her daughters. According to their mom they love to paint and color and, looking at the pictures, it is something they are very good at.

Rosa says that Habitat has helped them live better lives and she thanks God for that. God, and the volunteers. Bringing out a stack of pictures she has of the group, she points out who’s who, remembering some of their names. ¨Habitat helped us a lot,¨ she says ¨they’ve helped many families live better. They helped the health of children, of us adults as well so that families are able to live adequately.¨

Trudging through the rain under a half-broken umbrella, Michelle Guzman reaches in her pocket for her house key. She walks with her little daughter, Cecilia, who is happily tiptoeing through puddles to her door, as if it were a game.

Michelle, a proud parent of 10-year-old Cecilia and 3-year-old Mia, is coming back from her work at a restaurant where she sells tortillas de harina, or flour tortillas.

“Me? I’m proud of my work!” she says. “Once I went to that restaurant, and I loved the food. So I decided to work there.”

She tells about where she used to live. Her old living arrangements were her mom’s house, a 30-meter walk down the path. “It was tight,” says Michelle, widening her eyes. “There were three rooms, and there were four of us. Everyone wanted their own space. And on top of the ruckus of my girls, it was too much.”

“And,” says Michelle cautiously, “my mother has a character…”

Michelle was living under her mom’s roof for a long time raising kids for years. She had tried to get her own house, but there was no way to gather thousands of Quetzals at a time for a plot of land and a house.

“That’s the advantage of Habitat,” she says. “You can pay monthly, you don’t have to pay it all at once.”

Her mother’s house was a Habitat house, so she thought, why not get my own?

Before long, a group of volunteers from Thrivent Financial were bending iron, hauling blocks, and making memories. Upon remembering them, Michelle opened her eyes wide and said, “they helped a TON! They worked really well together and they wanted to help as much as they could. They were so noble. Not every person does what they did. We are really thankful for their help, and our doors are always open for them, even my mom’s doors!”

For Michelle, the biggest difference that the house has made is that her family is now stable. Before, they were living in cramped quarters in her mom’s house, and sometimes living with their father in another part of town. Michelle and the children’s father had decided it would be best if the children had a place to call home, so they permanently live in the new Habitat house with Michelle.

“In my mother’s house, they weren’t going to have a future. It’s best that they have a place to be. I want my daughters to have a stability and a future,” says Michelle. “Whatever happens, they can defend themselves because they have this place.”

Michelle also recognizes her role as a parent in the new found stability of her family. “It’s important that I make good decisions, because they depend on me and the decisions I make.”

Michelle is also taking care of more than just her kids. She babysits the neighbors’ kids during the day, so she can make a bit of added income to help make her monthly house payment.

“My kids finally have a place to be,” says 29-year-old Michelle. It’s apparent that she’s a proud mother by the way she holds her children and smiles as they giggle and play tag in their bedroom with the neighbor kids.

She’s going to paint the place olive green or mustard color when she gets the chance. And she has reason to, because her neighbors are going to have a little competition to see who can have the best artistic work in the neighborhood. “After I plant grass and a few trees, I’ll win it,” she says, smiling.