Today concluded our fifth day on this Alternative Spring Break trip here at Pensacola, Florida.
It started with the usual early morning struggle to push past our drowsiness to prepare for the day. Even though most us were tired already with the Pensacola fog and mist fighting against us, I'd like to believe that we were able to function and work on our Habitat house because we knew were almost there. With the swift teamwork between each other and another college, UVA, were able to place finishing fixtures around our house, apply caulk, security the back wall of the house, set braces and so much more in a few hours before taking a break for our usual lunch.
It was clear that misunderstandings of where to place nails and how to apply braces and many other mistakes were problems along the way but everyone felt the satisfaction of making a stable safe home for someone so far and could tell that the job was almost done. We were almost there. Final touches and fixtures were added, along with all of our written signatures on the walls, and before we knew it, the University of Memphis Alternative Spring Break family had officially serviced the Pensacola community by building the base of a, one day, beautiful home.
We were able to help out with a neighboring Habitat home for a little bit of time before having to head back to our the church where we went over our daily discussion of our "high and low" moments of the day. Almost everyone seemed a degree more alive and positive after completing our work on today's house. I reflected back a little to myself on the concept of "almost there". As a Child Development major, I often wonder how people find the motive to do what they do and whether an act or decision is repeated in relevance to it being successful or unsuccessful the first time. Did we really think we were capable of impacting someone's life by building a house successfully five days ago or were we just so motivated today by the thought of the house almost being done that it pushed us to do so?
After a few hours of rest, cleanup, and quick workouts, we all headed out to a local restaurant neighboring the Pensacola beach called Peg Leg Pete's. We sat at our tables over the next few hours learning more about each other over Peg Leg's trademark oysters and seafood and then headed out to what will hopefully not be our last beach outing together. A few of us stopped by at a local gift shop and gathered things for loved ones and clothes to brace the cold beach water with; and then moved across the beach sand to the water's edge. The next half hour was nothing but laughter from the cold water sensation, the embrace of the thunderstorm winds, and long looks out onto the misty, mysterious waves. I could tell that this trip impacted us all in one way or another. And for a brief second, I didn't care about how I got the motivation to do what we did so far on this trip but was just grateful that we did it. Especially with positivity, open mindedness, strong will, and each other.
Now we just have one more day. We're almost there.
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