Lijia Janeth Gomez Alonzo is quite a woman. She seems to know everybody and is well-known in the community as a leader, she takes care of her brother who requires supervision for mental needs, and she is the proud mother of two children, Julio and Marcela.

Lijia tells about her journey as she sits down in a sofa in her new living room. Things are a little squeezed together. The love seat and the armchair are pushed up next to each other, right in front of the TV. Lijia tells that she is hosting more than her direct family, that her sister is posted up in one of the bedrooms, and her special needs brother is staying in another. Four-year-old Julio sits next to her as she starts telling the story.

She tells about the house she was living in before. It was actually a pretty nice place, in the center of the city of Chimaltenango. “I was paying 1,200 Quetzales [$155] every month for about twenty years,” she says. “But we never had enough at one time to save for a plot of land, to be able to pay that at once.”

If we do the math, that’s about five Habitat homes she could have paid off instead of twenty years’ rent.

“A few years ago, my children’s father went to the United States to look for work,” says Lijia. “He didn’t come back.” With the remesas, or money from family members in the States, that were sent back at first, Lijia was able to buy a small plot of land. But communication quit with her partner, and she was left to take care of the kids alone.

But Lijia didn’t let that bring her down. She applied for a house with Habitat Guatemala and now she is building a new life – a strong life – in her new Habitat home.

“Here, I’m paying 600. Half. There are always expenses, there are always debts to pay, so this place gives me the opportunity to do that.”

Lijia built her house mainly for one reason, to provide a better future for her kids. One opportunity that this house has given her is the ability to send her daughter to private school. Lijia says that public schools are a mess and that in private school, her daughter will get a much better education.

“They can have a better education, and a better quality of life down the road,” says Lijia. Lijia is really a special case. In Guatemala, it’s usually quite the opposite: kids are forced to work instead of go to school in an effort for added income. Lijia says she has never taken her kids out of school to work. Insead, she is working hard and making life choices based on the wellbeing of her kids.

“To have your own house implies many benefits,” says Lijia, “like the stability, and not investing in something that’s not yours.”

Having the house and taking care of her siblings has inspired Lijia to continue making changes to solidify her family‘s quality of life. She’s constructed a big open area on the side of her house: a closed space for a car, a kitchen area, and a wash area. As soon as the area is finished, she’s going to move the kitchen out there so that the living space inside is more comfortable.

Sure, things would be easier with a father, or a husband. Sure, things would be easier with an added source of income. But Lijia is proving herself as a strong caretaker of two children, a sister, and a special needs brother. She’s gotten on her own two feet and provided the stability that her family needs. And it started with a house.

“It’s better to have your own house,” says Dave. He presents himself with the “English version” of his birth name, David.

Dave’s sitting in a little sofa in the comfort of his own house. His daughters watch cartoons and play in their bedroom as he tells about his journey to his new house.

Before, he lived about 30 kilometers away from his work in a village called Balanyá. He, his wife Erika, and daughters Zoie and Tesia shared a home with Erika’s parents. Nobody was very fond of that. Of course, the wanted their own place, but trying to rake in a ton of money at once was not an option for the family. “We couldn’t pay it all at once,” says Dave.

It was because of Habitat Guatemala that the Dave and Erika and their family were able to get their own house. Habitat Guatemala provided them with a very low-interest way to get credit and make monthly payments. “If it wasn’t for Habitat, we couldn’t have constructed,” says Dave.

Now that they’re in their new place, their daily lives are very different. “Home” has started to take on a whole new meaning. “It was kind of humiliating to not have our own house,” says Dave. “Each family needs to have their own place.”

Now the couple lives only half a block away from their job, a school just down the road. They regard the change a a blessing that’s made their lives way easier and allowed more time to spend with the family.

The family has fixed up the place nicely. It’s obvious after a quick glance around the place that they’re proud to call it home. “We’re happy to have something of our own,” says Erika.

The couple also recalls the volunteers that came to help them build. “They worked really hard on the foundation, which was the hardest part,” says Dave. “More than anything, we want to thank them for helping us build the house, and for sharing their time and effort with us. They didn’t know us, but they helped us a ton.” Erika was also grateful: “Without them, we’d have spent more time in construction. The rest of the construction was much easier. They are special people for having helped others.”

The family still has plans to put in a wash basin, and when they get the funds they are going to put cement around the house to help keep things clean inside.

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.¨