Pastor Hammilton Mngoma— "Our day has finally come."
By Samantha Schroeder

Author's note: Along with some other Jimmy Carter Work Project 2002 team members and a film crew, I recently visited some of the families whose houses will be built in Durban June 3-7. We had an opportunity to listen to some of the families’ stories – the struggles they have gone through, as well as their experiences partnering with Habitat. One moment of the day will live on in my memory.

Pastor Hammilton Mngoma is a pastor of his church in Lamontville, a township outside Durban, South Africa. For the past 12 years he has served this role in the community. For the past 12 years he has fought and prayed and interceded for the people of Lamontville. And for the past 12 years he has climbed the steep path up to his house—a house made entirely of iron roofing, with few windows and no ventilation—to his family of seven children. Needless to say, the house is a pressure cooker in the summer months and cold in the winter. But Pastor Mngoma learned yesterday that his family qualified for one of the first 100 houses to be built on the JCWP site in Durban in June.

As I headed down the path back to the car, Pastor Mngoma called me back. He told me that he hadn’t sleep a wink the night before, and that his wife and children have been crying tears of joy since they heard the news. He just wanted to let me know how happy they all were. He shook his head. "Twelve years," he said. "Our day has finally come."

—Samantha Schroeder is JCWP 2002 communications project coordinator