Update: Interfaith Habitat for Humanity Project

May 31, 2003

Source: The Toledo Blade

http://www.toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20030531/NEWS10/105310143

On May 31, 2003 The Toledo Blade reported that "one of the most vivid images to emerge from a MultiFaith Habitat for Humanity project to be dedicated tomorrow was that of an Orthodox Jewish woman and a Muslim woman wearing a head scarf carrying a board together as they cleaned the construction site... Nobody snapped a photograph of the scene, but it will forever be impressed on the mind of Woody Trautman, who helped organize the most expansive interfaith Habitat for Humanity effort yet in the Toledo area, bringing together more than 300 people of 14 different faiths and 18 congregations... Throughout the month that it took to build a new home at 1134 Gribbin Lane for James and Jamie Holmes and their four children, similar scenes played out between members of other faiths as Baha’is joined Buddhists and Muslims teamed with Mormons on the construction project... Glen Torrence, an electrician and member of the Church of the Brethren, found common ground with Ajit Jaggi, an electrical engineer and a Hindu, as the pair worked on wiring... Carol Lehmann, a Presbyterian who attends a Unitarian church, learned how Michelle Joseph became an adherent of the Baha’i faith while one woman held a beam and the other wielded a power saw... Often, the volunteers would take a few moments between pounding nails or sawing wood to talk about their religious beliefs in what Mr. Trautman said was a nonthreatening atmosphere for interfaith dialogue."