In September 2011, my father and I went to Portugal to volunteer for Habitat for Humanity.

I was by far the youngest person in the group, but this just meant I had lots of opportunity to learn. Many of the other volunteers had lots of experience and knowledge about fixing houses and construction. It was fun and humbling to learn from them and develop my own skill set.

We worked on a house that was 300 years, which I realized was older than my country. We moved all the stones out of the house, used a jackhammer to crumble the stones, took off the roof and second floor, rebuilt and tiled the roof, bricked the inside walls, and rebuilt the road.

We had cultural exchanges, talks with community leaders, inside looks into Habitat for Humanity, and left as deeply moved as we all gave.