The goal was to build eight houses in five days and we did just that.

About two hundred miles west of Bucharest lies the somewhat dreary, but full-of-life city Beius. I along with over 150 people started with a cement base and proceeded to build houses from the ground up. I sawed wood, laid drywall, made roofs, installed floorboards, stuccoed walls, and pounded in no less than a 1,000 nails.

The experience brought home to me how important the role of passion is in work. Every job has undesirable aspects to it – tasks that you simply wished didn’t exist. But if you’re passionate about the project, if you’re infected with the goodwill of the people around you, then these jobs easily get done. Working for Habitat for Humanity instills that passion in me, and I believe my passion in my role adds to the experience for everyone.

While the hardwork is gratifying the fact that we worked with the families whose homes we were building really made the experience worth it. The house that I was assigned to was for a man named Nusicor and his wife Lenatu and their four children. Besides them all having full time jobs they spent every spare moment they had coming to the worksite and helping out in any capacity they could.

In a project as big as this, you work with a lot of people you don’t know with different skill sets, priorities, and styles. Part of the fun is managing all that.

In every resume, I imagine people talk about working in a group and as a team and the harmony of it all. But there are times when you don’t particularly get along with someone. And the solution I discovered to working with people you aren’t particularly fond of is to steal a line from advertising history ‘just do it’. Don’t get walked all over but set the tone. Be friendly, don’t take everything to heart, do what needs to be done, and focus on the job at hand.

And of course, one or even a few people pale in comparison to all the wonderfully amazing people who worked on the project.

For a better look at the projects, you can visit https://www.facebook.com/habitatbeius/.