Pikes Peak Habitat Faith in Action Monthly Interfaith e-News
March 2024
Learn About Our 4th IBU Partner Family
Pikes Peak Habitat for Humanity is honored to announce our 4th Interfaith Build for Unity partner family! In the coming months, faith communities across El Paso County will come together to partner with Isxel's family as their home is being built.
Isxel is the proud mother of two kids—a 12-year-old daughter and an 8-year-old son—who works as a paraprofessional in special education. One day she hopes to earn her teaching certificate.
After moving to the United States from Mexico when she married more than two decades ago, Isxel lived in a house her husband owned. The house was old and in poor repair, she recalls, and he didn’t try to fix anything. While Isxel did her best, including repairing the back porch and patching holes, she found that plumbing and electrical issues were beyond her capacity. Her husband never added her to the title of the house, so when the marriage ended, Isxel and her two young children found themselves in need of a decent, affordable place to live.
After being accepted into Pikes Peak Habitat's homeownership program, Isxel got to work on her sweat equity hours. On the construction site, she has met other future neighbors, as well as the many volunteers who are helping build her home and others in the community. “I see people that are working and feel like a family. I don’t have family here, just my children; all my family is in Mexico,” she says. “I told friends, I feel like my neighborhood, my church is my family. I feel blessed and really happy.”
She is also connecting with other parents in the neighborhood, such as Mariela, a future neighbor and fellow Pikes Peak Habitat homebuyer, who is also from Mexico. (Pikes Peak Habitat requires all future homebuyers to be U.S. citizens or Legal Permanent Residents.) Mariela’s family moved into their two-story, four-bedroom home – the 2023 Apostles Build – in December. “We want to make friends and family with the children,” she says.
When thinking about this experience, Isxel shares, "It’s really a blessing. This opportunity is really, really good for people that need it. I feel blessed and grateful, so positive. It’s something really good for me and my children!"
Be sure to check out Isxel's full family profile to learn more about her and her kids, and what they are most excited about for their new home.
Ways to Get Involved This March
Save the Date for Pikes Peak Habitat's Interfaith Video Training Info Night
Thursday, April 25, 2024
Grace & St. Stephen's Episcopal Church
601 N. Tejon St., Colorado Springs, CO 80903
5:15-6:45 p.m.
This year Pikes Peak Habitat created an eight-part video training series focused on our interfaith projects, including our Interfaith Build for Unity. This flexible curriculum can be useful for organizations, companies, faith communities, government liaisons, and nonprofit organizations who are interested in learning how to become local interfaith bridgebuilders, better serve clients from diverse backgrounds and beliefs, or start and/or expand their interfaith work. Join us for this special informational night to learn more about this free curriculum, preview one of the videos, and learn how this training guide can be useful in your local context.
Email Chloe@PikesPeakHabitat.org to RSVP.
Learn About Various Religious Holidays Taking Place This Quarter
As a people of diverse faiths uniting to support affordable homeownership and striving to develop relationships across religions, one of the best ways to start learning about a faith different than your own is to learn about some of the most important holidays in other traditions. Over the next couple months, a variety of different faith communities will celebrate important holidays in their tradition including, but not limited to, Easter, Eid al-Fitr, Good Friday, Holi, Ramadan, Ridvan and Passover. Check out this interfaith calendar to learn about the various religious holidays that are quickly approaching.