Volunteering for Habitat sparked a love a house built

She didn’t want to go out that evening because she’d worked hard all day, and calling folks on the phone at the Habitat for Humanity-Spokane telethon sounded like more work. It was July 1994, hot as the dickens, and Stephanie Arnold pictured herself swimming in her apartment complex’s pool.

But Stephanie’s friend insisted. So, she finally said, “OK, I’ll go.”

Stephanie was 40, had been single for eight years, had raised her two children as a single mom and had a good job as a bank executive. She was loving Spokane, fresh here from Montana. Love and remarriage were not on her to-do list that evening as she walked to the locked door at Itron Inc., the Spokane company sponsoring the telethon.

She hit the buzzer. John Arnold opened the door. It was just like in the movies. Stephanie heard birds sing. Felt the lightning bolt. There was music and love at first sight – for Stephanie.

John was cranky and didn’t notice. An Itron Inc. employee and Habitat volunteer, he was in charge of the telethon and had no time to open doors that were already supposed to be opened. Falling in love was not on his to-do list. But he noticed Stephanie’s smile. He thought, “Wow.” Then he quickly returned to worrying about the evening’s logistics.

Stephanie worked the phones and worked the room. She whispered to the woman next to her. “Is he married?” The woman didn’t know. She whispered down the row of telephonists: Is he married? Is he married? Is he married? Word came back: No. No. No.

Stephanie thus became hooked on volunteering for Habitat. She signed up to be one of the coordinators for a coming walk, knowing that John coordinated all the coordinators. They chatted on the phone all summer. At the kickoff breakfast in September, he noticed the wow again. The dating began. The marriage came three years later, on Aug. 23, 1997.

Stephanie and John, who have built many homes together over the past decade, know of at least three other couples who met while volunteering for Habitat.

The nonprofit group doesn’t recruit volunteers by telling them they might meet a forever love.

But it can happen.

“On the job site, you see a lot about a person’s character,” says Michone Preston, executive director of Habitat for Humanity-Spokane. “You can gauge how people handle challenges and strife and whether they have a sense of humor. The site is a great equalizer.”

The wedding season can be a lonely, existential time for people, now unhooked, who wish to find mates. I’m telling the story of John and Stephanie Arnold today, as summer surges onward and weddings fill each weekend, to show how sometimes you must search for true love outside the box you dwell in.

Outside the bar box. Though some couples meet in bars and live happily ever after, often you meet people in bars whose idea of fun is limited to drinking in them.

Outside the Internet box. The Internet has been a boon to relationships, especially through the rekindling of high school and college romances. The August Psychology Today explores 1,600 lost-love reunions. The couples, reunited after decades, report a high rate of happiness. One huge downside: In 62 percent of the cases, the men and women making the contacts were already married and had affairs with those long-lost loves before hooking back up for good.

Outside the lonely-me box. Pick a cause you believe in and dive in. Build homes. Feed the hungry. Clothe the poor. Visit the sick. Shelter the children. You will forget your loneliness.

And maybe, lightning will strike, birds will sing, and there will be music on a hot July evening, when you didn’t want to go, but said yes anyway.