In his native Bosnia, Zuhdija (zoo-day) Napreljac helped each of his six brothers build their houses, and his family and friends pitched in to help build his house as well.

“My father was a bricklayer, so everybody had to go with him to help or else he was very mad,” Napreljac said.

Though his father wasn’t with him when he and his family fled to the United States more than a decade ago, his sponsor, Larry Allen, convinced him that Habitat for Humanity could provide a means for his family to again become homeowners.

Earlier this month, Napreljac and his wife, Sadifa, paid off their mortgage in less than 10 years, becoming the first family in the 18-year history of the Greater Des Moines Habitat for Humanity program to pay off their interest-free loan.

By setting aside the amount they would have paid in interest each month, along with savings from working two jobs each, the couple had saved enough after seven years to buy a run-down house for $20,000 — cash. Using the skills they learned from Habitat and the money they saved from working two jobs each, they spent the next three years fixing up the property. They recently sold the house at “a good profit,” enabling them to pay the remainder owed on their $60,000 loan.

The news came to Habitat’s director of family support, Peggy Aguilar, with an excited phone call from Sadifa.

“I call Peggy and I say, ‘I’m so happy; I sold my house,’” Sadifa said. “They say, ‘How you do that?’”

The drive among Eastern European refugees to own their own homes seems especially strong, Aguilar said.

“The whole family and friends are involved; that’s how they do it in their native country,” she said. “They don’t hire people to do it. So that part of how we build is not foreign to them. They are very hard-working and very skilled with their hands.”

Though the idea of pitching in to build a house together is familiar to Bosnians, borrowing tens of thousands of dollars to finance the construction isn’t, which is why the Napreljacs worked so hard to pay off the house early.

Besides being homeowners, the two are also small business owners. Two years ago, they opened Aloha, a small supermarket at 3832 Douglas Ave. specializing in European foods that Sadifa manages. Zuhdija, who had worked as an electrical lineman in Bosnia, now works as a hotel maintenance man and has a small roofing business on the side. Their 25-year-old son is a manager with a tile company and their daughter, 22, is a junior at Drake University.

“I can’t believe in 10 years I can have my own house and my own business,” Zuhdija said. “I saved money and I put it in the right place.

“Having (my) family inside a house, I really appreciate that very much, and I never forget the people that helped me. And I can tell people (from Bosnia) who lost what I did, I tell them to go to Habitat and they will help you.”

Though Napreljac has sponsored six Bosnian families, none have been able to participate in the Habitat program, he said, because of their full-time work schedules. He says it worked out that he didn’t have a job at the time the Habitat opportunity came about, which became his first American “job.”

Having since upgraded their Habitat house with a garage, air conditioning, ceramic floors, new exterior and interior paint and even a bar, he said he believes it will be worth about twice what he paid when the time comes to sell it.

The couple’s next move? They recently purchased a lot in West Des Moines, where they plan to begin building a new house before the end of the year. The calls are already out to the family.