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“Your old men shall dream dreams, Your young men shall see visions, And also on my menservants and on my maidservants I will pour out my spirit in those days.”
—Joel 2:28-29 |
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Speaks Around the Nation
Habitat for Humanity’s founder and president, Millard Fuller, travels around the nation sharing Habitat’s message.
Sept. 12–15: Indianapolis, Ind., International 25th Anniversary Celebration; Kevin Campbell, (800)
422-4828, ext. 2825
Sept. 26:
Americus, Ga., Georgia Southwestern
State University Convocation;
O. Jay Cliett,
(229) 931-2324
Oct. 3: Stokes County, N.C., Stokes County HFH; Janice Jolley, (704) 938-5690
Oct. 3–4: Westchester County, N.Y., HFH of Westchester Co.;
Jim Killoran,
(914) 636-8335
Oct. 5: Worcester, Mass., HFH of Greater Worcester Co.;
Nancy Stell-Kiely,
(508) 799-9259
Oct. 6: Springfield, Mass., Greater Springfield HFH;
York Mayo,
(413) 739-5503
Oct. 22: Akron, Ohio, HFH of Greater Akron; Holly Miller, (330) 785-2700
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by Millard Fuller
It all started in an old, abandoned chicken barn at Koinonia Farm, a Christian community near Americus, Ga. A small group of people sat around a rickety table in September 1976 to discuss forming a ministry that would build houses and neighbors around the world to demonstrate God’s love. We decided to form an organization and call it Habitat for Humanity. Its motto would be: “A decent house in a decent community for God’s people in need.”
My wife, Linda, and I had just returned from a three-year missionary assignment in Zaire (today, the Democratic Republic of Congo), in Central Africa. Our family had lived and worked in Mbandaka, the capital city of Equator Region. The housing program we launched there was simply called “the housing project.” The idea was patterned on the “partnership housing” program we had pioneered at Koinonia with Clarence Jordan, starting in 1969.
In the chicken barn, we dreamed of building 100,000 houses for one million people. We even documented that audacious goal in the minutes of the meeting.At the time, we expected to build primarily in the rural south of the United States and in developing countries. Now, we look back over the first quarter century of this movement and what do we see?
Habitat’s work has grown dramatically in the rural south and in developing countries. Thousands of houses have been built in rural areas of Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, South Carolina, Louisiana, Texas and other southern states. And, Habitat’s work has expanded to 21 countries in Africa, to every country in Central America except one and to many other developing countries. But, it has also spread to every state in the United States, every province in Canada, to countries throughout Europe, to New Zealand and Australia and to other developed countries.
In fact, Habitat is currently building in some 3,000 locations in more than 70 countries. And, more than 110,000 have been built to date, housing in excess of 500,000 people. New Habitat houses are being built or renovated somewhere in the world at the rate of one house every 26 minutes for a total of 20,000 houses a year By the end of 2005, plans call for Habitat to be working in 100 countries and to be dedicating its 200,000th house, housing 1 million people.
The dream and the vision of the chicken barn are becoming reality. Surely, God’s spirit has been abundantly poured out on the millions of people who have brought these accomplishments to pass.
But we must not rest on our laurels. To build the next 100,000 houses will require the raising of an extra $500 million through HFHI’s “More Than Houses” campaign.
So much more must be done. Let us commit and recommit ourselves to the dream and to the vision.
A world with no shacks and no homeless people is a God-given challenge. May God continue to pour out His spirit upon us as we labor on. |
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