CEO Jonathan Reckford builds on a work site outside Mexico City.

The Ripple Effect

by Jonathan Reckford

"Habitat for Humanity is a perpetual motion miracle: everyone who receives, give--sand everyone who gives, receives. If you want to live complacent and uninspired, stay away from Habitat; come close to Habitat and it will change you, and make you part of something that changes the world."--Randall Wallace, screenwriter, Braveheart

I was pleased to learn from the Habitat World staff of the enthusiasm with which so many readers responded to the Jimmy Carter Work Project essay contest, which the magazine promoted in its March edition. (See the winning essay.) Hundreds of you submitted essays explaining why, with so many nonprofit organizations competing for your dollars and your time, you choose to support Habitat for Humanity.

Each of you, it appears, has your own reasons for coming to Habitat, and each of you has your own reasons for staying. One commonality among you, however, is a firm belief that the benefits of decent housing, the rewards of becoming involved with Habitat, belong not just to the homeowner. Like you, one of the truths I find so compelling about Habitat's model is that it truly is about so much more than the brick and mortar that give the house form.

Of course, the tangible benefit of decent, affordable shelter should and will never go overlooked, but the Habitat experience is just as much about what happens on the way to that end. Yes, it's about the destination, but it's just as much about the journey. It's about transformation within the homeowner family and also transformation among the volunteers and donors; it's about the transformation of entire communities, when through the stability of families, they, too, begin to thrive.

In considering this contest, I also considered the unity that the Habitat experience fosters. No matter the location of the build site, the religion, gender or ethnicity of the homeowners or volunteers, there is a sense of authentic community that links Habitat partners throughout the world.

It's exactly this kind of shared commitment that has sustained Habitat for three decades, and, similarly, it will be a renewed commitment that's necessary to meet the challenges ahead. I don't have to remind you that the need for decent housing is immense. But as I hear of the essays and talk with Habitat partners everywhere, I know that our tenacity is equally vast.

While building recently in the Amecameca region just outside Mexico City, the homeowner's 15-year-old daughter Haylim approached me with one simple question: "Why are you here?"

The simplicity of her question struck me because in its answer I find a profound meaning that reaches to the very purpose of Habitat's work--and to what inspires me personally in my Habitat involvement.

I told her that Habitat believes everyone is of equal worth and equally deserving of a decent place to live--because we are all one under God. I told her that our commitment is to live out the teachings of Jesus Christ, to serve one another. And I told her that I was doing this because each time I had the chance to work along side someone like her, it changes my heart and gives me a glimpse into the kind of community I believe Christ calls us to.

One of the underlying themes to this edition of Habitat World is "simple, decent." At the end of the day, Habitat's model is really very simple. It's a partnership arrangement in which everyone has a role to play and whereby the process benefits everyone. It truly is a "perpetual motion miracle," as screenwriter and volunteer Randall Wallace has said of the experience.

As Habitat for Humanity evolves to meet the scope of poverty housing, we can be sure that its partnership approach to providing housing solutions will remain constant. With commitment to that partnership, with guidance from God and with a hope-filled vision of what community can be, many good days lie ahead for this movement --and for so many families still only dreaming of a better place to live.