Habitat homeowner Nhlanhal Chiliza holds a piece of glass recovered from the rubble of September 11. The glass rests now in the wall of his house No. 911.

Behind the Scenes:
Homeowner Finds Meaning in Rubble of September 11

"...Where there is hatred, let us sow love..." With those words from the Prayer of St. Francis of Assisi, American chaplain Mindy Rosengarten completed a journey that began at Ground Zero in New York City and ended in the heart of a new community called Ethembeni (Place of Hope) in Durban, South Africa.

Working as an interfaith chaplain at the morgue in the aftermath of Sept. 11, 2001, Rosengarten said the journey to the Jimmy Carter Work Project in June was a personal one. "I needed my heart to heal," she said. "I've seen so much death."

She had not known about Habitat for Humanity until a cold day in January, when she visited the Cathedral of St. John the Divine and heard about a blitz build. The buzz at the church was: "Do you want to build something up? Take Martin Luther King Day with us." So she did. While working with other volunteers during the blitz build in South Bronx, she learned about the upcoming JCWP, and knew she had to do it. "I had to get away from New York and get back in touch with the rest of the world," she said. "I wanted to do something healing."

Then, in the waning days of the cleanup of Ground Zero, firefighters and EMTs uncovered fragments of molten glass. They passed a few pieces along to their friend and colleague. As Rosengarten was packing for the JCWP, she had an impulse. "I thought, 'Instead of destruction, let's use this to symbolically build something back up.'" Unsure of how it would play out, she packed a piece of the glass from the World Trade Center and carried it with her to Durban.

Once there, she approached Habitat for Humanity International co-founder Linda Fuller about what might be done with the glass. They soon realized the answer was right in front of them.

In fact, as more than 4,000 volunteers were building 100 houses in Durban that first week of June, others had gone before and built 900 houses in 18 countries across Africa as part of the JCWP. That meant the Habitat houses in Durban were numbered from 901 through 1,000. Perhaps divinely, then, that meant there was a house No. 911.

The idea made perfect sense to Nhlanhal Chiliza, whose house was No. 911. He says the number 11 has been his lucky number since birth. As proof, he cites his son's birth on November 11 and his new house in the Ethembeni community.

"This is a symbol of what really happened [on September 11]," he said of the glass. "It was not just a story, or a rumor. It was real. The reason behind the stone is so important, to remember those people who died. The stone will be here [in my house] forever. From generation to generation, no one can take out this stone. Not even if [South African] President Thabo Mbeki came to my house and asked for the stone, I would not give it to him. It is my job to protect the stone and its message."

By week's end, the message of the stone and how it linked an American and a South African had spread throughout the site. On Friday, Rosengarten and Chiliza, the No. 911 house crew and others gathered to embed the stone in the wall beside Chiliza's front door. It took its place beneath shiny new brass house numbers: 911.

"Let the meaning be spread around the world," Rosengarten had said earlier in the week. "Hate begets more hate. The only way to overcome hate is through love. We all need to deal with love."

And thus, healing began.

--Milana McLead