Habitat volunteer and Georgia-based writer, Pat Curry (left), and Habitat World editor, Milana McLead, discuss construction activity during this year's Jimmy Carter Work Project in Durban, South Africa.

Opening Our Eyes...and
Hearts to Poverty

"If a man shuts his ears to the cry of the poor, he too will cry out and not be answered." —Proverbs 21:13

Do we really see poverty? Or has a sort of "poverty fatigue" set in? The statistics are unquestionably overwhelming as millions of U.S. households and tens of millions more around the world live in poverty.

Admittedly, the numbers are staggering, but those sums are totaled--and experienced--one person at a time. As editor of Habitat World, I've had the opportunity--even the privilege--to be continually awakened to poverty, up close and personal. I've met "real" people, one at a time, behind those big numbers.

In June, I traveled to Durban, South Africa, for Habitat for Humanity's Jimmy Carter Work Project. As always, I made new Habitat friends, among them A.K. Mahomed, a Muslim and a South African of Indian descent. He took time out from his job at the Durban Institute of Technology to volunteer during JCWP.

"I come from a poor family," he said. "I know what it is to be poor, oppressed, suppressed. You climb out of that hole from no education...you need passion from your heart. Your life is about intention, and at the end of the day God judges your intentions. He doesn't look at anything else. [I'm here volunteering] to share, to give something back. This is a wonderful opportunity to put back and make life meaningful."

A.K. knows poverty first hand. He clearly remembers the days of apartheid, as his own family was forcibly uprooted and relocated. He quietly shed tears as he told me how, as a child, he helped his mother drag the family's sewage bucket out every day, dig a hole, dump it in and bury it. "Can you imagine anything more humiliating?" he asked.

Gratefully, I can't. But graphically, his story brought poverty home to me again. His story, and the stories of 100 JCWP homeowners, reminds me once more that the work of Habitat is not only important, but also life changing--one family at a time. And that's the legacy you leave when you lend a hand or pick up a hammer.

Thanks for reading...and for building.

--Milana McLead