Joy, Gratitude and Belief

by Jonathan Reckford

As we embrace the joy of this holiday season, what better time to count the many blessings that grace our lives? At Habitat for Humanity, we’re deeply grateful for so much: for our volunteers and supporters, for our homeowner partner families, and for the fact that you are reading this edition of Habitat World.

Among the top of my own life’s blessings is a safe, comfortable home my family and I can afford. I’m grateful for a place my wife Ashley and I can raise our three children in comfort and stability, where we all can be healthy, and where our kids can have a quiet place to learn and to play and to dream.

Sadly, millions of parents and children the world over cannot stake such a claim. Families living on a dollar or two a day (which, unacceptably, represents about half the world’s population) often go to bed in unsafe, unhealthy and miserable circumstances; they live daily under enormous hardships, sometimes fearful and always uncertain about the future.

Amid the abundance of the United States, families in substandard housing are crowding too many people into too tight a space; because they have no choice, they’re spending too much on housing and energy costs and too little on necessities like food and health care.

This is to say nothing of the mortgage and financial crisis, where communities have seen home foreclosures soar, home values fall and vacant properties create blight for entire neighborhoods. We’ve witnessed extraordinary times in our economy, unprecedented measures to temper an unpredictable economic storm.

Habitat is certainly not immune to these economic forces, and we’re redoubling our efforts to help minimize the effect on families in substandard housing conditions. And we couldn’t do that — or undertake any other effort around the world — without support from friends like you. Through it all, in every climate and season, you continue to volunteer and to donate other resources. You continue to pray and to step forward as part of the solution. You continue to care about your neighbors — around the block and around the world.

I’m deeply grateful for that, both personally and on behalf of the entire Habitat family. Wherever I go, you can be sure that I’ll be wearing a Habitat shirt or hat or lapel pin. Unfailingly, people stop me to share how Habitat has been a life-changing gift, how they’ve seen it transform the lives of others — and profoundly impact their own hearts.

Even as the days that surround us remain uncertain and there is still so much work to be done, so many families in need of decent housing, these stories — your stories — remind me of the words that Jesus once spoke to a worried and heartsick father, words filled with joy and promise, words for which I am infinitely grateful: Everything is possible for those who believe.