there on Fifth Avenue, we took each other in our arms and cried. “Linda, I never wanted to make you unhappy. I love you so much,” I told her that day. “I never meant to turn away from your love.”
We hailed a cab and told each other all the ways we had each backed away from each other and the Lord and focused our attention on other things. “Linda, I know what we should do,” I said, and I looked at her. “I think we need to give away all our money. We need to give it away and make ourselves available for whatever God wants us to do.” And she agreed.
The very first thing we did was to go home, pick up our kids, and spend some time together as a family. We drove through Georgia and Florida, just taking the time to get to know each other again. On a whim, we drove to Americus, Georgia, to spend a few hours at a place I'd heard about called Koinonia Farm. I had a friend at the farm, and he introduced me to Clarence Jordan. We ended up staying a month.
Clarence was a radical Christian, and he thought our idea to give our money away made perfect sense. In the middle of the South, Clarence and his wife Florence had founded Koinonia as an integrated community for people to live together and support themselves in harmony. Clarence was way ahead of his time. The love we felt at Koinonia and the beauty of our acceptance there was something we never forgot.
Then we went home and made the necessary arrangements to give away our money. We made sure it would go to people who truly needed it. With every dollar we gave to help someone else, the better we started to feel. As we unburdened ourselves from the weight of our worldly possessions, we waited to see what God wanted us to do.
Two years later, after working with a church-related college, we returned to Koinonia Farm. There, with Clarence Jordan, I organized a housing program called “Partnership Housing” for local poor families. The homes these families were living in were little more than shacks, if that. Most had no plumbing or insulation, and the electricity consisted of one light bulb hanging from an exposed wire. The roofs did little to keep out leaves, much less water. These landless families had no hope to afford anything better. But we wanted to give them that hope.
The first house we worked on was for Bo and Emma Johnson. Sadly, Clarence died of a heart attack before that house was completed. But Linda and I were committed to finishing the work. And when we did finish, the Johnsons had a solid, concrete-block house with a modern kitchen, an indoor bathroom, and a good heating system. Their monthly mortgage on a twenty-year loan was $25. They cried. We all cried for the joy and love we all felt.
For five years, we built houses for people, and we clearly saw the difference decent housing made in people's lives. Then, for three years, we built houses in Africa. In 1976, we returned to Americus; it was then that we founded Habitat for Humanity.
Habitat is based on the guiding principle that all people deserve a decent place to live. And with enough people working together across this planet, I am convinced that we can abolish poverty housing altogether. So far, Habitat has provided housing for more than 350,000 people in more than 1,500 U.S. cities and sixty other countries. In 1998, we dedicated our 70,000th house.
Habitat doesn't work in a vacuum. The homeowners-to-be work directly with us to build their homes. And during that time, wonderful relationships are forged. But the most wonderful times of all are the dedication ceremonies, when the homeowners receive the keys to their new house and a Bible. Not much in my life touches me more than that. Every time, it's just one big love fest when the homeowners realize how many people really do care about them and are willing to turn that love into action.
I remember one homeowner in Wisconsin. She wanted to speak to the volunteers when she received her keys and Bible, but she couldn't say a word. She just cried and cried. She had asked her neighbors to come over so she could show them her beautiful new house, and they were so excited.
“Look at this beautiful bathroom. Oh, look at these cabinets—and this door.” You could hear the excitement in the neighbors’ voices as they filed through the house. But the woman couldn't answer them.
You just can't underestimate the impact that a safe, decent house can make on a family's life. I met one young boy who told me that his new home changed his outlook on school.
“I used to be bad in school. The teacher thought I was a bad person. But I was just worried we would have to move back into our car. Now, I get Bs all the time,” he said proudly.
As she shook my hand, one mother told me her new home improved her son's health. “Timmy used to have asthma all the time. But now our house is warm and safe, and he's off all medication,” she said with tears in her eyes. “He feels great.”
A solid home can absolutely transform a child's life, but Habitat's homes transform the volunteers, too. How can you not feel the love that comes from dozens of people working side by side for days at a time toward a common, worthwhile goal? Yes, we get sweaty and caked with dirt and paint, and more tired than we thought was possible. But we're doing the work the Lord told us to do—we are taking care of His people. What could possibly feel better?
I doubt anyone has felt Habitat's power to transform lives more than I have. I was on the verge of losing everything that truly meant anything to me. I had gone so far down the wrong track that I hadn't even noticed how empty my life had become. But when I turned my attention to helping other people, I healed myself and I healed my relationships with the people I loved.
In some ways, I'm the same person I was all those years ago. I'm still a hard worker, and I still want to succeed at what I'm doing. I'm still at the office at 5 A.M. sometimes. I'm still in meetings all day long some days.
What's different is that my goals have changed. Now I'm focused on building the Kingdom of God on earth. And my little part of that is to build houses for the poor.
You can profess to be religious from today until tomorrow, but if you don't back up those beliefs with appropriate action, then they're like cotton candy—they look good, but there's nothing to sink your teeth into. I lived a life of cotton candy for years. I thank God that He opened up my eyes in time for me to make more of a difference with my life than that.
Join in making simple, decent, and affordable housing a reality for those in need. Contact: Habitat for Humanity International, 121 Habitat Street, Americus, Georgia 31709-3498.Tel: 912-924-6935.Web site: www.habitat.org.
CHAPTER4
Breaking Free
DONNA KLAFFKE
PRISONS COME IN ALL SHAPES AND SIZES. Some are rooms with locked doors. Others are the prisons of ignorance created by a lack of education.
I have lived in both of those prisons. I know what it means to be locked in a room for months at a time. And I know what it means to lack the skills you need to reach even your most basic goals. That's why I am on a mission to help as many people as possible get those skills. That's why I'm still working on them myself.___________________________________________
I grew up in an environment that was so abusive, it's sometimes hard for people to believe my story. My parents divorced when I was a toddler, and my two older sisters and I were given to my father to raise. He remarried a woman who had two children of her own, and then they had another child together. So there were six children in the house all together.
From the time my biological parents divorced until I was about eight years old, I spent my life locked in a room with no food and no
