The Stars Shine Down on Americus

The last twenty-four hours have been somewhat eventful. Yesterday, February 3, 2009, the founder of Habitat for Humanity, Millard Fuller, died somewhat unexpectedly. Because President Jimmy Carter is a very high profile participant in the work of Habitat, many people assume that he started the organization. Habitat actually germinated at a place near Americus, GA called Koinonia Farm. Koinonia was founded by Clarence Jordan, of “Gospel Patch” fame. The vision of those at Koinonia, and particularly Millard and Linda Fuller, led to the establishment of Habitat for Humanity, which in the years since it was founded in 1976, has helped to build more than 300,000 homes worldwide, serving more than 1.5 million people. In 1996 Millard received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor.

In my short time in Americus, I have hooked up with a small group that goes out walking every morning at 6am on the local golf course. This time of year it’s quite dark outside at that time of day and this morning was particularly cold by local standards, about 25 degrees with a 15-20 mph wind. Normally I probably would not have stumbled out of bed on my own at that hour.

Having spent most of the last thirty years of my life living in the Chicago area, I don’t often get to see many of the stars in the sky. On this amazing morning walking along the golf course in Americus, it seemed like every star in the sky was shining down on us. I like to think that one of the stars was Millard Fuller, smiling down upon us from above.

This morning Millard was buried out at Koinonia Farm. It was an incredibly beautiful, cold, cloudless, clear blue day, the sun shining down like crazy among the grass and trees. His funeral was “simple and decent”, just like the housing that Habitat builds. I hope that God was well pleased with his beloved servant Millard. We can honor him best by continuing to carry out his vision of eliminating poverty housing throughout the world.