DALLAS (ABP) — Nobody ever earned God's favor by building a house for a poor family, according to the president and co-founder of Habitat for Humanity. But whether it's in rural Georgia or the war-torn Middle East, that's part of how “the people of Jesus” should show gratitude for their blessings, Millard Fuller said.
The T. B. Maston Foundation presented its annual award for applied Christian ethics to Fuller and his wife, Linda, at a recent banquet in Dallas. The Maston Award is named for a pioneering Baptist professor of Christian social ethics at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary.
Millard and Linda Fuller started Habitat for Humanity in 1976 with the vision of every person in the world having “a simple, decent place to live.” Since that time, Habitat for Humanity International has built about 160,000 homes for nearly 800,000 people. Currently, Habitat has chapters in 3,700 cities in 92 countries and on 779 college, university and high school campuses.
“We build a house every 26 minutes. We built another 21,600 this year. And by 2005, we will have built housing for a million people — 200,000 families. It's beginning to look like a little movement is taking shape,” Fuller said. “It's exciting that this little mustard seed ministry has grown and developed and blossomed.”
Fuller cited the influence of Clarence Jordan, New Testament scholar and founder of the interracial Koinonia Farm near Americus, Ga., on his life and on the development of Habitat.
“I gained the insight from Clarence Jordan that the thrust of the gospel is not from earth to heaven but from heaven to earth…I learned from him that the best evidence of the resurrection is not a rolled away stone but a carried away church,” Fuller said.
“I believe, and Clarence Jordan believed, that we are saved by the blood of Jesus on the cross, not by any amount of houses you build or hungry people you feed. We receive the free gift of salvation through the sacrifice Jesus paid on the cross. But how do we express gratitude for that? It is by living a life of giving back, by being the salt of the earth, and by being the presence of Christ.”
Linda Fuller was praised not only for her involvement with Habitat but also as a social-justice advocate for women, the poor, immigrants and the mentally ill. Christians should be good stewards of the “power to bless,” she told those assembled at the awards banquet.
She spoke forthrightly about those years when her husband made his first million dollars but their marriage suffered.
“I learned pretty quickly that being rich isn't all it's cut out to be,” she said. The couple reexamined their values, made the decision to sell all their possessions, gave their money to the poor, and started searching for a new sense of purpose for their lives. That search led to the founding of Habitat.
“When we were rich, when we had a lot of money, our power was taken away from us. We were so consumed with material things, making more and more money, and fixing the boats and cottage on the lake that our power was drained. We had no power left to be a blessing to somebody else,” she said.
In contrast, she pointed to recent experiences she and her husband had in Jordan and remote Third World countries. In places where friends told her she was placing her life in danger, she recognized that she was empowered with the ability to bless.
“You have the power, I have the power, we all have the power to make a difference in the world, to be blessed and also to bless,” she said.
The Fullers previously have been honored with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the Bronze Medallion from the Points of Light Foundation, the Harry S. Truman Public Service Award and the Martin Luther King Humanitarian Award, among others.
Maston Foundation board member Foy Valentine told those assembled at the banquet that he hoped the ethics award would not be the last recognition the Fullers receive.
“It is my fervent hope that they will get the Nobel Peace Prize,” Valentine said, though he questioned whether the award could go twice to members of the same small Baptist church in Georgia. The Fullers attend Maranatha Baptist Church in Plains, Ga., where former President Jimmy Carter, winner of the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize and a volunteer with Habitat, teaches a Sunday school class.
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