Millard Fuller Interview (page: 9 / 9) Founder, Habitat for Humanity International	Print Interview

What's going to be the next step for Habitat? More and more houses until you reach the ultimate goal?

Millard Fuller: Linda is involved in a lot of the new stuff that we're doing, some very exciting things in more creative construction methods, and in women's involvement in Habitat.

Get the Flash Player to see this video. Linda Fuller: Getting the Carters involved, and Rosalynn was in a big way -- she had actually not done much hammering or worked on a construction site before -- but she pitched right in there and she learns quickly. She can now case out a window and do most anything, and it's beautiful to see that partnership, because on a building site, they are working side by side. But she sort of gave women permission to come out and help in the construction. Since that time in 1984, we have had more and more women on the construction site, to the point where we have done probably about 200 houses built by all women, and now I'm helping to start an actual specific program in Habitat for Humanity International we are calling Women Build. And this will be announced actually this summer, to encourage women to participate, learn construction skills, whether they are working on a house with all women or whether it's co-ed builds. We've got all these houses that need to be built, you know. Men are going to need some more help, and we get students involved, retired people. All ages come out and help us.

Millard Fuller: What our desire is, and what our intention is, is to get all segments of society engaged in this big crusade to eliminate poverty housing. We are developing programs within prisons now. We are getting a lot of prisoners to build Habitat houses. We are getting retired people more engaged. There is a whole program we have called the R.V. Caravaneers, where retired people go out with their caravans and -- literally in caravans. Ten, 15, 20 caravans go out to a place and park them and build houses. We've got about 1,500 families now involved in that program. We have a big global village program, where we send out an average of three groups a week, go around the world and build for ten days to two weeks, build Habitat houses in Mexico or Papua New Guinea or India or wherever. Students. We now are in 500 colleges and universities, and we had -- this past year (1998) -- more than 7,000 students use their spring breaks to go to more than 200 cities and use their spring break to build Habitat houses. They raised in excess of $600,000. And another huge program that we are running now is one whereby we are asking cities to set a date for eliminating poverty housing. The model is our own home town, where we expect to have everybody in a good house by the year 2000. And other cities are coming now to study that. We've got at least 20 cities that have set a date, or are in the process of setting a date, for eliminating poverty housing in their town and in their city. We want to continue to spread that until it is in every city throughout the United States. Eventually, we plan to be in every country on earth and plant this idea. It's a simple idea, but yet a profound one, that everybody who gets sleepy at night ought to have a decent place in which to sleep.

Do you think you'll see that in your lifetime?

Millard Fuller: It won't happen in my lifetime, no, no matter how long I live.

Does it matter?

Millard Fuller: It doesn't matter, because the idea has been launched.

Get the Flash Player to see this video. I think it is a modern-day religious and social movement that has been birthed, and the young people are picking it up. The young people are out there now by the thousands, and they are embracing this idea that people who get sleepy at night ought to have a place in which to sleep, that human beings ought not have to live under a bridge. Human beings shouldn't live on a grate. Human beings shouldn't live in houses that are not suitable for human habitation. They are embracing that idea, and I am very hopeful that we are going to be able to accomplish what we have set out to do.

Is that the Fullers' American Dream?

Millard Fuller: It is much more than the American Dream. It is God's dream, and it transcends national boundaries. It's a part of the American Dream, but it is a dream that is so much bigger than the American Dream. God is not an American citizen. Jesus never had an American passport. This is a worldwide vision, and our vision is for everybody -- of whatever nationality -- who gets sleepy at night, they ought to have a place to sleep.

There's another question we'd like to ask you both before we finish here. Were there any books that you read as a child, or even as an adult, that have been pivotal for you?

Linda Fuller: I can't exactly name the books, but when I was a college student, since I went to a Christian college, we were required to take courses in Old Testament, New Testament, ethics and philosophy. It was those courses that really helped me to start thinking about my values, especially when we had the marriage crisis. I began to say, "Is all this stuff important, or is our family and relationships important?" It took me a long time to work through that, but that was the basis that helped me. Then of course, reading Clarence Jordan's thoughts about how we should live out Biblical principles. I'm into a lot of self-help books. I told you earlier that I had a low self-esteem problem to work through, problems with fear of rejection, all of that, and just many books that have been very helpful to me on a personal basis, as well as guiding our goals for the future. I love to also read books by futurists, how are the demographics changing, and what's new, and what is possible, and what needs to be done for the future. We don't really have much time to read, but when we do read, it's those kind of things. And then listening to God, because a lot of our ideas that we get, it's not really possible to think up for ourselves. Clarence used to say, "Put up your spiritual antennas and see what God's got going on." It's not always what we've planned, but listening to God and seeing what we need to do.

Get the Flash Player to see this video. Millard Fuller: Without a doubt, the book that has impacted me the most has been the Bible. I carry a Bible with me almost all the time and read it, try to read it regularly, and it's just such a profound book that has survived the ages. And I think it's unfortunate that a lot of young people who read all kinds of books never read the Bible, that the most important book to me in the world is not read by a lot of our most intelligent young people. It's just like, you don't read the Bible, you've got to read other books, but the Bible has been very important to me for years and years and years, and continues to be. And then Thomas Kelly wrote a book that impacted me very positively, and that's A Testament of Devotion, very powerful book. He talks about the concept of "the eternal now" -- that so many people are worried about what happened in the past, and are thinking about what is going to happen in the future, and they always miss what's going on right now. So that is an important concept. And then Linda's mentioned all the writings of Clarence Jordan, who exposed us to the idea of relevant religion. A lot of people relegate religion to a distant past, to another part of the world. They love the good Samaritan doing his good deed between Jerusalem and Jericho, but they don't relate it to who they are and where they are. So all of that, and the concept of making your life count, and realizing that the thrust of Jesus' message was from heaven to earth, and not from earth to heaven. That was a tremendous revelation to me, and that God's love extends to everyone. God doesn't have special people that he loves more than other people, but God loves everyone, and if that is the case, and we are trying to live our lives like we envision God wanting us to live our lives, we too should have a love that extends to everyone.

Thank you so much for speaking with us today. We really appreciate it.

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