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Millard Fuller

The accumulation of more and more wealth is one of the ways individuals attempt to fill the emptiness they experience in their lives. The many young people who become entrapped by greed spend their lives trying to accumulate more and more. They seem driven by an almost uncontrollable desire for more and more wealth. Millard Fuller's early years might be considered a symbol of all those who want to get ahead in life, where getting ahead is equated with amassing a fortune.

From the age of six, Millard Fuller could be considered an entrepreneur. His father gave him a little pig with instructions to feed him, fatten him up and then sell him. The success of his first business venture thrilled young Millard. He used his profits to buy more pigs, then some chickens and even some rabbits.

Millard's father bought a farm six years later and Millard invested his savings in cattle. With the proceeds from this venture he paid his own way through Auburn University. After graduation, he entered law school at the University of Alabama. With a fellow student, Morris Dees, he became involved in some creative enterprises--fancy birthday cakes, student telephone directories and a mail ordering business with products for youth groups wanting fund raising projects. Millard and Morris were making $50,000 a year by the time they received their law degrees.

After graduation from law school, Millard and Morris opened a law office together in Montgomery, Alabama but somehow found time for their business ventures. Fuller and Dees Marketing Group, Inc. expanded until it included a dozen subsidiary corporations.

By 1964, before he reached the age of thirty, Millard had made his first million. When his secretary asked him, "What is your next goal?" he replied, "Why, ten million! Why not?"

Shortly thereafter, everything began coming apart. Millard was so tense that he had trouble breathing properly, sometimes gasping for breath. Also a big sore on his ankle would not heal and was diagnosed as caused by nervousness. He could no longer ignore his physical problems. Then, in Nov.1965, Linda,his wife, left him and went to New York to think about the future of their marriage.

Millard was devastated. The first hint of his transformation came during the desperation he felt at this time. As he thought about his situation, Millard imagined himself appearing before God at the last Judgment. When God asked what he had done, he could only squeak out, "Lord, I sold a hell of a lot of cookbooks." He had to admit, "In the presence of God that sounded so ridiculous, I could only cringe."

In spite of this first insight, he resisted examining his life but tried to escape his thoughts, by flipping on the TV. He was presented by a new challenge from God as an old Chinese village leader appeared on the screen saying, "A planned life can only be endured." Those words penetrated his very being for he realized he planned only to get richer and richer and would therefore have to endure the consequences of this choice--health and emotional problems that were already bringing him pain.

This time he did not resist the touch of God. He called his wife and went to meet her in New York. They talked and prayed for hours, confessing to one another the ways they had betrayed their relationship. They felt God calling them together to a new life and they surrendered wholeheartedly to that call. In preparation for their new life, Millard sold his interest in the business and gave away the proceeds. He realized that accumulating wealth had lost its fascination for him. The challenge had been met and no longer called forth his best efforts. He looked for a new challenge, a more ambitious goal.

In Millard we have an example of a transformation beginning on the physical level--he realized he had to make changes for the good of his health. The emotional upheaval caused by his wife's leaving opened his heart to more widespread changes. Taking action, going to New York and meeting his wife, followed by prayer and honest confrontation, resulted in a religious transformation for both Millard and his wife. They wanted to change their lives and find a new relationship with God. They were not satisfied, however, with their own personal change but wanted to reach out to others. They were not sure what God was asking them to do.

When they came back from New York they consulted their pastor about the next step in their lives. The pastor had just received a request to send a representative to Zaire to study the mission activities of their church. The timing seemed so appropriate that Millard and Linda agreed to go. Sponsored by the Disciples of Christ, they traveled through Zaire studying the way their church was meeting the needs of the people. They were impressed by the Block and Sand Project aimed at providing housing for the many people flocking to the cities. On the basis of their findings, the church decided to focus on the Block and Sand Project as housing seemed to be the greatest immediate need in Zaire.

Two years later, again sponsored by the Church, the Fullers spent three months in Paris learning French, the official language of Zaire. Then, taking their four children with them they set out for Mbandaka, Zaire.

With the help of the people, they built very simple cinder block houses. The village people could not believe that they could move out of their mud shacks into real houses. Families stood in the street staring at their new home. Eseba, a mechanic, never tired telling Millard: " Mr. Fuller, God exists. There is no other explanation for the house. I praise and thank Him for what has happened to me and my family."

When the Fullers returned to the U.S. in 1976, Millard and a group of twenty six other people met at Koinonia Farm to pray and brainstorm , asking God, "Where do we go from here?" Koinonia Farm was located in a poor, rural area of south Georgia. The crude shacks and dilapidated houses were not very different from the huts Millard had seen in Zaire. Having experienced the effects of the Block and Sand Project in Zaire, Millard could see the great need for a house-building ministry in the U.S.

As Millard tried to clarify his new goal he considered housing statistics for the U.S. At that time there were 7.6 million people living in substandard housing. The broad term "substandard" included shacks in rural areas as well as condemned buildings in city ghettos. The majority of such dwellings were without heat or running water. The 7.6 million inhabitants did not include the increasing numbers who are homeless and spend their days seeking shelter for the night. Millard had found a new goal worthy of his energies. He proposed for himself the elimination of poverty housing, not only in the U. S., but throughout the world.

The answer to the question, "Where do we go from here?" proposed by the group at Koinonia Farm was the formation of Habitat for Humanity. The stated purpose of Habitat for Humanity was to "make shelter a matter of conscience, that would provide the poor with simple, decent, affordable housing." But worse than the deficient housing, Fuller lamented the world's indifference to it. "People of goodwill, especially people of faith, should find it hard to rest in peace," he admonished.

Fuller and Koinonia leader, Clarence Jordan, started the Fund for Humanity, capital to buy building materials and provide a mortgage source for people too poor to qualify for bank loans. Simple homes, built with volunteer labor and some donated materials, are sold at cost to low-income families. Their payments, plus donations and other money raised, replenish the fund, and the money is recycled to build even more homes.

"It's not your blue blood, your pedigree or your college degree. It's what you do with your life that counts," says Fuller. He still crows about the sales pitch he made to former President Jimmy Carter: "I said to him, 'Sir, are you interested in Habitat for Humanity, or are you very interested?" Since 1984 Carter has been one of Habitat's celebrity supporters, along with Bob Hope, Paul Newman and Amy Grant.

Jimmy and Rosalyn Carter , not only provide some funds but also spend time in the summer actually working on the houses with other volunteers. In 1992, the Jimmy Carter Work Project built 1000 houses in one week. Carter has also discussed Habitat with President Clinton suggesting it might become the basis for a new housing policy to provide homes for the poor and the increasing homeless population.

Habitat was widely publicized after Hurricane Andrew. All 15 houses built in Dade County by Habitat survived the hurricane. They remained standing when the rest of the neighborhood was leveled. A new system of panels and hurricane clips for the roof made them strong enough to resist the storm.

Millard Fuller illustrates how God moves a person step by step in a conversion experience. He gives living expression to a vision of life that is counter cultural. Millard has turned from the desire for security in greater and greater wealth to devote his time and energy to providing a basic necessity to the poor.

From Bokotola by Millard Fuller