Posted By: ivillagecares on
Last fall I attended my first Jimmy Carter Work Project in Lonavala, India, just a couple of hours outside of Mumbai. The JCWP is an annual event in which former President Jimmy Carter and his wife Rosalynn lead thousands of volunteers in a concentrated effort to build a large number of Habitat for Humanity houses in a single week. Last year's project marked the 23rd such effort. Over the course of that time, the event has resulted in thousands of houses in dozens of locations throughout the world.
This project was particularly meaningful to me, however, not only because it was my first, but because of its India location as well. It was in that country, after all, where about five years ago I reaffirmed my commitment to helping the least, the lost and the left out among us.
Bill Hybels, pastor at the Willow Creek Community Church near Chicago, would call that "holy discontent," which he distinguishes from mere "discontent" along these lines: Discontent is when we watch a terrible event unfold on television, remark that "something ought to be done about that," then tune in quickly to the Movie of the Week.
"Holy discontent," he says, is when we watch the same event, put down the remote control and go into the street to do something about it-when God seizes our heart in a way that compels us to act. This is what I experienced in India while working with the very lowest of the untouchables, the Bhangi Dalits, and particularly as I encountered the enormous hardships the children were enduring every day.
It was a much-anticipated experience for me to return to India in my role with Habitat for Humanity International and to demonstrate that "holy discontent" in partnership with a few thousand volunteers and with families who urgently needed a safe, solid home they could afford. At the end of the week, as we dedicated two adjoining homes that I helped build, Aziz, one of the homeowners, put his arm around Subhash, his new neighbor, and said, "We are from different faiths and different castes, but now we are brothers."
As a child, I often heard my grandmother Millicent Fenwick, the late congresswoman and social justice pioneer, recite Micah 6:8, which says: "... And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly, and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God."
Habitat for Humanity, I feel, provides a perfect opportunity for any of us to practice justice, mercy and humility with our neighbors in desperate need, and that opportunity doesn't rely on our being Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Hindi, any other faith-or of no faith. Habitat's is an open door that places no strings on one's coming or going.
People engage Habitat for different reasons, but the result is always the same: transformation. And this happens not only in the lives of those who will live in the Habitat homes, but in the lives of those who help build them as well.
One of my favorite quotes about Habitat for Humanity came from Randall Wallace, the screenwriter who wrote Braveheart. In describing the Habitat experience, he said: "Habitat for Humanity is a perpetual motion miracle: everyone who receives, gives-and everyone who gives, receives. If you want to live complacent and uninspired, stay away from Habitat; come close to Habitat and it will change you, and make you part of something that changes the world."
Habitat's is a somewhat unique mission in that supporters can put their compassion to work by supporting our work financially, but they can also get out there on a work site and labor shoulder to shoulder, hand in hand with other partners and with the very people they are wishing to help.
There's truly a place for everyone at Habitat, regardless of race, religion or, yes, construction skills. So whatever we call our discontent, we can put it into action to help build houses with our neighbors who need them. I'm deeply humbled by the opportunity to do this with countless other Habitat partners-whether across the street or across the ocean.
To learn more about this "perpetual motion miracle," call us at 1-800-HABITAT or visit us online at www.habitat.org.
And let's build it!
Jonathan T.M. Reckford
Chief Executive Officer
Habitat for Humanity International
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